The movies portray a moral story, both planet of the apes and Gattaca… Ignore that if you like, but both have a moral, Gattaca the moral is that DNA and Genetic manipulation will lead to a two tier society, and Planet of the Apes that unfettered and rushed scientific advancement can have consequences.
Should we ignore those two lessons simply because they are in movie format?
Would you prefer if I quoted you a book with the same moral story? How about a fable?
Why on earth were they carrying around 250,000 names of Child benefit recipients, why wasn’t that in a secure database?
Information held on a database contains a certain risk of being leaked, whether that is deliberate or accidental, is irrelevant to the question.
What a ridiculous world you live in if you never consider the consequences of your actions. Yes what if, and are the consequences bad enough to warranty not doing it? Yes I think so.
Collecting DNA could have serious consequences for every single person in the database and for society as a whole. We still have not even began to fathom the depths of what DNA may be able to tell us about ourselves and yet you are quite happy to collect it all up and stick it in a database with little to no thought to the consequences…because they are just what ifs?
So now you are comparing a database that is designed to catch criminals and minimise the opportunity for them to get away with crimes, with the nazi regime and some sort of bizarre future where the government is trying to control every aspect of what we do through a DNA databse?
I think you have some real issues with the government, and that’s completely your choice. However, you can’t tar everybody with the same brush! Every organisation has its bad eggs. Doesn’t mean that they’re all bad! Does the fact that some police officer somewhere misused his trust and looked up somebody with his computer access make me any less trustworthy? I certainly hope not! Just because some of the government officials have been caught out fiddling expences doesn’t mean that they’re all dodgy!
It’s too much of a sweeping statement mate. The database is a great thing in my eyes, and in the eyes of many others. As I said, and I’m sure you’ll roll your eyes when you read it, if you haven’t got anything to hide, what’s the problem? Would you prefer the murderers, burglars and rapists to get away with their crimes? How would you feel if you were the victim?
Here’s one for you… Recently there was a young girl who was raped by a cab driver. She knew that she had to maximise the forensic chances of proving that he had raped her in his cab, so she made sure that she spat on the uphosltery of the back seat before he left her by the side of the road. Just as she thought, when he was caught he denied that she was ever in the taxi, and the forensics (as well as the sexual injuries to her) made sure that the police knew he was lying from the start! The accused is now on a database, and stands a much better chance of being caught in the future if he commits another crime. Now, imagine that girl was your daughter. How would you feel if you were told that we wouldn’t be keeping his DNA on the database because it was against his human rights… :ermm:
I’m not getting into an argument over this. You’ve got your opinions and I have mine, which happen to be based on experience of catching criminals and proving their crimes using the very information that is on those terrible database’s!
It’s apparent that no matter what evidence I put in front of you, you would still hold the same beliefs and frame of mind.
I’m certainly not losing sleep over it, and on that note, I’m off to bed. Got an early start in the morning and I don’t like to be tired when I’m arresting people!
Not control every aspect of what we do, that would be hyperbolic and stupid. But certainly, I am quite confident that a future government will abuse this for their own aims.
It absolutely does. You see, anything that you write down or collect may be illegally accessed by any one of the 243 criminals that your organization employed and gave the access to. It could be abused by any of the 900 people who were disciplined for improper access. By extension, that makes you untrustworthy because anything that I give to you, I’m giving to them too.
You know how people rant against the bankers, with no regards for the people providing their mortgage, their credit card or their pension? It’s the same with any organisation and yours is currently enjoying very low public support because from the outside it appears that law abiding citizens get a far harsher ride than actual criminals today. Granted, a lot of that is down to the judiciary, but they don’t have a uniform that they appear in public in, so the people just see you. And you get to live with the consequences of that
Every time a photographer was arrested in London before ACPO was forced to issue updated information made your entire organisation and everyone in it more hostile and less trustworthy to all of us. Every cop arrested and convicted of inappropriate sexual relations with a criminal or a vulnerable victim makes every single one of you in a uniform less trustworthy.
You see, we don’t know you . We know the uniform and the high-vis vest, and the hat. And we know that 243 of you were convicted for abusing your power over us. We know that over 900 of your larger team broke our trust. How do we know which 900 that was? So who should we trust? And why?
There was a significant number of people abusing expenses. It doesn’t mean that everyone in that role is dodgy, but it means that the system is broken to allow this to happen (and to allow them to petition the courts to keep us from finding out!) and as such we’d be best not trusting them all until they can prove otherwise. Same goes for your employer. You were home to hundreds of criminals. That’s a systemic problem, and we’re best not trusting you until you clean up your act.
I’ve been the victim of a number of crimes in this country and the police were worse than useless. I’ve also been a cop on a fairly tough beat, so I know how hard it is. But I also value liberty and freedom and I’m not blind enough to take that from my children and their children just to make your job a little easier today.
So, uh, a crime was solved without the DNA database at all, the DNA database is great!? That’s stupid at best, dishonest at worst.
When have I ever said that ? The whole of my problem is the fact that your lot keep innocent people’s data.
Read my post history - many here find me too right wing and too hard on the poor widdle darling criminals. As far as I’m concerned, the day you rape or rob or kill, you choose to step outside of society and lose the protections that come with that. You can keep everything you want on convicted criminals (including their heads in many cases as far as I’m concerned). But you have no right to keep that data on innocent people. And the EU courts agree with me on that.
I’m not going to change your mind, and you’re not going to change mine, but we’ve both formed an opinion of each other that will live forever and influence / taint all of our contact. Just from these words on this board.
What do you think the public at large have learned about trusting the police in particular and the government in general from all of the proven abuses of power and trust over the past 5 years? There’s far more there than a few posts on a forum and will have lasting impact!
At the end of the day, you have spent the trust you earned, and now your firm need to earn that back. Until then, I will continue to fight the collection and retention of information of innocent people because I actually believe in innocent until proven guilty, I don’t just pay lip service to it.
I’ve been a cop on a far tougher beat than London. I’ve also drawn a weapon on three occasions with the intention of fighting for my life and that of my loved ones, and I had to fire it once. On all occasions I was found to have acted correctly and lawfully, but I was never arrested. Had I actually made the shot the one time I fired, I still would not have been arrested until such time as there was evidence that I had committed an actual crime.
So I know first hand the feeling you get when you’ve tried to take a life, and I still don’t feel well about that. 12 years later, and I still don’t sleep well a lot of nights. I can only imagine how it must feel to actually be in a position where you did kill someone while in legitimate defence of your life and instead of receiving support, be dragged away and have your entire future negatively impacted by people who are so dishonest that they still try to claim an arrest doesn’t impact your job prospects.
I know you’re probably being flippant, but any wonder with remarks like that, people hold the views they do of cops ?
That is a bullsh*t example because you are talking about someone guilty of a crime.
I don’t remember arguing that people guilty of crimes shouldn’t have their DNA kept.
I do remember arguing that a DNA database that was compulsory, something you support, was wrong. I do remember arguing that taking the DNA of innocent people and keeping it on a database was wrong, something which the police do.
Sorry, but I really have to disagree with the above statements that I have highlighted in red. Being arrested for a serious crime (especially when you’re innocent - or, in this case, have supposedly acted in self-defence) DOES have life-changing consequences.
A lot of people here seem to believe that being arrested does not have life changing impact. These people are either misinformed or stupid.
Here are a few simple impacts that being arrested has:
Arrest information may be revealed in an Enhanced CRB check. Arrest for violent crime disqualifies you from working in certain fields and may cost you other jobs.
Got a holiday to America planned? Bought your tickets ? Booked your hotel ? If you get arrested, you can no longer go to the USA (and many other countries) without getting a visa. This has costs associated with it and may be declined. Travel insurance will not reimburse you for any tickets or bookings that you can no longer use as a result of this.
That is just two life-changing examples of what an arrest costs you.
Please can we stop lying about this and acknowledge that an arrest has the potential to destroy careers, cost people thousands of pounds and destroy opportunities.
There is no justifiable reason to arrest an innocent person.
From my personal opinion and I base this on having worked with offenders, the law only seems to have an effect on those who would RARELY commit crime or likely to never commit a crime again anyway because they did it out of frustration/passion/provocation…etc.
It’s a shame they want to tar everyone with the same brush, as I disclosed in another thread I knew of someone who went to prison for a single punch after being harassed over deeply personal matters. He was a much more honest man than most I’ve ever met but he’s now been branded a criminal with a record that’ll gleam for 10 years - even without enhanced disclosure.
It’s not only America that is fussy about travelling, countries like Japan and Australia won’t let you in with certain crimes. You don’t really need to disclose these, their records are efficient enough yet to trace you even you have committed these crime - I know this from personal experience. However immigration to these countries would be impossible.
we are missing the fact this man may have been asked to acompany the police and coporate with there enquieries without being cautioned or formally arrested,
A verbal arrest for interview will not appear on any records, we have all seen in the past that people are arrested at roadside for minor motoring offences and released moments later.
I agree it is in very poor taste that the family and friends are laying flowers at the door of the poor family he alledgedly burgled and i believe the police have powers to stop this, a few years ago the police had cause to remove flowers from outside a families home where a woman was run over, they were tied to the poor peoples gates and stuck to a lamp post directly outside there house.
lets hope the facts are true and justice is swift so if there is no wrong doing the family can get on with there lives.
not me personally, no, but it could be done.
Especially via the network cable, will probably prove the easiest anyway if they’re connected to the outside network.
So his prints and DNA are on file for defending himself. We can now confirm that on the worst day of his life, we as a society put an innocent man in a cell instead of supporting him.
