Freedoms Bill: Gov may U-turn on personal data and DNA retention

Bring it on !!!!

I am sick and tired of hearing people whose knowledge of science is approaching zero (from the wrong way) telling me the only way to do anything is to have masses of records.

As someone with a vague clue, I just see the signal to noise ratio issue here. And all these plans (DNA/fingerprint retention, this list, that list, this database, that database, ISP records, phone records, email records, text records, websites visited records) are just adding to the noise, with no signal.

A "one in a million" match is less impressive, when you perform it on a database with 10 million records.

So, UK, keep it up. In the meantime, I will wait for the first case where DNA from a scene (which only establishes atemporal presence) is put into the system and more than one match comes out. At which point, the defence have just been handed "reasonable doubt". And the value of DNA as a crime fighting tool will have been dramatically curtailed.

Or does she..

"In short, Ms Cooper, Shadow Home Secretary, has to understand that she needs more than tabloid attracting rhetoric to back her claims. ®"

Does she really tho? Certainly hasn't stopped previous Home Secretaries like Mrs Jacqui Smith to push on with whatever it is they want to push on with regardless of things like facts, logic, or expert opinion and in fact armed with nothing more than tabloid attracting rhetoric.

Tough on law and order?

Simples - make DNA retention of innocent people against the law (AFAIK it already is according to the ECHR) , and lock up (and collect the DNA) of any plod, politician, or other officious bastard who falls foul of it. There. sorted.

Why this woman is wrong.

The DNA database, holds a DNA 'fingerprint' which is based on short sections of DNA. A match on the database does not mean the DNA being tested came from the same person as the sample in the database. It means there is a low probability that it came from someone else, of, lets say, 1 in a million. Of course, 1 in a million means that there are some six thousand other people on the planet that would also match, and given the nature of the matching, those people would likely mostly be in the same population.

The real danger is that people think that a 'match' on a DNA database means teh DAN came for the same person. What it is actually useful for is EXCLUDING people, i.e. saying teh DAN did NOT come from the same person.

Trawling the DNA database for matches to find the perpetrator of a crime is logically fallacious for this reason. Anyone who claims more DNA samples should eb kept so we can 'catch more rapists' is an idiot. When someone is arrested for rape, a DNA sample is taken, which may or may not match DNA taken at the scene of the crime. The presence, or not, of that DNA sample on a police databse has no bearing on the conviction rate.

I would suggest that Ms Cooper either fails to understand the matter about which she appears to be so passionate, or that she is deliberately misstating the facts purely for some sort of political points-scoring. Either way, she should be immediately removed from any position of authority, as she is clearly either incapable of holding such a position, or is abusing it.

Politicians *love* to push hot buttons.

And rape works almost as well as the ever popular TOTC routine.

But if Cooper has *so* many cases where DNA was the *key* element in finding the criminal why did choose ones which are so *marginal* in terms of the use of DNA?

Are these are her *best*?

Because (given the amount of time NuLabor's DNA policy has run, and is *still* running) you'd think she'd have some gems.

Cases where the culprit came within a *whisker* of walking away after 5 years.

Or perhaps where the DNA sample was the *only* evidence which (finally) gets a confession out of them. CCTV is rubbish, no finger prints, car identification etc.

Note that at present it is only *possible* Cameron's feet are turning to clay. I hope he will show some *real* backbone (or at least the Lib Dem force him to make good on his promise).

Government in general (and this is, I dare say, no exception)

need to lrn2statistics.

We can but hope...

That they don't think of obtaining a DNA sample as part of the registration of a birth.

title

How to get your pet law law pushed through or force government to make a U turn on a good idea: make it into a gender issue (say it will help find rapists), make it into a "child protection" issue, shout hysterically as loud as you can to every news paper.

Ed Miliband on Civil Liberties

It's worth remembering what Ed Miliband said on civil liberties when running for the Labour leadership:-

"We sometimes seemed too casual about civil liberties."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/01/labour-leadership-hustings-ed-miliband

Not that they actually were "too casual" (but merely being casual's okay?), but just that they "seemed too casual".

Ed's supposedly one of the more liberal Labour figures, yet his relative liberalism seems to stretch no further than worrying a bit about how Labour might come across as, well, "too casual about civil liberties." Is he really any less authoritarian than other Labour figures, such as John Reid and Jacqui Smith? Or is he just worried that he might be seen to be as authoritarian?

We know we can't rely on Labour to protect our civil liberties, and we know we can't rely on the Tories, either. And the Lib Dems are turning out to be about as reliable as a wet paper bag. What then are we to do to reclaim and protect our civil liberties from the State?

Rape is an abhorrent crime

/steps on soapbox

But lets stop using it as a bloody excuse to keep DNA profiles of people who are innocent. God forbid If a person is raped, then DNA evidence will be taken. At this point the police are **supposed** to investigate the crime, arrest suspects and then check their DNA against the crime scene. If there is a match then further evidence etc convicts the person, not hey lets just keep everyone's DNA as they are BOUND to be guilty of something sooner or later.

Its this constant abuse and mission creep by the government and the police which, I believe, is eventually going to lead to mass civil unrest because people are getting very close to the tipping point of saying enough is enough.

/steps off soapbox

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men,

I will find something in them which will hang him."

-- Cardinal Richelieu

if they back down on this

I will be asking Damien Green to voluntarily add his DNA sample back to the Database as his was hastily removed by the Kent Police after his arrest and he was one of the most vociferous campaigners to have innocent peoples data removed.

Having your cake and eating it.

So, Not Guilty doesn't mean Not Guilty? Why should anyone be treated differently because of the nature of the accusation? The simple answer would be to compile a database of everyone's DNA and have done with it. See how the "nothing to fear if you're innocent" brigade like them apples.

I am sick and tired of the ends justifying the means arguments being used over and over again when these erosions of our freedoms are touted.