Why are the police obsessed.....

[R1Geezer]

with collecting data from innocents?
http://news.sky.com/s...Details%2C_It_Emerges
and why are people stupid enough to leave their personal details?

[R1Geezer]

ummm see above I'm talking about cases where it's irelevant

[ummmm]

That wasn't there when I posted :-)

[Rasman]

Is crimestoppers anonymous?

[R1Geezer]

Because it can be misused ethanron.

On the word of a neighbour I was arrested, my flat turned over, tried, and acquitted, with the collaboration of the CPS with no evidence against me at all. Thankfully my faith in the justice system was rewarded. Plod still has my DNA. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear" - PMSL.

[ethandron]

i don't quite see what that's got to do with your original post.
your neighbour obviously had concerns but as you were innocent that's as far as it went. so the police now have your DNA, so what? they can have mine if they want it.
'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' is, to my mind, a perfectly rational and reasonable statement.

[sandyRoe]

It must cost a fair amount of money to collect this data. How can they afford to do it?

[R1Geezer]

They arrested me and colloberated with the CPS to prosecute me without any eveidence. When I asked if I could do similar and would they arrest my neighbour, they said no. You see I'm committing the worst offence of all, being a white middle aged bloke who actually supports himself.

As for the DNA DB, I do not trust the authorities with that kind of power. What happens when they start selling your DNA to interested commercial operations?

DNA is not the holy grail, it is merely another tooln for crime detection, the pesence of DNA proves nothing in itself.

[ethandron]

i agree, dna is not the holy grail...but it's a very effective tool so i'm very happy for the powers that be to have another tool, and use it.
you still haven't explained your objection to it, apart from a worry that it could be sold on commercially. could you expand a bit?

[naomi24]

ethandron, I object to my personal data being collected and stored and I'll tell you why. Because I value my privacy, I value my freedom, I value my right to withhold personal information and I do not want to live in a police state.

[sara3]

Eddie, this all happened in December and I'm still aware that it may not have gone away.

[bednobs]

"bednobs, no doubt the database has those reporting burglaries etc, I'm talking about the crimes where the reporters I'd is totally irrelevant. They are merely doing their civic duty and couldn't care less what plod actually does, they just want to have a clear concience about reporting the crime"
But the article dosen't say what percentage are people reporting cries against them, and what percentage are just reporting crimes in general, so your "obsessed" argument becomes flawed. Crimestoppers is anonymously available for those who want to report crimes not against them but in general. I am now trying to think of any circumstances when i have called the police to report a crime where it has not been against me, and i have never done it. Perhaps the databse is 99.9% full of people who have reported crimes against themselves and therefore needed to leave their name and address. With that spin, it now looks like it is you who are obsessed, not the police. You just cannot infer things that are not there in the article if your post is based on the article

[R1Geezer]

well ethandron, naomi and eddie pretty well cover it above. I just don't trust this and all future authorites. It is foolish to do so.

[R1Geezer]

neither can you infer things bednobs so we'll use shrodingers cat shall we?

[bednobs]

exactly, niether of us can infer what percentage from the article, so you can't assert that it makes the police obsessed, and i can't assert it makes you obsessed. I just wish sometimes people would read articles with an open mind, so that they don't see what they think is there, rather than what is actually there/what the journalist wants them to think is there

[R1Geezer]

the things is I don't care, 1% is too many.

[seadogg]

Too many idiots call out the police and rescue services for a laugh. It costs a bomb to launch our lifeboat for example. The more info the better!

[bednobs]

yep, i can tell you don't care

[Khandro]

ethandron; You are sleepwalking toward a totalitarian state.