It is always instructive for Americans to look at the current political situation in the United Kingdom. For it seems, unfortunately, that it is often only a matter of time before police-state powers undertaken there are often put into effect here in the United States. Thus the news that Kevin Morris, chairman of the Police Superintendents' Association, proposed this week a compulsory DNA database for everyone in the country is particularly troubling.

"We understand this technology and the potential that this technology has," Morris told CNSNews.com. Does he really, though? Does Morris understand the kind of mischief that can occur when the state has that kind of genetic data?

The same report from CNS featured quotes from a British activist pointing out just such dangers: "A very real danger is that governments in years to come will want to access the database as an instrument of social policy," said Barry Hugill, spokesman for Liberty. Hugill cited insurance companies as one example.

Now, there is nothing wrong per se with insurance companies using genetic data to construct policies. But that information should be given up by the consumer voluntarily, not compelled by the state.

That is all beside the point that the potential abuse wreaked by a state is far greater than higher insurance premiums. Newswires crackle with whispers of race-specific bioweapons and terrorist access to sensitive government facilities. Gathering sensitive genetic data into one centralized database is an invitation for one-stop shopping to malefactors of all sorts.

And even officially-sanctioned state use of such can be disastrous. Morris was insistent in interviews this week that he "only" wanted the database to be used for "prevention and investigation" of crimes. "Prevention" is a pretty wide berth for the word "only." As London Guardian columnist Henry Porter pointed out:

The seriousness of the threat to individual liberty cannot be underestimated. Once a person's DNA is held by the police, there will be nothing they won't be able to tell about him or her. Every week, our ability to read the 30,000 human genes increases, and it cannot be long before scientists start making assumptions about personality traits from particular constellations of genes. Imagine this capability in the hands of a murder squad desperate to solve a difficult crime. Everyone with a particular profile would become a suspect.

To place this power at the disposal of the police at this early stage in the development of genetics would be a disaster.

Morris' plan is hopefully just a bit of Orwellian wishful thinking in light of setbacks this week to UK Home Secretary David Blunkett's plan for compulsory biometric national ID cards. But Blunkett is still optimistic about his scheme's ultimate success. That optimism is good reason for vigilance among those in both the UK and the US who worry about sensitive personal information being extracted from them by force.

by James Plummer

government surveillance

medical privacy

financial privacy

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