Do we want a Police State?

Yesterday the European court of human rights ruled that it was illegal for the British police to keep on the DNA database the genetic profiles of people arrested but not convicted. Now before anyone howls that well they would not have been arrested if they had not done something wrong, some of these people have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have know cases where following a fight in a pub everyone gets arrested until the police can focus on who was actually involved. Further some of the people on the DNA database are there purely when the police have done a mass screening. This has occurred when there has been a series of rapes in an area and men have come forward to help them be eliminated from the investigation.
Thus there are now eight hundred thousand profiles on this database that have never been convicted that now will have their genetic profiles removed.

I am fully aware that DNA can be a powerful tool for catching criminals and removing dangerous people from our communities, but there has to be a balance struck between the liberties of the individual and the powers of the state.

If we allow the police or the state to powers grant themselves these powers then they will use them and sometimes abuse them. In the media here in Britain there is much debate about the arrest and searching of the office of an MP. Now while the debate has been focused on the rights and privileges of MPs, the real issue is the powers of the police.

MPs are not above the law, but thus far this seems to be just a matter of a Civil Servant leaking documents to an opposition MP that the government found embarrassing. But the government used Anti Terrorist police officers to conduct this investigation and by doing that everyone rolled over and just allowed them into Parliament. As has been widely reported they did not even have a warrant to search the Palace of Westminster.

In Britain the police have to obtain a warrant from a court who judge if there is sufficient evidence or suspicion to grant that warrant. Thus providing one of the checks and balances required.

The problem here with this case of the MP is that all the police need to do is say that its a matter of national security and everyone (Or nearly everyone) just allows the police to go their own sweet way. It is no different to the police wanting detention without charge of terrorist suspects for 42 days, six weeks. If the police were granted those powers it would not be long before other suspects were being detained in this way. That is not being far fetched as the British government used Anti Terrorist powers against Icelandic banks during the banking crisis. The point is as soon as the police or the state have those powers, they will be used and they will be abused.

In the Queens speech the government are proposing to read all our Emails, intercept our phone calls, you name it they want to see it. All in the name of protecting us from Terrorists. Well as I already think that copies of my emails and a list of every website I visit lands on the desk of the prime minister and the head of MI5 every morning along with the newspapers...

All this will do is snow intelligence personnel under with a lot of dross in the hope of catching a few.

We are seriously in danger of allowing a police state to come into being. The absurd aspect is that we are supposed to loose our freedoms to protect our freedoms. All we are doing is letting the Terrorist and Criminal win, if we don't safeguard and protect our freedoms.