Posted on 11/24/2009 1:10:09 PM PST by BGHater
Britain has built the world's biggest DNA database without proper political debate and police routinely arrest people just to get their DNA profiles onto the system, the genetics watchdog said in a report on Tuesday.
The Human Genetics Commission, which advises the government on the social, legal and ethical aspects of genetics, called for a review of the database and said new laws must be passed to govern its use.
In a damning report, the commission said "function creep" had transformed the system from a DNA store for offenders into a database of suspects.
More than three-quarters of young black men aged between 18 and 35 are on the system, the report said.
Set up in 1995, the database contains the DNA profiles of five million citizens, eight percent of the population, making it the world's biggest in proportion to population size.
"Parliament has never formally debated the establishment of the National DNA Database and safeguards around it," commission chairman Professor Jonathan Montgomery said in a statement.
"It has developed through amendments to laws designed to regulate the taking of fingerprints and physical evidence before DNA profiling was developed.
"It is not clear how far holding DNA profiles on a central database improves police investigations."
The report quoted an unidentified retired senior police officer as saying that "it is now the norm to arrest offenders for everything" in order to obtain a DNA sample.
'VITAL TOOL'
A Home Office spokesman said the database was a "vital crime-fighting tool" that had linked more than 410,000 crime scenes with a DNA match and a possible lead to an offender between 1998 and March 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The DNA snatchers: Police arresting innocents just to grab genetic details for Big Brother database
You lose your culture, and this is the nonsense you get in its place. Britain has certainly lost its culture, threw it in the crapper and took a dump on it.
“Papers, please” has been replaced with “Genetic sample, please.”
Janet and DHS are probably taking notes, so they can apply it to us "potential terrorists".
Well, if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear. Besides, it’s for the children. And what’s a little loss of freedom if it saves just ONE life?
/end liberal marketing campaign
So what!
The Brits have always viewed society as all rights and honor is due to the King and Queen and the rest of society are subjects who serve at the whim of royalty.
We had to beat up Great Britain back in the 1770’s just to show ‘em how it works.
The Brits as colonizers were always bullies. Well, sometimes you gotta sock a bully on the nose.
Imagine the police making phony arrests just to obtain some DNA from the “subjects”.... Don’t those subjects know they’re supposed to get in line and say “baaahhh”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.