Regular readers will know I quite often disagree with with what David Pannick writes in the Times; I also find myself often agreeing with David Aaronovitch who writes in the same paper. Well, this week my reactions are more or less as per usual.
First, David Aaronovitch on a national DNA database. It’s not so much that I agree with him that there should be a comprehensive national DNA database – I don’t. I’m happy with the current messy compromise, under which those arrested by the police are swabbed and their DNA kept, so that slowly but surely, and in highly practical way so far as the police are concerned, the database will grow to cover most criminals and troublemakers, as well as of course some wrongly arrested innocent people, without the need to trouble impeccably-behaved maiden aunts. Where I strongly agree with him, though, is in his criticism of the current intellectual fashion for an ill-though-through “unease” about surveillance, DNA collection and so on. He’s right that Liberty and others who take this view must face up to, and openly admit, the consequences of their argument: that murders, rapes and other crimes will go unsolved, and fewer Kate Sheedys will get the legal resolution they seek.
The one point I depart from him on is his last: I think the Sedley position, that collecting DNA selectively is racist, essentially, so we should collect it from everyone, is daft, to be frank. It’s the kind of thing the Archbishop of Canterbury might have said.
And now David Pannick, whose piece on the balance between freedom of expression, specifically the right to use extreme Islamist websites, and security is in effect a skeleton argument for the intelligentsia default position. I agree with his headline; but I’m not sure I’m entirely happy with everything David Pannick says here.
Yes, the more open, public discussion there is of Islamist terrorist ideas, the better – everyone will see how mad they are. But internet discussions are not open, but cliquey, and their aim is not to defend views publicly but to draw in the vulnerable and brainwash them. I think there is is, arguably, a war of ideas here, as with, say, Nazism in the 1930s, and that freedom of expression may not be the moral trump he implies – indeed, we may even, legally, be dealing with that kind of expression which is outside human rights protection, according to the European Court of Human Rights case of Garaudy v France.
And how is his approach here consistent with any legal restriction on pornography?
Finally, it seems to me this security/freedom dilemma is a policy problem, not solely a legal one – and I worry that Pannick sees it as solely one for lawyers to resolve.
I want to think about the Pannick issues, to avoid my usual kneejerks, but on the DNA issue, I just wanted to point out that, as far as I know, no DNA evidence was involved in the Bellfield case, so no DNA database would have solved it any quicker. The Sheedy reference is, in that respect, both cheap and irrelevant.
A fair point: Bellfield’s DNA wasn’t found, so maybe Kate Sheedy herself isn’t relevant. I’m sorry you thought the reference was cheap though, NL. And I’m going to defend it because I don’t think it was.
I wasn’t trying to suggest Bellfield wouldn’t have been convicted without DNA – and rereading my post I don’t think it implies that. My point was that she’s someone who’s seen her attacker convicted, and the logical consequence of limiting the DNA database (say, as S and Marper argue it should be in their ECHR case) could only be that fewer victims would be in that position.
I just want those who argue for no or a smaller DNA database to admit that’s the virtually certain consequence of their argument.
Fair enough. I assumed the Sheedy reference was Aaronovitch`s, not yours. I am happy to accept your justification, although using a highly emotive current case to argue the point is potentially misleading and this is the way the tabloids and the police have used it, hence my sense it was cheap. What the Bellfield case does show is that a full database would not be a panacea, as it is being held up to be. There would still be victims and relatives enduring unsolved or unconvicted cases. Emotive examples make for bad law. I agree that people should be clear on the effects of a restricted database. The supporters should also be clear on the numbers of cases we are talking about, those not solveable by other means. In terms of serious crimes, that is very few. Both sides are avoiding talking about this as a tradeoff or balancing, which is what it is. Between liberty and some comfort for some victims, and of course between costs and results, just like the rest of the criminal justice system.