Innocent? Innocent of What?

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that police are routinely storing information about law-abiding people, just in case it should prove useful later on. The Metropolitan Firearms, Headbangers and Honey-trap Club, for instance, has details, including images, of protesters on demonstrations; of persons who have perpetrated relationships with criminals; and of alleged crimes which may or may not be fictitious. Most flexible of all, no doubt, is the category "persons of interest", which appears to mean anyone who has inconvenienced the Met by failing to be convicted of something.

The national database is managed by the Blairily-monickered National Police Improvement Agency, which extruded a spokesbeing to say that the Data Protection Act, while not actually protecting your personal data from the police, at least entitles you to find out whether they know where you live. The Deputy Conservatives, who once pretended some sort of interest in civil liberties, today joined bold, outspoken freedom fighters such as David Davis in a deafeningly discreet silence on the issue.