[IP] more on BBC police want to database people who are suspicious but not convicted [priv]
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 25, 2005 1:14:05 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, declan@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] BBC police want to database people who are
suspicious but not convicted [priv]
At 09:29 AM 8/25/2005, David Farber wrote:
It controversially includes details on people who have not been
convicted, but are still considered a public danger.
Minister Fiona Mactaggart said Visor could help reduce crime and was
"a step change in public protection".
The national database has been made available to all police forces
and is expected to be rolled out to the Probation Service next year.
A pilot is also being carried out in the Prison Service.
To play devil's advocate, I think it's entirely reasonable to have
police, or government generally, collect and retain information on
the "suspicious but not convicted;" the challenge is to ensure that,
even with such knowledge, government can be controlled.
To analogize, companies looking to sell products would be dead in the
water if constrained to only create databases of those they've sold
to, and not of leads, of information on people who may never buy
their products... we all work with hazy, not-yet-put-together bits
and pieces. And of course, the local cop on the beat has exactly
that in his/her head... we expect Joe/Jane Patrolperson to have some
idea of which houses on the block are the rowdy ones, which have been
hosting strangers to the neighborhood lately, who engages in
anomalous behavior, etc.
Ensuring we're safe from government through ensuring that government
is inefficient and ignorant is expensive and unsafe. We'd like law
enforcement to be able to "connect the dots," even when the dots are
scattered across jurisdictions, over time, and actually seeking not
to be found.
Now, that said, it would be recklessly unsafe to give government a
free hand to collect and use information with no oversight. And I
think we've swung a bit (or more than a bit) in that direction, over
the years since 9/11. Civil liberties advocates are and ought to be
demanding more transparency, though, of course, governments will be
claiming that any scrutiny would compromise "sources and methods," or
aid the criminal... but there's a necessary price to pay for the
luxury of greater information collection powers, and that's
demonstrating that what you're collecting is necessary and
appropriate, and not abused.
Ross
-----
Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D.
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com
http://www.sortingdoor.com
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