Lord Justice Sedley, a senior appeal court judge in the United Kingdom, has proposed that in order to fix the inherent biases within the British justice system’s DNA databank, all citizens should submit a DNA sample to be kept on permanent record.

Forever.

He has also suggested the same procedure for all visitors to the U.K. Before those of you with warrants out for your arrest put your illegally purchased tickets to England on eBay, relax ‘ Home Office Minister of State Tony McNulty has said that there are no plans to follow this recommendation. Yet.

This poses an interesting moral dilemma. I have read both ‘1984’ and taken public opinion; I personally do not hesitate to say the very idea of such a database chills me to the bone. On the other hand, Lord Justice Sedley makes an interesting point about the criminal justice system’s ineffectuality.

The English DNA database is currently the largest in the world and has already caused problems because its policies do not permit any data removal, even if the person is found to be innocent.

With the rash of stories from the U.S. Administration highlighting increasingly popular wiretapping and invasions of citizen privacy, England just got a lot closer to home. Although no strong push to actually create a system like this exists, it’s a looming issue that will inevitably confront governments in the not-so-distant future.

It will likely fall upon our politically savvy public to determine the course of this ‘great leap forward’ of the new century. If that doesn’t scare you, think back to the days immediately following Sept. 11 and the initial popularity of the Patriot Act. As we have quite obviously failed to resolve the War On Terrorism (and it has become OK for the president to compare it to Vietnam), the odds of a future terrorist attack are considerable. Could this become a serious issue in the United States during our lifetimes?

I’d say the likelihood is somewhere between the odds that Lindsay Lohan gets another DWI and the odds that Tom Cruise declares himself the Messiah.