Slashdot Mirror

http://www.no2id.net/getInvolved/shop

And start lobbying your representatives.

Firstly, 800 Million is the implementation cost. There would still be running costs long term. Also, this seems to be a low number; No2ID identified a billion worth of contracts.

There are also other costs; e.g. organisations which would be required to check the ID card would have to link into the scheme. And finally, this isn't the only one in this set of pointless database schemes. If they also cancelled the scheme to link the whole NHS together that would save really lots.

As they say, a billion here, a billion there. Soon it starts to add up to real money.

I Finland everyone has a national identification number. Censuses haven't been done in my lifetime, no need. A drivers license, passport, social security card or ID card identifies the citizens with this number. I'm not sure if there's a law that says you have to posess one of the above, it's just something everyone has anyway.

Still there haven't been any major issues. Is this because the Finnish government is simply less corrupt that many others? I don't have a problem with having a number assigned to me. In fact that number ensures I can use all the services my taxes pay for, like working health care.

So am I living in some socialist police state, or is it just a matter of what kind of government implements this kind of a scheme?

No, we all have a National insurance number in the UK as well, the problem with this scheme wasn't the card but the database behind it; it was going to keep ~50 pieces of personal data on all of us and wanted to charge everyone £30 for the privilege of having one. More info here: http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/FAQ/

That's charmingly naive. You seriously think that Cameron will hold to his promise to cancel ID cards?

Not a Tory*, but "Dave" was absolutely right that a referendum post ratification would be pointless. They were idiots for promising one in the first place.
On the issue of the ID card; both opposition parties have pledged to drop the card and it has stopped being a vote winner to the extent that even Labour have rolled back the extent of the scheme. Now that cuts are needed it's an obvious, symbolic, target, but I'll keep donating to no2id to keep the pressure up to try and make sure that the NIR is dropped as well as the card.

*I live in a lib-dem\tory marginal & am a member of the Pirate Party UK. I'll probably vote Lib-dem.

Sure, they'll start off requiring it ONLY for workers

That's not really an "ONLY", is it? The British government started off requiring them only for international (non-EU, IIRC) students and air-side airport workers. (The students is because there are loads of international students registered on fake courses at fake universities.)

There are some useful arguments here and here.

There, fixed it for ya'.

Anyway, what's all the fuss about ID cards? Here in Portugal we've had ID cards since the 19th century.

It's not the cards, it's the bloody great big database behind it, that (despite assurances to the contrary) is allowed to store any data the government likes about you (in the legislation, one of the permitted data elements is foreign keys to any other data source).

Oh, and that it's costing UKP18,000,000,000 or so for no apparent benefit.

What's all the uproar about ID cards? It's not like you don't use photo ID (and credit cards) everywhere already. This looks like it just standardizes the process.

It's not the Cards, it's the bloody great big database behind it, which is unlimited in scope, as it can contain foreign keys to any other database the government feels like adding without further parliamentary scrutiny. Other photoID just isn't comparable.

And it's (effectively) not going to be voluntary - per current plans, you're on the database if you apply for a passport/renewal.

Oh, and did I mention, it's costing £18,000,000,000. Give or take a million or two. Excluding all the readers that'll be needed to make it useful out there.

Damn, I meant to add: http://www.no2id.net/

http://www.no2id.net/pledge/

Actually, it looks like I'm rather behind the times and they called in the pledge sometime last year (when the rhetoric was really gearing up) in order to have the fund ready:

http://www.no2id.net/pledge/defenceFund.php

Guess I ought to send my tenner in...

No2ID seem to be on the level, they've recently acquired Jacqui Smith's prints and are coming up with some sort of anti-ID publicity stunt. The legal defence fund is a damn good idea though.

http://www.no2id.net/pledge/

Actually, it looks like I'm rather behind the times and they called in the pledge sometime last year (when the rhetoric was really gearing up) in order to have the fund ready:

http://www.no2id.net/pledge/defenceFund.php

Guess I ought to send my tenner in...

No2ID seem to be on the level, they've recently acquired Jacqui Smith's prints and are coming up with some sort of anti-ID publicity stunt. The legal defence fund is a damn good idea though.

If you oppose these plans, then do something about it. You could do worse than by visiting the No2ID cards website: http://www.no2id.net/ But, you can be even more productive and write to your MP to complain about this. Here's how you can contact your local MP: http://www.writetothem.com/ And don't forget to sign the petition opposing the governments plans to introduce an internet monitoring database: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/privacy-matters/

Others have pointed out about PAYG, etc, but:

The new part is the national surveillance database.

Indeed, and just to explain to others why this is quite significant: a "passport" will soon be morphed into the National ID Card and Database system. Although they ultimately want it to be compulsory for all, this is proving controversial, so they're trying to sneak it in the back door by increasing the number of occasions that you'll need an ID card / passport.

Giving up the right to have a passport is a big sacrifice for people in the UK, as many travel abroad (I'm not sure of the latest timeline, but very soon it won't be possible to get a passport without paying the full cost of an ID card, and being placed on the database), but with these plans, you'll need one just to get a mobile phones.

You'll be required to pay £93 (at least) for a card, to entitle you to buy a £30 phone.

Let's also not forget that this ties in with Government plans to monitor every Briton's phone calls, e-mails, and internet usage. They want you're details, so they can keep track of everyone you call or text.

See http://www.no2id.net/ for more info on ID cards and the database.

Thank you parent, and I must disagree with the grandparent, anonymously, since I'm about to reveal something of myself that my family don't know. The police here made claims that the protestors had knives which could attack [cute] police horses and dogs which gained widespread media coverage. In fact the protestors were vegans who were going to use knives to chop vegetables: they were camping, for god's sake!

Recently I was arrested for protesting against ID cards. It was the most peaceful, law-abiding, fun, fancy-dress, familty-friendly protest you ever saw, but politicians got upset. The police racked their brains to find a crime and eventually, the best they could do was claim that wearing fancy dress in the "current climate" could distress the public. Pathetic. The charges were subsequently dropped, but not before I'd suffered fingerprinting, DNA extraction, and eight hours in a prison cell.

The fact is that we're all doing something, all the time, which the police can contrive as illegal if they want to harass you. And whether or not they want to harass you depends on your politics.

I didn't think it could happen to me, but it did, in the UK.

Hmmmm. OK, but the corollary may well be that pretending something other than paper is any better is also folly!

As some other poster says above, you want a level of security that makes it sufficiently difficult for joe-public to not think about trying to beat it, but not so intrusive as to adversly affect people's lives too much in day-to-day use.

All the claptrap and palaver to do with air travel goes too far down the "intrusive" side of things, without actually offering any greater level of security (hence the term Security Theatre). The attempt to track every individual using ID cards, etc, is also too intrusive, and just as ineffective - whereas a simple chip containing a picture which is displayed when the passport (or credit card) is put into a reader would allow a human to easily compare the picture with the person and thereby foil most of the casual passport/credit card fraud.

Finally, you have to recognise that you CANNOT completely stop people from doing bad things and to think you can will lead to the 1984-type society that most right-minded people fear is where we are going already!

The article notes that no other democratic country has a comprehensive biometric database of all citizens.

But the UK is working on it.

NO2ID is the main campaign opposing mass surveillance. We are the fastest growing campaign in the country, are very well organised and have driven most of the bad press these Big Brother plans have received.

But we are short on people (and money). So register your support. There is no obligation and how many opportunities do you get to save your country?

Oh, we protest - the most notable example is probably the No2ID Campaign. The problem is that protesting doesn't stop these things from happening.

That's no different to the US - how come restrictions of civil liberties still happen there? You have "outrage", but that doesn't stop all the new laws either.

Boingboing appears to be down; I get "connection reset." Here's the NO2ID group's homepage. Relevant searches on Google/Google News will probably turn up more information of interest than Boing Boing's shoot-from-the-hip sensationalism, anyway.

But they do want to take your fingerprints to get a library book!

And no alas I'm not joking. The ID card they want to bring in will have a 'biometric' or two on it. They want you to have to show the ID card to gain access to public services, which the library would fall under. Go read the no2id page for more info if you want.

We learned the news in March: Contrary to decades of denials, the U.S. Census Bureau used individual records to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II. The Census Bureau normally is prohibited by law from revealing data that could be linked to specific individuals; the law exists to encourage people to answer census questions accurately and without fear. And while the Second War Powers Act of 1942 temporarily suspended that protection in order to locate Japanese-Americans, the Census Bureau had maintained that it only provided general information about neighborhoods. New research proves they were lying.

Salter is the MP who recently replied to a concerned correspondent with the words: We won the election. Now we implement the manifesto. Got a problem with that?

http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=2994

Breaking news today, Britons will be denied a passport if they don't submit to the world's most intrusive mass-surveillance system

People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.

The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.

Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea.

The problem isn't ID cards as such, I've lived in Germany for quite some time and carrying your ID card (or a passport) is a legal requirement. The problem is that the UK government has a piss poor record of implementing IT systems and what's worse the initial plan for the ID card database was a centralised database system. If that is hacked (and given the UK gov's record it *will* be) that's 60 million identities compromised. Additionally, there's also the question of just how much data they want to store on people. Name and address, and ID number is fair enough. But these people want biometrics, probably social services information (benefits etc), health service information, probably driving license and there's even talk of using the cards as bank/cash cards! Even beside the number of things that could go wrong in a system like that, there's the final problem that people will rely on the accuracy of the data too much. If the data is compromised, or your ID is stolen, how do you get them to change it? "Sorry, Mr Smith, but your fingerprints do not match our records, so you cannot change your profile." "Yes, but I'm telling you my fingerprints are invalid, my ID was hijacked" "Sorry, but you must have the correct fingerprints to update your profile. Oh.. adn i'm arresting you for impersonating yourself". Given how the government and it's authorities seem to store absolutely everything they get their grimy mitts on, (masses of totally innocent people have their fingerprints and DNA stored in police databases, and it's nigh on impossible to have them removed) it's time to be afraid... very afraid. Check out http://www.no2id.net/ for more information.

No2ID, the leading anti-ID-Register campaign, have published a response to Blair's claims.

If you're a UK citizen and can see what a bad implementation of a disastrous idea this is going to turn out to be, please join no2id.org and help in a practical way, as well as moaning about it on Slashdot! :)

To be fair, No2ID didn't particularly encourage people to sign this petition; they knew from the get-go that it would be a waste of time, compared to encouraging people to sign up to the No2ID campaign where they will be kept up-to-date with the latest news and given the oppotunity to participate in a local group campaigning to local government and media...

No2ID, the UK's leading campaign against the National Identity Card and the Database State, realised even before this petition was launched that the site exists only to encourage "fire and forget" activism from people. People signing up to No2ID are encouraged to subscribe to a fortnightly e-mail newsletter which keeps them up to date with the latest news on ID Cards in Government and across the country.

The No2ID campaign has encouraged a 30% swing in public opinion against Identity Cards, has encouraged councils and other organisations across the country to oppose the Government's plans, and formed a wide alliance of political parties and unions from all sides of the spectrum in opposition to this scheme. It's unlikely that the Tories would have come out against ID cards (albeit in a half-arsed way) without No2ID's influence.

If people want to make a difference, joining and supporting No2ID is the best way to do so. There are local groups nationwide, which can always benefit from more supporters.

I'm actually rather disappointed in the response from the public to this poll. Just 28 thousand signatures after all the efforts of No2ID and the political posturing, back-tracking and outright changes in tack that it prompted over the last few years? I'd say it was the normal apathy from the UK electorate, except that this is not the petition that has been generating all the fuss - that one has about 1.5 *million* signatures and is over the introduction of per-mile road charging for the most heavily congested roads.

I doubt that much is going to stand in the way of the UK introduction of biometric ID cards now, short of the usual government incompetence with large scale IT projects or the Conservatives getting elected and actually keeping their promise to scrap the plan. Congestion charging on the otherhand now seems a little more touch and go and it's unlikely that a simple email is going to placate the dissenters that signed that petetion. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how that gets responded to, especially since we're looking at a general election in the next year or so and there are going to be a lot of Labour voters' names on that list...

According to Prevent Genocide International, No other factor [than ID cards] was more significant in facilitating the speed and magnitude of the 100 days of mass killing in Rwanda. About 1 million people butchered.

From the same page:

In Nazi Germany in July 1938, only a few months before Kristallnacht, the infamous "J-stamp" was introduced on ID cards and later on passports. The use of specially marked "J-stamp" ID cards by Nazi Germany preceded the yellow Star of David badges. In Norway, where yellow cloth badges were not introduced, the stamped ID card was used in the identification of more than 750 Jews deported to death camps in Poland.

They also provide a 'nice' table:

Genocide: Nazi Germany (1938-1945), Rwanda (1990-1994)

Mass Expulsion: Ethiopia (Persons with Eritrean affiliation 1998), Bhutan (Lhotshampas, 1991), Vietnam (Hoa ethnic Chinese 1978-1979), France (Alsace-Lorraine 1918-1920)

Forced Relocation: USSR (ethnic Koreans 1937, Volga Germans 1941, Kalmyks, Karachai, 1943, Crimean Tatars, Meshkhetian Turks Chechens, Ingush, Balkars 1944, ethnic Greeks, 1949)

Group Denationalization: Cambodia (ethnic Vietnamese 1993), Myanmar (Rohingya Arakanese 1992), Syria (Kurds 1962)

In regard to the UK cattle tagging ID card system, The Times reported:

David Blunkett, was no better. On the subject of identity cards he once said: No one should fear correct identification. Those words always remind me of one the more distressing details of the Eichmann trial: how he told his executioner that the fate of those killed in the Holocaust was sealed by their answers to the 1939 census on religious background recorded on paper for a Hollerith machine, an early mechanical computer. Quite literally, their cards were marked.

Needless to say, lesser abuses than these are far more common.

The UK system is unbelievably scary. Going far beyond the punchcard Hollerith machine, our ID cards are backed by the National Identity Register, a database designed to merge all government databases and commercial data trails into a personal surveillance dossier that makes 1984 look respectful.

So scared is the Govt of the public finding out about this that they are secretly forcing passport renewers on to this Orwellian database from March 26th.

They are also forcing doctors to betray their patients' confidence and upload your private medical records to another insecure national database, again without telling you.

I'm sorry if you haven't been warned about this before: NO2ID has a budget around 1000 times smaller than the Home Office but you do still have a few weeks to protect yourself. Click the 3 links above and most importantly, read the NO2ID newsletter.

According to Prevent Genocide International, No other factor [than ID cards] was more significant in facilitating the speed and magnitude of the 100 days of mass killing in Rwanda. About 1 million people butchered.

From the same page:

In Nazi Germany in July 1938, only a few months before Kristallnacht, the infamous "J-stamp" was introduced on ID cards and later on passports. The use of specially marked "J-stamp" ID cards by Nazi Germany preceded the yellow Star of David badges. In Norway, where yellow cloth badges were not introduced, the stamped ID card was used in the identification of more than 750 Jews deported to death camps in Poland.

They also provide a 'nice' table:

Genocide: Nazi Germany (1938-1945), Rwanda (1990-1994)

Mass Expulsion: Ethiopia (Persons with Eritrean affiliation 1998), Bhutan (Lhotshampas, 1991), Vietnam (Hoa ethnic Chinese 1978-1979), France (Alsace-Lorraine 1918-1920)

Forced Relocation: USSR (ethnic Koreans 1937, Volga Germans 1941, Kalmyks, Karachai, 1943, Crimean Tatars, Meshkhetian Turks Chechens, Ingush, Balkars 1944, ethnic Greeks, 1949)

Group Denationalization: Cambodia (ethnic Vietnamese 1993), Myanmar (Rohingya Arakanese 1992), Syria (Kurds 1962)

In regard to the UK cattle tagging ID card system, The Times reported:

David Blunkett, was no better. On the subject of identity cards he once said: No one should fear correct identification. Those words always remind me of one the more distressing details of the Eichmann trial: how he told his executioner that the fate of those killed in the Holocaust was sealed by their answers to the 1939 census on religious background recorded on paper for a Hollerith machine, an early mechanical computer. Quite literally, their cards were marked.

Needless to say, lesser abuses than these are far more common.

The UK system is unbelievably scary. Going far beyond the punchcard Hollerith machine, our ID cards are backed by the National Identity Register, a database designed to merge all government databases and commercial data trails into a personal surveillance dossier that makes 1984 look respectful.

So scared is the Govt of the public finding out about this that they are secretly forcing passport renewers on to this Orwellian database from March 26th.

They are also forcing doctors to betray their patients' confidence and upload your private medical records to another insecure national database, again without telling you.

I'm sorry if you haven't been warned about this before: NO2ID has a budget around 1000 times smaller than the Home Office but you do still have a few weeks to protect yourself. Click the 3 links above and most importantly, read the NO2ID newsletter.

There is No2ID which organises resistance to such things, including defence funds for people who refuse to register for ID cards and the National Identity Database. They have been quite successful. The public opposition to the ID Database has increased massively over the past year, which is probably why the govt is doing this. By integrating existing databases, they needn't rely on anyone registering.

Britain has legislated to become the first (and hopefully only) Orwellian surveillance society. We are already a surveillance society according to the Information Commissioner.
But it will be 1000x worse should we let the Govt connect all its databases together via the new ID database (NIR). All of the Govt's main policies over the last 6 months have involved coercing the public on to new databases. The most insidious is the forced and secret registration of passport applicants on to the ID database, starting in the next 6 months.

If you want Britain to remain a free country, I strongly urge you to check out the NO2ID campaign.

relevant to this issue:

http://www.no2id.net/
http://www.papersplease.org/

Think hard about whether you really want to trade the last shred of privacy for a little bit of 'added security'.

The UK plan much more than just ID. See http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/whyNot.php#1

Please people, support NO2ID and tell Blair where to shove his flawed ID cards and CCTV cameras.

Home Office spokesman.
"If you were a criminal, you might as well just steal a passport."

Missing the point dude.
If my passport gets stolen, I report it. It gets cloned, I've no idea somebody is impersonating me, screwing up my life (and others).
Please people, support NO2ID and tell Blair where to shove his flawed ID cards and CCTV cameras.

It's very new but, being backed by NO2ID, will likely run and run. I'm trying to get them to call it "Boycott the Medical Database"

http://www.nhsconfidentiality.org/

Please forward this info to everybody you know.

Linking medical, email, phone, bank & credit card records will be as simple as putting your new National Identity Registration number on those existing databases and allowing the Govt to query them.

Furthermore, you will be denied a new passport unless you give up this information, according to the ID Cards Act.

This comes two months after Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."
He described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."

More details of how the National Identity Register will be the hub of Britain's Surveillance State.

NO2ID is an increasingly successful campaign, which has helped mastermind the recent publicity. We are highly respected in both Parliament and the media. Join the monthly mailing list so that you can keep one step ahead of the Govt's attempts to snoop on you.

Unfortunately, this threat is very real. Stealth data collection through passport interviews is planned to start within 6 months - although there is still time to renew. Please forward this information on to anyone you think might like to keep Britain a free country.

Linking medical, email, phone, bank & credit card records will be as simple as putting your new National Identity Registration number on those existing databases and allowing the Govt to query them.

Furthermore, you will be denied a new passport unless you give up this information, according to the ID Cards Act.

This comes two months after Gordon Brown was reported to be "planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street businesses to share confidential information with police databases."
He described how "police could be alerted as soon as a wanted person used a biometric-enabled cash card or even entered a building via an iris-scan door."

More details of how the National Identity Register will be the hub of Britain's Surveillance State.

NO2ID is an increasingly successful campaign, which has helped mastermind the recent publicity. We are highly respected in both Parliament and the media. Join the monthly mailing list so that you can keep one step ahead of the Govt's attempts to snoop on you.

Unfortunately, this threat is very real. Stealth data collection through passport interviews is planned to start within 6 months - although there is still time to renew. Please forward this information on to anyone you think might like to keep Britain a free country.

It sounds like the government is still trying to work out what the scheme is going to do. The wretched Joan Ryan MP* (who is now responsible for the ID Cards system) admitted at Biometrics 2006 that the government is still working on the report that will say how ID cards will benefit individuals and government departments.

Mind you what she did say should chill the blood: 'Anything which streamlines the delivery of public and private sector services while protecting personal privacy must make the UK a more attractive country to do business in. And this reinforces the point that the potential is there to be realised in private sector transactions as well as in government - Opening a bank account; applying for a mortgage or taking out a loan - which all have benefits for the bank in reducing identity fraud and for the citizen in safeguarding their data and good credit record. Other areas of use could be when buying a car; travelling through Europe; shopping securely on-line; getting a driving licence; making a claim for social security benefits; buying alcohol; and when notifying all and sundry of a change of address.'

If the likes of Joan Ryan and her cronies have their way, buying a car, a bottle of wine or shopping online will become notifiable to the government.

So if you haven't done so already, it's time to join No2ID.

* If you want to know just how wretched. She stood up in the Commons this week and insisted that the current operation of the US/UK Extradition Treaty offered 'rough parity' between the two nations. This is the Treaty which we've ratified (but the US hasn't) that allows the US to extradite people from the UK on the grounds of hearsay without the case being heard in a British court; it doesn't work the other way round. Like ID cards we can thank Mad Mullah Blunkett for this one.

I hope your comment was of the straight latter meaning, not a sarcastic reference to the former.

Actually, I question the methodology they use for the polls in the first place. The vast majority of those I've seen cited in the media are government-funded, and carried out by the kind of organisation one hires when one already knows the result required.

Having seen the full list of questions they asked in a couple of cases, it usually goes something like this:

1. Do you believe terrorism is a threat to UK security?
2. Do you believe fraudulent benefit claims represent a significant drain on the UK economy?
3. Do you believe immigrants working illegally take jobs away from unemployed British citizens?
4. Do you believe identity theft is increasing at a rate of 500% per year?
5. Do you believe the UK government should introduce identity cards?

What they fail to mention is that:

1. most of the terrorists in recent high profile attacks have used 100% legitimate identity documents [PDF];
2. no arguments have yet been presented by the government to show how the number of fraudulent benefit claims would actually be reduced in practice;
3. the existing mechanisms to track visitors on visas and illegal immigrants don't work well, so there's little reason to believe any similar but newer system will do any better;
4. the proposed National Identity Register represents a database of the total life history of each individual, and as such will be the single biggest target for identity thieves ever created;
5. the cost of all of this is likely to run to billions of pounds (and until a couple of weeks ago the government consistently refused to give any quantitative estimate of the total cost of the system to all parties, and even the 5.4 billion pound figure in that article was immediately challenged by other parties who put the likely cost several times higher);
6. pretty much no major government IT project in recent British history has come in even close to on-time or on-budget, and there have been very expensive failures when projects were scrapped after years of development to cut losses
7. the civil liberties implications of the measures proposed are pretty horrendous.

You show me a study that presents both the questions at the top of this post and the verifiable facts afterwards in a balanced way and then tells me the majority of the population wants ID cards, and I'll believe my failure to encounter a single person who speaks favourably of them is just a matter of moving in different circles. Until then, it's just lying with statistics, and you can conduct as many polls as you like but still you have no meaningful information about how the population as a whole would feel on the issue if it had a balanced knowledge of the potential advantages and potential risks.

Maybe it's the history of the British fight against the IRA, but it seems to me that the British people have been a little more tolerant of state intrusion than Americans. What I infer is happening now is that the overboard Orwellianism of the current British government is reaching a tipping point where a lot of Brits are wondering, "How much is too much?".

Your replies from Brits so far are quite informative in the sense of why Britons have been so tolerant. They have no idea how close Britain is to a totalitarian dictatorship.

This Government has already passed 2 truly totalitarian laws:

1. The Civil Contingencies Act, which is almost exactly the same as Hitler's Enabling Act.

2. The Identity Cards Act, which not only forces passport renewers on to a database, it also connects that database with 4 other significant databases (tax system, police records, ANPR & passports) thus creating the world's most intrusive database. It does not stop there either. There is nothing preventing our medical records, phone records, email & surfing records, credit card records etc being linked to the meta-database.

The Govt is trying to get a 3rd totalitarian law through, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. This, like the Civil Contingencies Act, grants almost unfettered power to a handful of people. While CCA requires an emergency to be declared and cannot abolish elections or amend the European Convention of Human Rights (its only limitations), legislation under LRRB currently requires approval (without debate) by both Houses and likewise cannot amend the ECHR. It's amended version is no less dangerous AFAIK.

There are also 4 anti-terror laws, all worse than your Patriot Act and two of which have been ruled to contravene the ECHR (both for locking people up without trial).

Thanks to people like Lord Phillips, the House of Lords has been doing a reasonable job of standing up to Blair's executive, with the two obvious exceptions above. They have very little power (which they are reluctant to use), merely being able to hold up a Bill for about a year. The Law Lords are not able to overturn laws, but simply rule them incompatible with other laws like the ECHR.

As I implied at the start, the reason we've allowed this is that almost no-one knows. I bet less than 1% of Britons have even heard of the Civil Contingencies Act.

We are not taught to scrutinise our Govt as I understand Americans are. We haven't had to fear our Govt in modern times, and most people who did were left wingers who voted for Blair and have been slow to realise how dangerous he is.
We also don't realise that Britain is an elective dictatorship which has respected freedoms only because of the benign nature of its governments. The Conservative opposition has been remarkably quiet as has the media until the last few months. I kid you not, if Britain survives this attack on our freedoms (and that's a big if) it will be because of blogs, unfunded campaigns, leaks and Blair's mistakes like Iraq & pushing for 90-days detention.

I wrote about Britain's remaining safeguards here.

Re: stopping ID cards, go to NO2ID.

PR will help but isn't nearly enough. Multiple electoral candidates from parties will help too.

We need to devolve power from the PM. He/she should not be allowed to exert undue influence over ministers and MPs - perhaps by no-one (including the electorate) knowing who the PM will be, thus voting purely on which candidate you trust. The elected MPs will subsequently vote for a PM, and perhaps several senior ministers.

The House of Lords should be able to set up courts to hold ministers accountable under existing behavioural guidelines.

I'd be tempted to try secret ballots too. The data could always be revealed just before the next election.

I'm not sure the PM's office should be able write legislation. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (never heard of it?) contains a clause which is equivalent to Hitler's Enabling Act ie instant dictatorship in the event of an emergency (Reichstag). I'm still not sure if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (since amended) is even worse.

Our Parliamentary Committee for the Constitution said that the National Identity Cards Bill should be renamed the National Identity Register and Identity Cards Bill. They were ignored and thus only now, once the legislation has been passed, do the public (and MPs) get to see the massive privacy implications.

Last time we had these kind of upstarts abusing the will of the people, we had a Civil War and chopped off the leader's head.

As soon as they can get the tech working, passport applicants/renewers will be entered on the National Identity Register (NIR). There is no opt out.

This NIR is initially planned to be linked to your tax records, police records, passport records and even the new Automated Number Plate Recogntion system which tracks all your car journeys.

This, of course, is just the beginning, but is already the world's most intrusive database on citizens, going further than even China. If Brown gets his way, it looks like your credit card transactions, phone calls & emails will soon be able to automatically flag you as a possible troublemaker.

Britain's democracy has failed to stop this. It will likewise not stop future governments of any variety abusing you via your data.

NO2ID has known about this all along and we have been telling anyone who would listen. The campaign is extremely well run and full of great people, but we need YOUR help to stop this Orwellian nightmare.

Even though it has RFID, the ones coming in October will cost more (£93) and you will be entered into the National Identity Register (read: Be interrogated, DNA-swabbed and fingerprinted like a criminal).

Not quite - the price will go up to £66 in October (see http://www.no2id.net/ ), and it'll be in 2008 that you'll have to pay £93, and be entered into the database (a process which the Labour Government falsely claimed you'd be able to opt out of as a compromise - no, we won't). But yes, renewing sooner rather than later is a good idea.

... and yet people say "if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear" about ID Card legislation and the like. This is EXACTLY the reason that such powerful laws should not be made, because they will ALWAYS be misused.

Some bozo in a Gov office needs some info on someone ...
Option 1: Call his references, call previous jobs, call his university, school, etc, etc, etc
Option 2: Use the Patriot Act to get all the above to call you with the information

Which is easier? So which is more likely!

Just Say NO!

I grew up in the 70s in London when the IRA were fairly routinely blowing stuff up. At no stage did anyone suggest compulsory ID to deal with this. Mainly the bins were taken off the trains and eventually a 'ring-of-steel' (meaning police checkpoints at increased presence) around the City Of London (our Wall St). Then somehow by the end of nineties we had become the most surveilled people on Earth.

Post 911 the talk of terrorism never went away. And then 7/7 came along and the paranoia and suspicion just went sky-high. Now we too lived in a country where any change of law could be carried off with the mere mention of the T-word. (Either that or the other one, the P-word, the Glitter-crime). This year Blair has is own little version of the Patriot act coming into force, one where he can issue laws without recourse to Parliament as long as they don't include tax increases or a prison penalty greater than 24 months.

Electronic sniffers are be trialed on a few parts of the underground smelling for explosive traces and there is a scheme in planning for a countrywide network of number plate recognition cameras recording all vehicles on a gigantic DB. Most London Transport users use RFID (oyster) in replacement for the old tickets and all this data is recorded. We will have RFID national ID soon at a cost of around £90 per person, compulsory. I could go on but here's a link or two to go on with.

http://www.no2id.net/

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/

So, as Orwell (real name: Eric Blair) predicted, we really are heading for a BB state. It's obvious that the UK is the USs puppy dog and we are in the 'endless' war just as long as you are. Really the UK is just another state of the USA. Maybe even quite a powerful and important one at that.

There is a saying in England "Watch America that's what here will be like in 10 years time" - now it seems we've just about caught up or even exceeded what's going on in the US.