The Wardman Wire

One Million people on Terrorist-Watch in the USA.

A cartoon from href=Wellington Grey.

One million was also the USA prison population in 1990. It became 2 million in 2002.

Meanwhile, back on the Slippery Slope in Blighty

One million was the number on the UK Police’s DNA Database in March 2003 was 2 million. By 2005 that figure was 3.4 million - more than 1 in 20 people.

Perversely, our Home Office seem to view that as a matter for pride. We have a Bigger Brother than anybody else, and should pat them on the head for a job well done. Hmmm.

The UK’s database is the largest of any country: 5.2% of the UK population is on the database compared with 0.5% in the USA. The database has expanded significantly over the last five years. By the end of 2005 over 3.4 million DNA profiles were held on the database – the profiles of the majority of the known active offender population.

That is now up to 4 million:

The present database in England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared of a crime.

It includes:

5.2% of UK population
Nearly 40% of black men
13% of Asian men
9% of white men
(Source: Home Office and Census)

and there are people who think they deserve to be taken seriously (not if you say things like this, Your Honour) arguing that *everyone* must be included for “non-discrimination” reasons. Ye Gods. Welcome to the alternate world on the other side of the Looking Glass, where reality vanishes and logic works backwards:

Lord Justice Sedley (Ed: Appeal Court Judge) said this was indefensible and biased against ethnic minorities, and it would be fairer to include everyone, guilty or innocent.

Go figure. Bonkety-bonkety-bonkety-bonk.

But I can hear a note of regret at powers limited unreasonably:

There are no legal powers to take a DNA sample from anyone under ten without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

Which has now come into the debate (personal opinion of Scotland Yard’s Director of Forensic Services) as:

Gary Pugh, Scotland Yard’s director of forensic services, said children should be eligible if they exhibited behaviour indicating criminality in later life.

This is denied officially (same ref as previous):

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said his views did not represent those of the organisation.

But this is often how new powers are introduced into the debate. It then becomes “we should look at all options”, “this has been recommended by ‘x’ or ‘y’ commission”, and before you know it - BANG.

I would not be surprised if soon a hospital near you will have an integrated DNA profiling national cord blood storage facility, to be monitored alongside the National Database of Children. Of course the integration doesn’t exist yet, but recent history is that once something becomes possible, it is a devil of a job to stop it happening.

[Update 2pm: To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the Cord Blood Storage people are supplying data anywhere at present; I just don't trust those in Government or managing state security to keep their hands off that data source for very long.]

And I seem to remember that there was something about Database Integration in one of the 150 or more Written Ministerial Statements released before they all went away for 3 months (there’s a hell of a lot of digging to be done here).

The “collect data on everyone and everything and monitor them all” paradigm is - simply - wrong. This tendency must be broken.