There comes a stage in a government's life when routine assessment concerning competence and managerial efficiency is replaced by questions about sanity. Reading Michael Wills musing about New Labour's plans for an enhanced bill of rights with all sorts of social and economic rights as well as defined responsibilities, I had that experience of watching an acquaintance descend into whimpering insanity.

Mr Wills, an admittedly plausible member of the justice team, says that even during this time of unprecedented economic crisis, the government should act "To strengthen communities' and individuals' sense of their stake in society by better articulating the responsibilities we owe and the rights we have" (note the order).

Naturally this new charter won't challenge the sovereignty of parliament with entrenched rights but instead seek to nudge our society by suggestion. "Words have power in their own right. They can move us and mould our society, even though they are not law."

I don't know what kind of world Wills lives in, but any sane person would think of ways of consolidating the rights we are supposed to possess and make sure that the system works as it stands before proposing another tier of words in the hope that we all feel better about ourselves. Actually, I suspect his motives are far from benign. Putting rights behind responsibilities, which no government has any business defining when responsibility are already defined by law, is a clue to his true design of placing citizens under greater government control.

Wills, like many who defend the Human Rights Act, says the HRA "has put fundamental rights of the individual against the state at the heart of our domestic law". Despite its virtues, which actually seem to me to become more meagre as supporters rally to the HRA standard, we can be utterly sure that the HRA does not protect the individual against the state.

I repeat that I have no hidden motives in saying this, no desire to disparage the benefits that the act provides. It is just that it seems absurd to go on insisting that the HRA offers up-front protection. For confirmation look no further than the report on the database state commissioned by the excellent Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which, incidentally, is very much a friend of the HRA.

Released today, the report makes this point in its executive summary: "A quarter of the public-sector databases reviewed are almost certainly illegal under human rights or data protection law; they should be scrapped or substantially redesigned. More than half have significant problems with privacy or effectiveness and could fall foul of a legal challenge."

This really excellent piece of work by the Foundation for Information Policy Research, led by Professor Ross Anderson, is all that you need to make up your mind about the lunatic expenditure (£16 billion per annum on IT projects), the illusory benefits of data sharing and the threat to individuals. It also claims that fewer than 15% of databases assessed "are effective, proportionate and necessary with a proper legal basis for privacy intrusions".

The people who won't have a word said against the HRA must surely respond to the revelations in Anderson's report because this vast system of surveillance has grown up to threaten us all without the slightest impediment being offered by the act. And why is that? Because the HRA requires someone to challenge the state's actions in a court , and that takes money, energy, time, and a degree of commitment that most ordinary people do not have. Besides how can one individual – or even a group of highly organised and motivated individuals – take on this vast superstructure of surveillance to prove their rights are being infringed by 25% of public-sector databases.

The unveiling of the government's new proposals on rights – which has all the credibility of putting Max Mosley in charge of drafting laws on prostitution – comes on the same day as another important report – this time from parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights – which voices serious concerns about the way police are misusing terror laws against legitimate protestors. The very effective Labour chair of the JCHR, Andrew Dismore, said, "The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and one that the state and the police have a duty to protect and facilitate. The state must not impose restrictions unless it is necessary and proportionate, to do so."

You cannot be clearer than that. The fact is that police have not been remotely troubled by the "guarantees" of the HRA, and of course they will continue to abuse the rights of peaceful protestors, whatever measures the insufferable Straw proposes today.

It really is time for those whose support for the HRA inhibits discussion about how rights and liberty can be secured in reality, and not just on paper, to move from their position of unshakable faith. The HRA is not some kind of religious truth: its is flawed, and the tinkering of Straw and Wills can do nothing but further harm our liberty.