On Fri, 20 May 2005 00:13:30 +0100, PJ wrote:

Do I worry about being monitored? My only fear would be that I might be
liable for the eventual psychiatric medical expenses of the person doing
the monitoring.

Did you know that the police now take AND KEEP a sample of your DNA if
you are arrested? That is, not charged, not prosecuted, just arrested
on suspicion, a small protest march, perhaps, where you might have
been a little too boisterous or argumentative. They then let you go.
But your DNA sample stays on file FOR EVER. Ideally, the police want
to capture the DNA of the entire population.

And then a criminal breaks in to your house or car and steals an item
of clothing. It's considered a minor crime by the police, who may not
even come to your house. The criminal takes the clothing he stole and
commits a much more serious crime elsewhere, carefully leaving the
clothing in a conspicuous place.

How are you going to mount a defence? For a start, you WERE arrested,
so the police will say, ooh, dodgy character. And then there's this
DNA evidence, m'lud. What do you have to say for yourself? You could
be looking at a ten-year stretch for being completely innocent. Look
at the number of cases that have been thrown out recently, sometimes
after the people have been in prison for several years. Don't forget,
too, that with this government it is all about targets. Targets are
everything. They don't give a damn about individuals. We are all just
numbers on a piece of paper as far as Blair et al are concerned. Mind
that you don't become a statistic over which future generations will
muse as they say, how could a thing like that happen in Britain of all
places?

MM