I just see Server in the Sky as Pie in the Sky

Also

‘UK.gov says no plans for FBI DNA database hookup’

should be

'UK.gov lies through its teeth about future FBI DNA database hookup"

Since it is unlikly that the server are really in the sky, it should rather be 'Net in the Sky' or SkyNet ...

Utopia is just another word for Prison.

If you really think about a Utopia you start to see just how nightmarish such a thing really is.

"What kind of world do we live in where incredibly useful ideas for crime fighting are prevented from seeing the light of day because the people enforcing the law arent honest enough?"

The normal one? I don't see any change here.

Look at this one:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/10/fbi_wiretaps_unplugged/

"Poor bookkeeping also resulted in the theft of more than $25,000 by a single agent." I was going to add a comment "Soylent FBI, it's made of people!" why are people suprised when FBI officers do bad things?

Simple logic, if you assume every policeman is a perfect saint all the time, then criminal types will become policemen because it protects them from detection... so the more you elevate that class of people above the others, the more likely they are to be crooks.

You see this in the form of corruption in Asia a lot. The more discretionary power is handed out, the more $$ you need to pay. When I lived in Thailand working on SAP, my first car was on a red plates and I never got stopped, my second car was on a green plates and I got stopped all the time. Red plates = temporary dealer loan car, green plate = on tourist or business, i.e. driver has money.

So however much the officers bitch and whine about all these checks and balances stopping them doing their hero crime fighting stuff, it's those checks and balances that protect them (and us).

It's not the exchange of data, it's the exchange of data WITHOUT THE CHECKS AND BALANCES that's the problem here. I sincerely hope the USA shakes off Bush's extremist/alarmist nonsense, reinstates the consistitution etc. but I don't have a vote there, so I can't have my say to influence it. So personally I'm happy if my politicians always keep the judicial hand on the datagate, just incase they go electing another fruit loop. Remember Nixon and his choice of the head of the IRS, so that he could see any of his opponents tax returns secretly? Not exactly the first screwball they've elected! I don't fancy a future Nixon having access to all my data without even the risk I will vote against him!

/rant