Anyone who has seen the Oscar-winning film "The Lives Of Others" recently (was showing at the Dukes and Zepherelli's) may be chilled by a story in today's Guardian. In the recent raids on people's houses and social centres (and art galleries/artist spaces) across Berlin and Hamburg, the police ordered a 68-yr old anti-nuclear protester to hold onto metal poles in order to obtain a 'scent sample' from his sweat. Similar sampling was done with other potential protesters. These samples can then be used by tracker dogs to identify or follow the subjects. The police have said that they are trying to use the samples to identify the author of a letter claiming responsibility for arson attacks on cars....

1984? Or earlier? The same techniques are shown as a key tactic of the Stasi (secret police) in the former DDR (East Germany) as intinidation as well as a method of keeping tabs on suspects.