March 16, 2008

I Hope You Know This Will Go Down On Your Permanent Record: UK Police Want DNA From Kindergarteners

Right headline? I couldn't decide between that and "Gattaca! Gattaca! Gattaca!"

From the UK Guardian/Observer's pre-crime desk:

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain's most senior police forensics expert.

...

Civil liberty groups condemned his comments last night by likening them to an excerpt from a 'science fiction novel'. One [head of a] teaching union warned that it was a step towards a 'police state'.

At that moment, a disembodied voice from the nearby CCTV camera ordered him to take off his hat, stop causing trouble, and move along.

On the bright side, from the police perspective anyway, the hangup is just over DNA: "'Fingerprints, somehow, are far less contentious,' [the Scotland Yard guy] said. 'We have children giving their fingerprints when they are borrowing books from a library.'"

Put young children on DNA list, urge police [guardian.co.uk via ip]

2 Comments

The English are starting to scare the crap out of me, personal-freedoms-wise. See what happens when you don't have a Bill of Rights?
Between video surveillance EVERYwhere, red light cameras on every corner and the various schemes they are putting forth to keep an eye on all parents and their dangerous offspring, what next?

Things are just different here-I am an American who has lived in London for the past 10 years.Overall,Brits are much less monitored and censored than in the USA.Trust me,things going on in the US seem just as perverse from over here...

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