Go back to bed, Britain...

...your government is in control. Last week's considered advice from a grand fromage in our judicial system that every resident of Britain should be included in the national DNA database should set alarm bells ringing in everyone's years. I'm not sure it has though. The UK's database - already the largest in the world - currently includes only those who've had direct dealings with the police. According to this top judge, that is a problem because fledgling criminals can go free and undetected for longer than if they were already on file. This kind of talk is music to any government's ears. (That's two mentions of ears now: I seem to have developed a bit of an ear theme so far. No doubt in the knowledge that, if I was on the DNA database, the government would be able to clone my lobe or something.)

I find it astonishing that so many people appear to be apathetic when it comes to civil liberties. Especially when so many people, from all across the political spectrum, are so quick to state their distrust of the government: "Eeee, I don't trust any of that lot me." I think this general distrust must be centred on relatively inconsequential things like sleaze and the extra-marital affairs of our politicians, because from what I can see the majority of people just shrug their shoulders when it comes to the idea of handing over our identities for 'security' measures. Why, if we don't trust governments, do so many people support identity cards and other identification measures? It Makes. No. Sense.

The lack of media opposition to suggestions like these is also worrying. Whenever identity cards were discussed, the main reasons for concern cited were usually surrounding the scheme's cost to the treasury rather than the more prescient, general principle of resisting a slide towards a police state. Completely disproportionate responses to crime and terrorism (the latter always being the most powerful tool for scaring a populace into compliance) like this aren't being opposed enough. Rule One of operating a functional democracy is that you don't grant your government total biometric information about ordinary citizens who are yet to commit a crime. It can only go one way. Even if we think a particular government wouldn't abuse a database of its citizens for undemocractic purposes, who's to say a future one wouldn't? The civil liberties record of our current government, and the one before it, has been increasingly authoritarian and our true vigilance is required to resist that trend being furthered. As George Orwell said (couldn't leave him out, really), "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." Wake up.