Getting back what's yours.

Now I've occasionally railed against politicians for putting themselves first, for adopting a one rule for us, another rule for you mentality. They have privileges that we don't, get subsidies that we don't, get away with stuff that we wouldn't (it was in the rules you know) So I'd expect them to have a great deal more influence over the police and what they do with DNA, particularly their own.

Telegraph.

A Tory MP has revealed how he had to fight a two-year battle to have his DNA removed from the national database after being questioned following the suspected murder of a distant uncle.

Greg Hands gave a DNA sample and fingerprints to police in 2007 after 80-year-old Les Ince was found with a 14-inch barbecue skewer in his neck, suffering injuries from which he later died.

Police visited Mr Hands at the House of Parliament as part of a sweep of family members, even though, he said he had never visited his uncle's home in Walsall, West Midlands.

An inquest last year ended with an open verdict after police accepted it could have been a freak accident.

But despite constant requests to have his DNA removed, Mr Hands continually failed to confirm his profile had been deleted. He was finally told in a written parliamentary answer last summer that his profile was no longer on the database.

Speaking of his battle to have his DNA removed, Mr Hands said: "You could hardly get someone further away from this 'crime' than me and yet it took considerable effort in using means not available to most people."

Mr Hands was appearing before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which is examining the use of DNA and the national database in the wake of a national debate on the retention of innocent people on the system.

It took him 2 years and he had access to means not available to you or I. The police hold the DNA of thousands of innocent people as a "Just in case" insurance policy for future crime prevention, in other words they think we're all suspects. Now there are those out there who adopt the attitude of if they've done nothing wrong then you've nothing to fear, though the number of cases that come out do show that many innocent people have something to fear after all.
There should be no way that the DNA of innocent people is held by the police, they are innocent after all and the DNA is theirs, to an extent it is them. 1 million innocent people are estimated to be in the database, it might even be more now and still the police refuse to remove the innocent from it, because it just might help in future cases. This is morally wrong, it is not the role of the police to do this, by all means use every resource available to solve crimes, but you return to the owner that which is his/hers after the crime is resolved or in the case of DNA if the owner is proven innocent or not involved in the crime committed.
Only police states think that all people are suspects, last I looked the UK wasn't a police state, though it's possible we're sleepwalking in that direction (save for a few bloggers howling in the enclosing darkness) But your rights to avoid being hounded by the state are being eroded on a daily basis all in the name of security, combating terrorism and often sheer bloody mindedness of politicians desperate to appear to be doing something about crime. Labor themselves have done more damage to civil liberties than any party in the last 13 years and it rather looks like the Tories will be pretty much the same. It's becoming increasingly obvious that our political leadership does not trust the UK public one bit, and that includes our EU overweasels too.

One day we'll be free, Romania proved the point that sooner or later all political systems end if they aren't prepared to change to what the people want. it's only a matter of time before the UK does, for better or worse, but that's a matter for the people and at the moment they're quite cosy, sleepwalking into authoritarianism, (fluffy coated, UK version) Be interesting times, if or when they wake up and join us in the real world.