For its public database, the British government wants the DNA of everybody -- including tourists. Think of it as a new spot on the entrance form. For those who want the short version, I was alerted by this comment from Pearce, who brought up the disturbing question:

"Everybody, guilty or innocent, should expect their DNA to be on file for the absolutely rigorously restricted purpose of crime detection and prevention -- and no other purpose."

"For no other purpose". Why, are there other purposes that the judge knows about?

As it turns out, we already know what the British Government does with DNA databases: it sells them to large private companies which then run amok figuring out who they can tell. Admittedly, the article was from some obscure paper called the Guardian, that the Senior Judge might not have read.

Why else might we object to it? Well, as it turns out, it encourages the already poorly run police forces and prosecutors to take shortcuts:

In fact, we have an example, easily findable, showing that DNA analysis can be spectacularly wrong:

What is also to be expected from a thorough trawl of this mammoth database would be around 100 billion attempts to match crime scenes with potential suspects, resulting in over two thousand false cold hits. More if the labs are capable of making mistakes.

The first false cold hit from a database trawl to be recognised in the UK was in 1999, though it did not become public knowledge until the following year after a UK forensic scientist addressed the USDOJ Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.

A man with advanced Parkinsons disease who could not drive an automobile or dress himself unaided was linked to a burglary which had occured 200 miles from his home. In spite of protestations of innocence and alibi evidence police arrested him because the DNA profiles matched and 'so it had to be him'. It was several months before 10-point DNA tests were done on samples from the suspect and the crime scene. The results exonerated him.

He gained his freedom and a brief note from the prosecutor saying that charges were being dropped because "there was not enough evidence to provide a realistic chance of conviction". He still awaits an official apology. Or even an admission of error.

Read the article carefully: you'll know why it's a good idea to look for actual evidence, and treat DNA as confirmatory, rather than probative.

Fortunately, the article quoting this lunatic senior judge also contains quotes from others indicating that even though they don't know why there is a problem, they sense there might be. I must be the only one who reads the Guardian out there, or who has a memory, or they would start at the same place I did: what is government becomes corporate.

Why? Because even for those who like to read book reviews, book reviewers are too timid, too formulaic, and too boring most of the time.

Not to mention the moments when an author decides to sue the reviewer for a negative review. Being sued for having an opinion is uncomfortable even if you win.

Boring Book Reviews: another in the long series of casualties caused by lawyers run amok.

UPDATE: And the obligatory counter-view: if the newspapers stop reviewing books, people will stop reading them. Can't see that point myself. Virgina Postrel notes that the reviews we are losing are so boring and so uninformative that it's hard to think of people reading them. But she doesn't say why. Lawyers run amok.

From Engaget, the funny scene of the week:

Romanian president Traian Basescu has a bigger reason than most to owe the Microsoft founder a debt of gratitude: he claims that rampant software piracy in the Eastern European nation was the single biggest factor in developing a healthy IT industry. Yes, believe it or not, a head-of-state actually stood up in public -- at a press conference to celebrate the launch of a Microsoft global technical center -- and told Gates face-to-face how illegal copies of Windows "helped the young generation discover computers...set off the development of the IT industry...[and] helped Romanians improve their creative capacity..." Read the whole thing.

Then wonder for a moment: How long will it be until Microsoft sues, wins, and owns Romania?

Evidently, the ACLU is acting up again, their latest attempt being to pretend to be unable to read. A small town mayor is deciding to enforce statutes against hiring illegal aliens and against renting to them, and they are attacking -- not those who passed them, but those who enforce them.

This is an interesting strategy. Kill the enforcers, and the statutes, however democratically passed, are useless on the books.

And I'm not pleased by that thought. It is not the purpose of the government to prevent its citizens from committing errors. It is the purpose of the government to be corrected by its citizens when it commits errors.

Here is a classic example. In this case, it was hounding a small businessman who put a bumper sticker on his car, hoping to get a little attention.


Just so you know, even the most minimal analysis proves that the FEC was ignoring its own statutes at the behest of a party activist. This proves that lawyers are, perhaps, uniquely UNQUALIFIED to file complaints without a client.

Suffice it to say that John McCain has a lot to answer for: being an idiot about the Constitution that creates his own office, and the one he aspires to, should be noted by any primary voter, and he should be turned out of office as soon as practicable.

Just as a side note: we eagerly look forward to the retirement of Supreme Court Judge Stevens, who, in a shocking demonstration of his inability to understand speech, said, "money is property, not speech." (528 US 377): any married man reading this is welcome to try a simple experiment to disprove the idea that property cannot serve as speech. In the presence of your wife, take off your wedding ring, and throw it in the trash. Don't say anything. (Yes, I hear you laughing. You know that your use of property was speech, and she will know what you said immediately, and you will have to apologize, with flowers. But Stevens doesn't, and he gets to rule on cases.)

UPDATE:It looks like the government is going to tramp down hard on anyone saying, "Call your Congressman" on the theory that saying something costs money, and money should only be spent by Public Citizen, an "advocacy group" that wants to cut down on the competition to be heard. After all, the right to petition the government, while in the Constitution, was only meant to apply to nonprofits, right? Citizens? Who cares about them?! How DARE they presume to instruct their betters?

It's hard to believe, but the following merits a hearing on whether the judge went too far by the Florida Supreme Court:

The 11 defendants were due to appear in court on Dec. 3, 2004 on traffic charges but had mistakenly been directed to another courtroom. When they failed to appear in Sloop's courtroom even though two other judges and a bailiff advised him of the mistake, he ordered them arrested and jailed for failure to appear before him.

They made a mistake. It was not their fault. You knew that. And you had them arrested and jailed anyway?

Exactly who taught this judge law? Who believes that it was "an honest mistake" by the judge? Frankly, saying that he suffers from a medical condition that causes this ought to be reason enough to conclude that his conduct was knowingly bad: the best that can be said of it is that his failure to take medication is reckless.

My quotation from the North Country Gazette, for those wondering, is based on legal reasoning from someone who knows copyright law, rather than, presumably, the legal hacks who wrote the note at the bottom of the article. For those looking for further information on fair use, check this out. For those willing to tolerate silly notices like that, check out the North Country Gazette -- it has some interesting articles even for those like myself who are not interested in "joining" things.

And who would I expect to be conspirators? Disaffected segregationists? George Wallace wannabees?

No. The latest organization to conspire to violate civil rights law is The American Bar Association.

And you thought these people knew about the law. It turns out that they do, but that doesn't mean they won't try to violate it.

This motion, with its order, probably cost clients on both sides a minimum of $2000, before costs of lunch. And yet both sides will probably say that they are "zealously" representing their clients' interests.

A little bit more representation like this, and both sides will be in bankruptcy court, cross-filing for indemnity.