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LadyEllen -> RE: Fighting crime before it happens (3/5/2007 2:48:09 PM)
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All people taken into custody in the UK have their DNA taken. In addition, every year many more samples are taken for the purpose of elimination of suspects from inquiries. These samples are kept on file, with the result that the authorities already have a large database of samples, and using this they have been able to solve quite a few old crimes as much as decades old already.
Next up are the new ID cards, which will incorporate fingerprints and DNA sample (whatever is being said now) and will out of necessity have to be acquired by every person in the UK - thus building a full DNA database of the entire population. The argument that the police ought to have access to this database for the purposes of solving crime more effectively, is irrestible; every victim of crime wants justice, after all.
And if the police have access, then why not also the health service, given the great utility of it in curing patients? After all, none of us wish to suffer unnecessarily, and the possible savings made possible by being able to read a patient down to DNA level and thus prescribe tailor made treatments are not to be sniffed at.
But here is the problem with all this, and with the likes of mind reading technology and predictive techniques; the UK government has over the last two decades commissioned multiple IT projects, designed to expedite information management and so service delivery - and on every occasion, the projects have failed, miserably, after having cost many times more than the budgeted cost. So, we might think that the Big Brother future is impossible - except that, even where these projects have failed miserably, this has not prevented the government from implementing them - the Child Support Agency system being a case in point, a system which has recurrently misidentified those whom it chased for payment and a system which through its errors and automated procedures has caused untold misery to fathers, some of whom have killed themselves over it, and to families who despite all this, still failed to pay on the child support it had gathered.
Imagine then, how a government with this level of incompetence and intransigence in the design and execution of its systems, will result not in sure and certain judgements when it comes to identifying criminals or ascertaining your health needs, or even more sinisterly in tracing and tracking your every move, word and deed, but in repeated misidentifications which it will of course deny, with consequences for all and anyone on the basis of a lottery. Their malfunctioning software picks out your DNA, and you are bang to rights for a murder in London, even though you have a dozen alibis from the holiday you were on in Spain at the time.
Of course though, this can be very useful, if one is acting with less than honourable motives. Say for instance, we managed to identify by way of their DNA, the activists of a certain political party as the perpetrators of various criminal offences, over the year or so between election campaigns. They are removed from play, leaving our candidate to romp home and win. We might of course, later "discover the error", but in the meantime we have our majority in the house, though of course the most important thing in order to prevent public disquiet, is that we assure the public throughout that the DNA database and the system we use is 100% accurate and reliable. Such a level of veracity might even permit the reintroduction of the death sentence and then of course, the release of our "criminals" is beyond all possibility. And we have the added benefit that we can paint that political party as being criminal throughout, so destroying it.
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