The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

Outrage at 500,000 DNA database mistakes – Telegraph

Published by Tom

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Link: Outrage at 500,000 DNA database mistakes – Telegraph.

"Outrage" is one of those headline words rarely used in ordinary life. I can’t say I am "outraged" by yet another example of the incompetence of the British State. To be outraged, or even disappointed, I would have to have some expectation of quality. Nothing in my experience of dealing with it (which is as limited as I could possibly contrive) has given me any such expectation.

I do not understand why, faced with any problem, the British knee-jerk reaction is to call on the State to fix it. The State’s solution is almost always worse than the problem itself.

To look on the positive side, given that our countrymen seem determined to give all their freedoms away, the heroic incompetence of the State is our best hope of a life undisturbed. Like so many of the older people in the former Communist countries I have lived in for the past 15 years, we shall have to learn the art of living a free life in the cracks of a totalitarian society.

5 responses to “Outrage at 500,000 DNA database mistakes – Telegraph”

  1. Guthrum Avatar
    Guthrum

    Take the point, but until relatively recently the State took it upon itself to deprive people wrongly accused of capital crimes, their very life. If the State is going to have powers to maintain records they should be at least accurate.I expect to have my DNA taken in the next five years for my shotgun licence, minor traffic infringement or some other excuse.

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  2. Jock Avatar
    Jock

    As I said in my own blog about this:
    “Our DNA is part of us as individuals. Holding samples of it is false imprisonment. It should be open to habeas corpus. There can be no truck with this illiberal nonsense.”

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  3. IanP Avatar
    IanP

    2010 is coming.
    Like all the new government databases, security and privacy is a secondary concern, and the ruling elite and their funding cabal will be excluded from them all.
    Like communism, they are just for the masses.

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  4. Guthrum Avatar
    Guthrum

    Jock- or even assault upon our person

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  5. fake consultant Avatar
    fake consultant

    jock hints at an idea that bears more examination: is there a place for a law that would make the person about whom data is collected the owner of that data?
    while it is true that a dna database is fraught with it’s own perils, consider that the “total information awareness” program and it’s descendents rely on commercially available databases as much or more as they do government databases.
    errors in commercially available databases could be reduced if the data owners (us) were able to control the data directly, or choose to “opt-out” from data collection.
    this would cause problems for grantors of credit, and law enforcement “efficiency” will be affected-but the effect on privacy might well be even more substantial.

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Your blogger

Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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