THE ruling class’s national DNA data base has on it a sample of the DNA of every person in the UK who is arrested, regardless of whether he or she is charged with any offence, or whether he or she stands trial for an alleged crime and is found not guilty.
Controversy has surrounded it since its inception. The fact that the majority of people whose DNA is on the base are black youth or other minority youth, who are a special target of the police, speaks for itself.
The state is operating this base on the principle of guilty until innocence is proven.
The presumption of innocence has given way to the notion that the whole nation is potentially criminal and is therefore capable of carrying out any crime that is committed.
From day one the police and the functionaries of the state apparatus have demanded that all DNA samples be on the DNA data base for ever.
Now after the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has ruled that the retention of the DNA of innocent people is illegal, the British state has been forced to make a minor adjustment.
The DNA of most innocent people arrested in England and Wales will no longer be held for more than six years, the Home Office confirmed yesterday!
Police however will keep the DNA from those arrested as terrorism suspects, even if they are freed or found not guilty.
These adjustments are minor and do not affect the judgement of the European Court that the DNA base is illegal.
Currently the DNA of 5.1 million people is being stored, with the police working frantically to double or treble the numbers of samples stored.
Meanwhile, the Labour government is to bring in legislation requiring all telecoms companies and internet service providers to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited.
653 public bodies will be given access to the information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the ambulance service, fire authorities and prison governors.
They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to obtain the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority. That this is a police state measure tailored for the secret police is obvious.
The new legislation will increase the amount of personal data that can be obtained by officials through the controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which is supposed to be used for fighting terrorism, but is used routinely by councils for 24 hours round the clock spying on their tenants, and service users.
The new rules, known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme, will not only force communications companies to keep their records for longer, but to expand the type of data they keep to include details of every website their customers visit, effectively registering every online click.
David Hanson, the Home Office minister, said: ‘The consultation showed widespread recognition of the importance of communications data in protecting the public . . . we will now work with communications service providers and others to develop these proposals, and aim to introduce necessary legislation as soon as possible.’
These measures are meant to frighten and cow people into submission to the state. They are however in reality an expression of the paranoia of a ruling class that is so fearful for its future and for its very existence that it must have a 24 hour surveillance of the population.
There is only one way to defend freedom against this evermore oppressive capitalist state. That is through organising a socialist revolution that will smash this state into smithereens, and then expropriate the ruling class, to bring in socialism.
