The right to a private and family life, it seems like such a simple request does it not? Yet it is taken for granted, and is a right that is readily abolished by our government and other agencies to ensure our “safety”. Are we really living in a world where we cannot be safe without giving up our right to a private life? Thankfully a couple of recent decisions, regarding the holding of DNA on a national DNA database and of being retained on the sex offenders register indefinitely, have had a huge impact on restoring the value to the Article 8 right of the ECHR.

The other comparison between these two instances is of course that Jacqui Smith and her merry band of personal space invasion experts stands resolutely against the idea of our rights as individuals being more important than the state’s ability to act autonomously with our personal data in hand just in case she fancies a brief read. Just to check we’re not being naughty in this seasonal time, of course. The reality is that these are issues the Home Office and our government need to start backing down on if they want to even have a peak at the chance of winning a fourth term.

DNA databases, the recording of our DNA even if we aren’t actually charged with an offence, goes against so many long standing ethics in this country it is criminal that it has taken as long as it has to get a human rights ruling against it. Much in line with the Home Office’s love for imprisoning people and ruining their lives before they are actually found guilty, they would rather hang on to our DNA and treat us as a list of suspects before we’ve even entered the frame as potential criminals. Safety first of course, no doubt by not giving our DNA to the state willingly we are letting terrorism happen much in the way that trying to oppose keeping our online communications from being recorded does.

And this is the mentality that we have all readily accepted when it comes to the sex offenders register. Indeed until this morning I hadn’t actually considered the liberal impact of a sex offenders register that you cannot have any chance of being removed from, shame on me but perhaps I even fell in to the line of thinking that being a “sex offender” was bad enough that people convicted of such offences deserved the extra layer of suspicion and removal of some of their rights. But realistically you can be stuck on the list forever for being sentenced for just 30 months, just over two years. Do murderers get put on a register? Fraudsters? Violent abusers?

Somehow we have absolutely sleepwalked in to a situation where we have accepted, no doubt through tragedies such as the Soham murders, that “sex offenders” are somehow more deserving of our ongoing surveillance as a state than other people that are equally as likely to have psychological problems that would lead them to reoffend. Where is the evidence that sex offenders need to be tracked because of a reoffending risk more than someone who has committed a serious assault or has conned people out of their hard earned? Certainly if it is only a question of scale of crime then why isn’t the tried and tested method of a criminal record enough?

We live in a system, supposedly, of rehabilitation. While recording someone’s past crimes for a period of time is sensible to ensure that re-offenders are dealt with appropriately, treating people that have served their time as if they are about to go out and murder a baby is not acceptable behaviour for society. The sex offenders register means that is precisely how we treat people that have acting inappropriately or chosen to commit a very serious crime, regardless of how likely or not they are to attempt to do something similar in the future.

The sad thing is that we are so emotive over “sex offenders” because the term has become synonymous with child abuse and paedophilia, even though it can technically include urinating in public, that terrible things happen, and they happen even when someone has the chance to come off of the “sex offender” register. The judges ruling to allow people to have the chance to get off this register is a step in the right direction, but it is nowhere near enough to start taking the stigma off of people that include those that can be described, at worst, as deviants from the “moral norm”…as if that is even quantifiable.

But all is not rosy in the land of Article 8 rulings, as teachers look set to have their actions in private controlled if they wish to keep their job. Get in to a fight where no kid you teach could possibly see you? Well that means your job is on the line. Have a spliff one time and get caught, unemployment line may beckon! Where this invasion in to teachers private life stops I don’t know, perhaps having too much kinky sex will lead to disciplinary if anyone at all hears about it. Thankfully there is a consultation out there that closes at the end of February asking for views on this code of conduct. It would be great if a mass of people could use it to make a statement for the rights of the private lives of teachers, and to continue the current good work being done by reinforcing our Article 8 rights.

Here’s the link the consultation again in case you missed it.

About the author
Lee is a 20 something web developer from Cornwall now residing in Bristol since completing his degree at the lesser university. He has strange dreams, a big appetite, a small flat, and when not forcing his views on the world he is probably eating a cookie. Lee blogs independently from party colours at Program your own mind.
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1. Right to privacy vs. safety « UK Liberty

   [...] to privacy vs. safety Posted on December 22, 2008 by ukliberty Good article by Lee Griffin at Liberal Conspiracy: The right to a private and family life, it seems like such a simple request does it not? Yet it is [...]

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