Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Nothing to fear

Marcel Berlins has been waxing lyrical on the nothing to hide nothing to fear maxim (I use that word loosely and mathematicians and scientists would rightly berate me for doing so) so beloved of government ministers and tabloid journalists.

"There are two excusatory phrases in the criminal justice lexicon which provoke in me immediate suspicion, especially when used by government ministers or the police. One is "there are safeguards", the other "innocent people have nothing to fear"...

"If you've done nothing wrong, why should you object to your DNA and fingerprints, or CCTV film on which you appear being kept, or your phone being bugged?" This is a dangerous misunderstanding of privacy in a democracy. It is not for the government or police to tell us that we don't really need to exercise our right because we're innocent."

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