Sunday 24 May 2009

The punishment must fit the crime (that you were cleared of).

MPs outraged as it is revealed they will not vote over police storing innocents' DNA

OK, so you take a borderline fascist idea that will give the state near total surveillance over citizens lives, you plan to pump billions of tax payer money into this scheme, you try every trick in the book to bring it in through the backdoor, all to the publics' anger, as well as opposition from both Tories and the Lib Dems, and then you find that the ECHR has decided it's illegal. It should be dead, right? No, what happens is this:

Yesterday the criticism mounted as the Home Office admitted it plans to rush the reforms through Parliament using a 'statutory instrument' which will be rubber-stamped following 90 minutes of discussion by a Labour-dominated committee, with no debate or vote in the House of Commons

Ya hu. Or, you could scrap the whole thing. Ever consider that? No? Well, at the very least do what Strasbourg ruled you should do and stop taking the DNA of people cleared of their charges. The EU may be a load of rubbish, but you guys support it, so follow its rules.
Miss Smith's officials sparked further anger by saying the procedure was necessary in order to comply with the Strasbourg ruling as quickly as possible - effectively claiming there was not enough time for MPs to debate the matter.

Oh, you are, are you?
But the Home Secretary sparked outrage over so-called 'Big Brother' powers earlier this month when she unveiled new rules, which will still allow the police to keep innocent people on the database for six years, or 12 years if they were arrested for but cleared of a serious sexual or violent offence

Not good enough. The last part, in italics, is doubly insulting. So, if you didn't commit a minor offence, you're "only" going to have your DNA taken for 6 years. But, if you didn't commit a sexual/violent offence, that makes you more guilty than a person who didn't commit a minor offence. Once you've been charged, it's assumed you're guilty, even if the courts disagree.

Even the tabloid papers have a higher burden of proof, what with their history of demonising paedos and murderers before they've even set foot in court. We now receive punishment based on the seriousness of non-existent crimes. This is an insane, abusive move, that completely bypasses Parliament.

The LPUK has not one but two solutions to prevent this sort of abuse of the law- we will scrap the proposed database, along with ID cards, but will also review the statutory instrument system.


UPDATE

RAF lies about the sensitive data lost/stolen last September, did not tell the Information Commissioner or Parliament- The State will not look after any of your personal data, so it should be denied on both moral and security grounds

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