Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death

Dear Diary,

Lord Justice Stephen Sedley has called for a national DNA database to include every inhabitant of this country and every visitor. Sedley LJ is a genuinely distinguished Judge who is probably unique in being identified with the left. He contributes to the London Review of Books which, whilst generally disgusting, is certainly on the left. Indeed, Sedley’s articles are frequently the only thing in that particular rag worth reading. Equally helpfully, he is readily criticised by the right, a group of people so unpleasant that they truly deserve the London Review of Books.

The basis of Sedley’s call is that the current “system” is entirely arbitrary. If you have been in the hands of the police then guilty or innocent, old or young, you are on the database. If you have not, then you are not. Troublingly, 12% of white and asian males are on the database: and 40% of black males. Dear Diary, that certainly says something about the gendarmerie.

Because DNA is almost infallible and because there is a public interest in crime being detected, Sedley argues that the police should be equipped with the best tools available. One would think the logic difficult to fault.

Yet, there is of course a contrary position, which is taken by Liberty, of which I am, and have long been, a member. Ms Chakrabati has been quoted as responding to Sedley by saying his proposal, “reveals just how casual some people have become about the value of personal privacy. A database of those convicted of sexual and violent crime is a perfectly sensible crime-fighting measure. A database of every man, woman and child in the country is a chilling proposal, ripe for indignity, error and abuse.”

Dear Diary, that response is simply idiotic. It equates the possibility of error and abuse with the virtual certainty of it happening. As such it amounts to saying “we distrust the government” which is obviously an acceptable stance, but should be stated, not implied, and should then be debated not assumed. It also implicitly attacks Sedley, who quite clearly does not deserve it, in language which Chakrabati must know is a misdescription. That is wrong. I distrust the response precisely because it seems to be deliberately unfair.

Interestingly the official Liberty website says something rather different. It eliminates the personal slur and the tabloid language (perhaps dear Shami was misquoted: a sad thing to happen to someone who so clearly knows how to handle the press). It focuses on the risk of abuse and error. It calls for only those convicted to be on the database.

That is also idiotic. In the first place, where is the abuse in the government having a record of your DNA. They have your photograph and your National Insurance number. What is the difference? Secondly, there is a public interest in crime prevention: it may not trump the contended-for personal interest but it is not a given that it does not. Thirdly, retaining only the convicted on the database will simply encourage the police to go after known criminals whose DNA is at a crime scene. I have been involved in 5 cases where that has proved to be a red-herring. DNA is at its most fallible when it is incomplete: it can be incomplete by means of a small sample at the scene and by means of a small sample on the database.

Needless to say, the government want to change nothing. Sedley’s proposal is politically risky so whether it is right or not, or helpful or not, is simply irrelevant. The current discriminatory state of the database is equally unimportant. It will become important only if somebody dies because of it.

Dear Diary, trapped between the idiotic left and the unprincipled executive a lawyer can have only one cry: where is that cocaine?