Are they malicious or just stubborn?

The Guardian, which despite the lefty economics, Polly Toynbee, and a general stench of Champagne Socialism, occasionally gets it right when it comes to civil liberties, gives us this piece of bad news:

Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been "strongly advised" that it is "vitally important" that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

This is despite the ECHR ruling last year* that keeping DNA samples indiscriminately from those not convicted of anything breached Human Rights (Specifically, article 8, right to a private and family life).

The advice to senior officers comes in a letter from the Association of Chief Police Officers criminal records office. The letter, seen by the Guardian, tells chief constables that new Home Office guidelines following the ruling in the case of S and Marper are not expected to take effect until 2010.

As usual, not good enough. This database needs to be ended now. No DNA should be taken until being charged with an offense, and even then, it should be destroyed if the accused is cleared or the charges dropped. There's not much chance of that happening though; our government is just too stubborn. It won't back down on its "no referendum" stance for The Lisbon treaty, and it won't back down on the database and identity cards. It'll just repackage them up again and again until we all fall for it.

At least Chris Huhne has found a pair and is attacking ACPO's little scheme:

"It is not up to police forces to ignore court judgments because they or their masters do not like them."

Excellent.


*That'd be S and Another v UK, aka S and Marper. In that case, some kid of ELEVEN had his DNA taken from him. Eleven.