I have a tremendous amount of respect for everybody who is involved in this and is trying to do a good, professional job under difficult and onerous circumstanc

I have a tremendous amount of respect for everybody who is involved in this and is trying to do a good, professional job under difficult and onerous circumstances. However, this is also political, and, as the saying goes, you cannot make an omelette without breaking some eggs. If we stuck to politically correct, anodyne, low-fat, impartial statements, we would never get anything done. The whole point of making comments is to exert pressure. To exert pressure, you have to throw your weight around, to engage in ad-hominem attacks and all sorts of underhanded sophistry. It is unfortunate; I wish it were some other way, but you have to make a caricature of your position to have any impact whatsoever. I have said some pretty inflammatory things in the past: but does that mean that I would assault one of the targets of my vitriol if I met them on the street? Of course not. That would be rude. Even more so, if I were debating the issue face-to-face, my position would be conciliatory rather than inflammatory ... but internet forums present an entirely different medium of exchange from civilised discussion, and, much like public speaking, the medium is a particularly partisan and divisive one. In fact -- and this may be a contentious point given the current forum -- I think that the state should continue to collect this sort of information -- and indeed more of it. I think that there is a tremendous amount of social good that can be derived from a better understanding of how we function -- both as individuals and as a society. I also think that denying this information to the state will result in worse decision making than might otherwise be the case. If you can sense a "but" coming, your instincts are serving you well. But, however professional and well-vetted the individuals in authority may be, they are still human. And being human is all about being fallible. We pretty much suck at everything we try from the moment we are born to the moment we die. Some of us are better at hiding it than others, but that does not mean that the suck is not hiding in there somewhere. So, by all means, collect all the information that can lay your hands on for everybody in the whole world, but please make sure that there are robust, physical processes in place to reduce both the impact of any abuses that may occur, and also the probability that those abuses might occur in the first place.