The article title speaks for itself.
Recently in Privacy Category
The surveillance camera equivalent of a tin foil hat, ideal for Big Brother Britain: The LED hat!
(Thanks to Blues News again.)
(Thanks to Blues News again.)
It's easy to laugh at the excesses of the US legal system, and I often do. Still, I was thinking, it's nice to see when they get it right. This article (in the New York Times), the lead-up to which I've managed to totally miss, was a wonderful surprise. It's about to be made illegal to discriminate against people for health insurance reasons based on the results of genetic testing.
Often I've found myself arguing against blanket-coverage of DNA databases on the basis that it's a wonderful way for insurance firms and other crooks to con people out of insurance they need in an increasingly expensive world.
So initially I was pleased to read that the US are outlawing the use of such databases for insurance use. 'Hooray', said my suddenly and strangely pre-WW2 mind, 'that's one up for the good guys'. In that idiom I might have added, 'that'll fox the blighters'. But I didn't.
I'm quite sceptical that the measure to outlaw discrimination will actually work, but I was thinking that it was a step in the right direction.
And then it dawned on me.
If the primary objection to keeping everyone's DNA databases is removed, suddenly it's much easier to justify having everyone catalogued and tagged. It's like an X-Files plot, only reality and not - supposedly wildly paranoid - science fiction.
I don't want to be in a centrally-held DNA database. I am not a terrorist, and I don't see why my Government should have the right to make me prove it by giving up my genetic blueprints. In the UK, they'd simply love to have a country-wide DNA database. They don't have the right. They don't have the reason. They don't have our trust. They can have my DNA when it's no use to them, when they prise a sample from my cold, dead body.
I used to have a t-shirt with these words of Benjamin Franklin written on the back: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
In the space of a few minutes I went from pleasure at seeing the denial of a big interest group, to sadness and disgust at the realisation - ok, paranoid suspicion - that the way is being cleared for a country-wide DNA database. As always, I'm sure that we in the UK will be quick to adopt all the worst ideas from across the Pond.
Often I've found myself arguing against blanket-coverage of DNA databases on the basis that it's a wonderful way for insurance firms and other crooks to con people out of insurance they need in an increasingly expensive world.
So initially I was pleased to read that the US are outlawing the use of such databases for insurance use. 'Hooray', said my suddenly and strangely pre-WW2 mind, 'that's one up for the good guys'. In that idiom I might have added, 'that'll fox the blighters'. But I didn't.
I'm quite sceptical that the measure to outlaw discrimination will actually work, but I was thinking that it was a step in the right direction.
And then it dawned on me.
If the primary objection to keeping everyone's DNA databases is removed, suddenly it's much easier to justify having everyone catalogued and tagged. It's like an X-Files plot, only reality and not - supposedly wildly paranoid - science fiction.
I don't want to be in a centrally-held DNA database. I am not a terrorist, and I don't see why my Government should have the right to make me prove it by giving up my genetic blueprints. In the UK, they'd simply love to have a country-wide DNA database. They don't have the right. They don't have the reason. They don't have our trust. They can have my DNA when it's no use to them, when they prise a sample from my cold, dead body.
I used to have a t-shirt with these words of Benjamin Franklin written on the back: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
In the space of a few minutes I went from pleasure at seeing the denial of a big interest group, to sadness and disgust at the realisation - ok, paranoid suspicion - that the way is being cleared for a country-wide DNA database. As always, I'm sure that we in the UK will be quick to adopt all the worst ideas from across the Pond.
An article in the Observer (pointed out to me by this slashdot article) quotes Britain's latest surveillance wheeze: Take DNA samples from five-year olds who are 'likely' to become criminals later.
The quotes are almost beyond belief (my italics):
Pugh's defence is that kids already give fingerprints. That's equivalent to "I've already punched you in the stomach, so it must be ok to punch you in the face". It's wholly ridiculous to take children's fingerprints; taking their fingerprints or DNA and storing it on a database forever - based wholly on the suspicion that the owner might at some indeterminate point in the future commit some crime - is not the action of a free society.
Ministers defend privacy invasions such as these on the basis that it's what people want. The moral bankruptcy of this stance offends me; as does its startling hypocrisy given the decisions this Government has made in direct opposition to the will of the people - Iraq being the obvious example. It is a Government's job to lead, not to follow. The Iraq invasion was wrong, but it was at least a leadership decision. Taking the mother of modern democracies into the realms of dystopian science fiction is not leadership, it is tragic stupidity.
I do not understand how an allegedly centrist-coming-from-the-left Government can indulge the organised, high-tech surveillance and cataloguing of its citizens. That this debate can even occur demonstrates a wholly unacceptable state of affairs. Something has to be done.
When the state treats its citizens as the enemy, the enemy is the state.
The quotes are almost beyond belief (my italics):
'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,' said Pugh. 'You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won't. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.'I'm a big fan of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and of course this idea is classic Ministry of Truth. It's almost funny; it would be actually funny if I had any faith in our Government to resist the execrable findings of fascist lunatics like Mr. Pugh.
Pugh's defence is that kids already give fingerprints. That's equivalent to "I've already punched you in the stomach, so it must be ok to punch you in the face". It's wholly ridiculous to take children's fingerprints; taking their fingerprints or DNA and storing it on a database forever - based wholly on the suspicion that the owner might at some indeterminate point in the future commit some crime - is not the action of a free society.
Ministers defend privacy invasions such as these on the basis that it's what people want. The moral bankruptcy of this stance offends me; as does its startling hypocrisy given the decisions this Government has made in direct opposition to the will of the people - Iraq being the obvious example. It is a Government's job to lead, not to follow. The Iraq invasion was wrong, but it was at least a leadership decision. Taking the mother of modern democracies into the realms of dystopian science fiction is not leadership, it is tragic stupidity.
I do not understand how an allegedly centrist-coming-from-the-left Government can indulge the organised, high-tech surveillance and cataloguing of its citizens. That this debate can even occur demonstrates a wholly unacceptable state of affairs. Something has to be done.
When the state treats its citizens as the enemy, the enemy is the state.
