Release Date: Saturday 23rd February 2008
Release Time: Immediate

Contact Details:
Dr Sean Gabb on 07956 472 199 or via sean@libertarian.co.uk

For other contact and link details, see the foot of this message
Release url: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/news/nr063.htm

"Close Down the DNA Database" Says Libertarian Alliance

The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties pressure group, today calls on the British Government to close down its DNA database and wipe the records.

The murder convictions of Steve Wright and Mark Dixie within the past few days - both allegedly as a result of DNA evidence - have led to calls for all British adults to be forcibly included in the DNA database.

Libertarian Alliance Director, Sean Gabb, says:

"These calls are not prompted by the recent convictions. The convictions are being made an excuse for rolling out plans that have long existed in the Home Office.

"We do not need a database state to fight crime. That needs real punishments for real crimes and efficient policing. These things alone could take crime back to the levels of the 1950s.

"We are told these two murders were only solved by using DNA matching. This may be true - though the police are notorious liars. Even so, catching two murderers, though important, is not worth a database state.

"Give the Government samples of our DNA and it will have potentially tyrannical powers over us. You may insist you have nothing to fear from a database of your DNA. After all, the authorities keep promising how much safer it will make you. But do you want your children to go on that database? Can you be sure that some demented government scientist two decades from now will not decide that the surest way to heaven on earth is to stop certain people from breeding? Can you be sure that your children will not show up negative on a DNA database that will have enabled an old authoritarian fantasy to be made into bureaucratic reality?

"Are there no criminal tendencies somewhere in your family background? No racial or sexual characteristics that may one day be again be as unfashionable as they have been in other times and places? No bad eyes or flat feet? No predisposition to obesity or illnesses that it will for the foreseeable future be expensive to treat on the National Health Service?

"Bear in mind that, with a certainty not known since the 1940s, the relevant scientists are proclaiming that your destiny is in your genes. This may be true. Whatever the case, it is and will remain the consensus. Can you believe it will never be attractive to politicians ignorant of the science, but struggling with the problems of crime control and ballooning health budgets?

"Do you want grandchildren? Or do you want to risk seeing your genes scientifically combed from the general pool?"

The Libertarian Alliance calls on the British Government to reject all proposals to expand the existing DNA database, and to wipe all records so far gathered.

END OF COPY

Note(s) to Editors

Dr Sean Gabb is the Director of the Libertarian Alliance. His latest book, Cultural Revolution, Culture War: How Conservatives Lost England, and How to Get It Back, may be downloaded for free from http://tinyurl.com/34e2o3. It may also be bought. His other books are available from Hampden Press at http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.

He can be contacted for further comment on 07956 472 199 or by email at sean@libertarian.co.uk

Extended Contact Details:

The Libertarian Alliance is Britain's most radical free market and civil liberties policy institute. It has published over 700 articles, pamphlets and books in support of freedom and against statism in all its forms. These are freely available at http://www.libertarian.co.uk

Our postal address is

The Libertarian Alliance
Suite 35
2 Lansdowne Row
Mayfair
London
W1J 6HL
Tel: 07956 472 199

Associated Organisations

The Libertarian International - http://www.libertarian.to - is a sister organisation to the Libertarian Alliance. Its mission is to coordinate various initiatives in the defence of individual liberty throughout the world.

Sean Gabb's personal website - http://www.seangabb.co.uk - contains about a million words of writings on themes interesting to libertarians and conservatives.

Hampden Press - http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk.- the publishing house of the Libertarian Alliance.

Liberalia - http://www.liberalia.com - maintained by by LA Executive member Christian Michel, Liberalia publishes in-depth papers in French and English on libertarianism and free enterprise. It is a prime source of documentation on these issues for students and scholars.