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Card Makers Say UK Citizens Want Biometric ID Cards
ArsonPanda writes "ZDnet is running a story on a recent survey in the UK showing overwhelming 80% public support of universal, biometricly enhanced citizen ID cards. Everybody here's fine with supplying the gubmit w/ your retinal scans and fingerprints, right?"
This was a few weeks ago!
Slashdot - old news for nerds... Stuff long forgotten!
I'm guessing this study was funded by the company who will produce these cards and anyone supporting their fascist ideas. screw that.
so those this mean that if they jump of a bridge we will too.
Honestly, you decide to change your eye color one day, and the next thing you know, all the billboards are calling you "Mr. Yakamoto".... :P
For a second there I thought it said RECTAL scans!
The worst tyranny is the one practiced with the consent of the governed.
The big thing to remember here is that the survey was conducted by the card maker, not an independant source. The results may not be as reliable as most would like.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
It is reported that in the UK, mandatory anal probes have an overwhelming approval rating
Why don't we just hand over all our biometric data to a trusted third party like microsoft. They could manage the identities of the entire population of the world and free up needed resources for governments.
passport.NET could handle this without any major changes.
[/sarcasm]
Card makers say the mind control satellites are up to 80% effectiveness.
If you want to be able to identify everybody? Why don't 'they' just implant something like an ibutton in every newborn child :P
Oh, and some explosive device so it can't be removed....
Just like Microsoft gets fan mail and people agree with Dubya.
"The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?" -- Richard Bach, Illusions
This is from a country who already rigorously monitors its citizens with CCTV everywhere they go. Perhaps the UK could be considered a testbed for how people react when their basic rights are subtlely chipped away. It's all in the name of safety and convenience.
The Ben Franklin Adage still applies, doubly so:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty or safety. Nor, are they likely to end up with either."
People need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights.
and stop whining about "losing freedoms" or "privacy". Sure it can be abused. But we need a way to identify people, and if you think that driver's licenses and social security numbers aren't already doing this, you're just closing your eyes to it.
If anything, requiring fingerprints or retinal scans will make these ids more secure and trustworthy.
or do you like the way id theft is so common in the US that there's a form you can fill out when yours has been stolen? look here
Meh. I'm sure this is going to cause a lot of turmoil here, but why?
The government already has the ability to access most of your records with little or no plausible cause. We aren't giving consent to the government to access our curriculum vitae's - that's already been done a long time ago. At this point, we are just making it more convenient for them.
"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - G.B. Shaw
I really can't see the danger ! If I possess a card with my name and my finger print/retinal scan on it where is the problem ? I have a reliable way to prove my name. I dont have to show the card to anyone I dont like nor let them scan my retinal. And nobody can steal the card and use it under my name.
Having a central repository of all citizens with their biometric data may be a problem, but thats another story.
Enron.
According to the BBC most people are against such an ID card and plans for one will most likely be abandoned.
Here are some links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2688697.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2657143.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2583651.stm
Alert Alert!
We have an eye-dee-ten-tee error!
It's spelled "Gub'ment" notice the 'N'
Say it with me now "Gub'ment", "Gub'ment"
That wasn't so hard now was it?
Reasons cited for supporting entitlement cards included "were to address fraud", "to enhance control of illegal immigration", and -- in SchlumbergerSema's words -- "a general view that making it easier to identify individuals was a good thing."
We must all be wary of such technology. This could be a dangerous thing depending upon how it's implemented. For instance, if it was used as a way of tracking you and making sure that advertising is beamed directly into your ear or eyes then this would be VERY BAD. Privacy is a fundamental part of our rights and should NEVER be trod upon. If this was ever implemented I would want to make sure that it would never encroach upon my rights of anonymnity.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
The government claim only 2000 responses have been received, yet Stand know that nearly 5000 people sent in concerns about ID cards via their website.
All British Slashdotters should Fax their MP and complain about this.
It worked last year when the stand/fax your mp campaign made the government change their minds about letting every UK agency have access to our private data.
It worked last time, and it will work again, spend 10 minutes writing a fax, and make your views and opinion of this whitewash heard.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
Comment removed based on user account deletion
in 5 years
So what happens when a criminal hacks into any database that happens to be storing this biometric data?
Well, unless you know some way to get a new set of eyeballs or finger prints, this criminal will be able to steal your identy for the rest of your life!
When I got my Colorado driver's license, I was required to place my finger on a digitizer just before my picture was taken. Colorado has my fingerprint associated with my name, address, social security number, weight, hair color, eye color, picture, etc...
:-P Hey, I know, why don't we have a race to see who can conceive the most creatively evil police state in the world!
I was told I had to do it or I couldn't drive in Colorado.
Looks like Colorado is WAY ahead of the UK on this...
Go USA go...! Rah rah for the home team...!
Now, just for the sake of playing devil's advocate, I'd like to know exactly why this is a good idea, or why this is not a good idea. From a privacy point of view, we're already tracked by credit card purchases, website cookies, university ID card/swipe in systems, automatic road toll devices, grocery store club cards, and many other technologies. Now, I know that all of these are more or less voluntary, and if you really valued your privacy above all conveniences, you could live without them. However, for the rest of us that aren't that dedicated, how is this so bad? I'm not trying to start a flame war, I just want to gauge reactions. Comments?
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Albert Einstein
How would this be any worse then the systems we have today. This would not hinder anyones privacy anymore then social security cards, birth certs, drivers license, credit cards, bank cards etc. If anything it would protect peoples privacy and property more then the current systems do.
Green cards scam's, credit card fraud, theft on many levels would be wiped out.
I deleted my sig years ago.
An independent survey at Stand has been taken, amongst others, where the overwhelming majority of responses have been against the introduction of an ID card of any kind.
The Government consultation emall address automagically responded to all submissions with "Thank you for your email in support of the introduction of entitlement cards". Its clear that they want to push this through wether it will reduce crime and fraud or not, and wether anyone wants these cards or not.
The Home Secretary himeslf had his identity stolen by a journalist to highlight the dangers of identity theft, which will without a doubt rise if these new cards are introduced.
For an insight into why these cards are true evil, read this piece in The Guardian about how the Spanish have been habituated into ID cards like battery chickens who refuse to leave thier cages when the doors are opened.
Really, if Europeans want to have ID cards, no one in the UK has a problem with that, and no one here is interested in arguing with Europeans who think that ID cards are "no problem at all". If you want ID cards, you are free(??!) to use them all you like. The British do not want them, under any circumstances short of actual war in Europe, and even then, only temporarily.
For us ID cards are a waste of time, money and most importantly, a violation of the human rights of British Citizens.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Card Makers Say UK Citizens Want Biometric ID Cards
And in another late developing story, the people of the UK are supporting a new proposal to ban soccer. New at eleven...
If you think
For any idiot who wants a method of tagging us like cattle... I wholly support rectal scans. I will also be happy to submit the contents of said oriface for.... um.. DNA examination, in the form of a flaming brown paper bag on the doorstep of supporting parties.
If given the choice, would you prefer:
[_] That your ID card be enhanced with the latest technologies, which make identity theft and fraud with your name nearly impossible, a 50% income tax break for 10 years and the privilege of being knighted by the queen, or
[_] To keep your current ID card, allow our country to fall behind the times and encourage the worlds mot notorious criminals to move here to avoid getting caught by everyone elses superior identity technology, lose your job, and be shot, or deported, or both?
The other 12% chose option #2
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
- Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince"
Taken from the Alpha Centauri computer game.
About a year ago in England a law was passed permitting UK police to carry electronic fingerprint scanners. It is, of course, a criminal offence to refuse to be scanned if an officer chooses to exercise his right to do so. Couple that with their right to search you if they have a whim to do so (sorry, that'd be justifiable cause in legalese) and I think the introduction of ID cards and their ilk is, mostly, an irrelevance: they can already do whatever they wish.
he very well can, if you're driving. and in some states you don't even have to be driving: they can take you down to be held until your identity can be resloved.
further more, every where i go know they want a driver's license. i can't buy beer without it, i can't have a bank account. etc. etc.
might as well have an id card.
:T:R:A:N:S:
the rope on your right hand is the bathroom, your left hand is the kitchen, there's a sandwich in there if you get hungry... and do NOT TOUCH YOUR EYES!
haha.. minority report = best movie ever
"You had this look that of an angel, it was such a bad disguise" --Dishwalla
I live in the UK and I do not even have a photo on my driving license. I can lend it to anyone and they can drive my car but then hey, at present we do not need any ID at all to drive a car so they can drive the car anyway and say they are me. I can produce my license later and all is OK.
The current situation is silly and needs change so they have brought out photo licenses (like you have in the US) but no one can make me get one.
This idea will not run but a compromise will be reached like making me get a photo license so that only I can use it. They may expect me to have it when I drive. In the UK the gubment always suggest something like this and by the time it gets through it is something else.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
On previously: coporate sponsored surveys are 100% reliable
On now: UK citizens want biometric ID cards
On next: UK citizens support Presidents Bush'n'Blair
79% of UK survey respondents work for biometric ID card companies.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
The technique is simple: phrases the questions in such a way that you get the answers you want:
Hard to say no to that one.
In a predominantly "minority" area:
Again, hard to say no, especially if you're a member of that under-served "minority".
(I put "minority" in quotes only because it's not really a minority in a majority "minority" jurisdiction, is it?)
Sure, $thing sounds pretty bad, whatever it is.
And so forth. You can easily construct your own loaded questions. With a few bucks, you can get a pollster to construct even more devious ones, and call a bunch of people who are in too much of a hurry to really give the question the consideration it deserves. Shake, bake, and then claim only your product/plan/candidate can solve the "problem."
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
So biometrics are not perfect, it's still better than a lame arse bits of paper we use in the USA to "identify" ourselves (not that cashiers even bother checking them - think automated gas pumps too). I'm for eye ballers and thumb printing. As for the "Big Brother" argument, how many of us in the USA don't have a birth certificate and SS#? Not many...
...And another child is up past his bed time. Ban this fool please so the level of intelligence will rise!
Somebody has already mentioned the purvasive CCTV camera that make the UK the most visually monitored country in history. What about the partial criminalization of encryption under the RIP Act? You have to give the government your key if they demand it, otherwise 2 years in prison. The governement has sought, and obtained, powers to monitor e-mail, web usage and phone calls without judicial warrants. Herr Ashcroft is green with envy.
These audacious power grabs by the "liberal" Tony Blair are only a part of a hard turn towards authoritarianism in the UK. Right now they are trying to dump the right to trial by jury in many circumstances--basically when the government (them again!) determines it is dangerous or unwieldy to have a jury trial. The private right of gun ownership has been substantially destroyed in the past several years (with a concurrent rise in violent crime, including a rapid rise in gun use by criminals). People now go to jail in the UK for so-called "hate speech".
We have A LOT of problems in the US. A government that wants to be able to detain you forever, without trial, by one man's fiat (you are an enemy combatant!) obviously needs to be checked, and quickly. But in the UK, the populace seems to accept the government-fostered fantasy that the government is actually working for the "common good", as opposed to the pure aggrandizement of power whenever possible, which is what EVERY government ALWAYS tries if allowed to do so. What has broken their will, I don't know--years of inept socialist rule? Some post-colonial ennui? Too much spotted dick?
Whatever it is, I hope to hell we can keep it out of here. We have enough problems of our own right now.
have no clue what a toothbrush is? Big surprise!
according to a report commissioned by the world's biggest smart card maker
Remind me why I'm supposed to believe this propoganda?
I, frankly, have no problem with using a retinal scan to identify myself. Retinal scans are very hard (from what I've read) to fake, and would deter common criminal activity.
Yes, any system can be hacked. Yes, one could either modify that backend to accept an illegal scan or somehow get around the retinal scanner itself...but can that not be done now?
It's quite easy to, say, get a credit card number right now. It's not like all those signatures actually get checked - one has to dispute, and then go through litigation, etc. A simple retinal scan on purchase would go a long way.
I'm all in favor.
ls:
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?
America is the Future, Europe is the Past
By Anal Cox
The Marquis de Lafayette who came here to fight in our Revolution said, "The welfare of America is closely bound up with the welfare of mankind." Today, however, I suspect he would reverse that to say that the welfare of mankind is bound up with the welfare of America.
In a recent column about Europe, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, wrote of "the new anti-Americanism, a blend of jealousy and resentment of America's overwhelming economic and military power." One German editor calls it the "Axis of Envy." The bottom line, said Friedman, is that "Many Europeans today fear, or detest, America more than they fear Saddam."
For some time now, whenever we have read or heard a news story about Europe, it is usually about its refusal, nation by nation, to cooperate with the United States, to berate the United States, and to cling to some very outdated and unrealistic notions. We used to think the Europeans were our allies, but they are really more like our spiteful, poor relations.
The resentment Europeans feel reflects the fact that America is the future and Europe is the past.
This is brought into sharp focus in a brilliant analysis, "Old and In the Way", by Karl Zinsmeister. It appears in the December edition of The American Enterprise (www.TAEmag.com). He is the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine and has the happy facility of taking very complicated subjects and clarifying them. The magazine is published by the American Enterprise Institute and is devoted to politics, business, and culture.
"If Europeans want to ban the death penalty," writes Zinsmeister, "that's fine with Americans; but don't ask us to follow the same dictate. If Europeans think selling military technology to North Korea and Iran, and helping Libya and Iraq with their oil industries is a good idea, expect not a shred of support from the US. If Europeans believe their determination to send billions of dollars to Yasser Arafat is likely to speed peace in the Middle East, we won't stop them."
This is, of course, precisely what the Europeans have been doing in the face of every indication that the nations with whom they are doing business want an Islamic Europe or, in the case of North Korea, have demonstrated once again that no Communist nation can be trusted.
Zinsmeister points out that the elites who run Europe have an exaggerated belief in the power of diplomacy. This is odd considering the last century's history in which European diplomacy failed to deter two World Wars. If war is simply a different form of diplomacy (we've tried talking to Saddam) then we are soon to apply it to the one man who has given the United Nations the opportunity to prove beyond any doubt its utter impotence and irrelevance. The UN is the world's epicenter of blather.
A number of key factors have consigned Europe to stagnation and most of them reflect its love affair with Socialism. Its embrace of statism was undeterred by the long years of the Cold War when the then-Soviet Russia threatened to impose Communism on the whole of Europe. It had seized or was ceded Eastern Europe after World War II and it took nearly fifty years for the Poles to cast them out. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its captive states rapidly breathed free air again, but then decided to create its own Soviet in the form of the European Union, thinking that was the way to compete with the United States.
The EU is a bunch of bureaucratic elites and Europeans have little or no say in their dictates. Socialists to the core, they think they will be able to compete with the US if they just pass a few more thousand rules, regulations, and, of course, trade restrictions.
The Europeans, however, cannot compete with Americans and Zinsmeister tells us why. "The locomotive of Europe is the German economy, which has been in a serious mess for more than a decade. Germany's annual growth rate over the past ten years has been a limp 1.4 percent." The answer is just too obvious. "The German labor market has become one of the most inflexible and uncompetitive in the world, which is why unemployment has been stuck at 9-10 percent for years, even amid a global economic boom." Ours, by contrast, is about five percent. If we stop importing high tech and other workers, unemployed Americans with comparable skills will be able to get back to work.
To state it plainly, Europeans don't work as hard or as long as Americans. We are far more productive. Unlike America's immigrants who assimilate, Europe's immigrant population tends to end up on welfare. The European Union estimates that it will take fifty million immigrants over the next few years just to maintain a big enough working population to fund the programs for those who are retired or soon will be. Most of those immigrants will come from North Africa and the Middle East. Since Europeans are not reproducing, the native born Germans, Italians, French and others are becoming nations of old people with too few to replace them. If this continues, Europe is a generation away from becoming an Islamic continent.
Shlumberger, the company that made this survey, will be one of the companies to profit when the Gulf War ][ hits off.
They have a huge business in Oil extraction services and technologies.
These people are evil folks; but then, a company that employs agressive lobbying and spin tactics in order to turn a population into fleecable sheep (each ID card will cost over $25 per person in the UK, now thats what I call "Wool") can only be bad.
Huh?
And be the first on your block to have the matching forehead-number tatoo!
MS says that US consumers want a copy of windows on all their computers and Ford believes that nobody wishes to buy GM cars anymore.
I mean, come on.
-- james
To be honest, I would have no problem with submitting my retinal scans and fingerprints: as long as it was mandated by law that no government agency could retain this data. Instead, it would be encoded on the card itself. That way (assuming sufficiently strong encryption - something on the order of AES, preferably - on the card), we would have a secure identification system (with only the card ID being verified by a central server). Honestly, there are plenty of intelligent ways of doing this. With a sufficiently intelligent processor, it could be done very securely. A simple challenge-response system could be set up. Scan your retina, verify the card, then the reader asks the card if the scan matches the retina on file. Simple as that, without even an opportunity for nosy people to pull data off the card.
-Mike-Ban soccer, HELL YES, it FOOTBALL you usian TWAT!
they lie
.gov claims approx 2000 supporting responces yet just one web site has recorded over 5000 responses forwarded to .gov, the overwhelming majority against id cards.
the government lies
The "consultation" process has been flawed and may well be challenged in the courts.
The
See www.stand.org.uk
Domo arogato, Mr. Roboto?
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto?
Nuff said.
Perhaps it's the depersonalization of it all. Some of the objections to this may have to do with people's fears of becoming numbers, rather than people (If you've ever dealt with the phone company, you know exactly what I mean).
A more-secure driver's license is probably a good thing... but it's only as secure at the procedures required to obtain one. If any Tom/Dick/Harry can simply trot down to the DMV with a birth certificate and get their spanking-new Biometric-secured(TM) Driver's License... then we are wasting our time and money. If someone DOES steal your identity, (or the computer mixes up your name with the other Dave Smith's fingerprints) getting it fixed may take some fairly extraordinary measures, particularly if these secure cards are "always right."
The other, more-interesting question that should be asked is this: What will this super-secure "identity card" be used for, and what circumstances will require you to produce it?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
That was the gayest comment EVAH! I realise that on Slashdot this is an incredibly hard dream to realise, but YOU DID IT!
For instance, New Zealand, a so-called enlightened and Democratically-governed nation, has had a number of Citizen Referendums over the last decade, each one overwhelmingly going against the Government of the day's desires, and each time that Citizen Referendum has been totally ignored by that Government of the day. And the citizens didn't bat an eye.
Personally I don't have a problem with ID cards, whether they have biometric information on them or not. What I really would object to is being required to carry one and produce one on the request of a Police Officer.
Someone earlier said that you don't have to carry your drivers licence in the UK when you drive, well technically you do. It is an offence to not produce a licence if stopped by the police, the worst you can get though is a caution and a notice to show your licence, MOT and insurance at a police station in seven days.
Also in many european countries people are required to carry id cards at all times, these have photos on them and could have other data too.
Just my 2 cents worth.
>The private right of gun ownership has been substantially destroyed in the past several years (with a concurrent rise in violent crime, including a rapid rise in gun use by criminals).
It has been illegal to privately own guns in this country for many years now - indeed, you have to join a gun club and purchase a license should a non-police/military person wish to fire a gun (only in the aforementioned club, of course. With blanks).
Gun crime has changed little percentage-wise over the last few years, as the figure shows the proportion of crimes involving guns amongst all other crimes.
If guns were available to anyone, should all they require is license to own a gun (not sure how gun ownership works in the US, sorry; could someone clarify?), I would would put my last two of your cents that gun crime would increase incredibly rapidly, and greatly.
Indeed, they are about to make illegal all imitation firearms - if a police offer is raiding a house, and sees a teenager with what is a air rifle, there is no reason to think that the gun isn't a real one.
FYI, the point of this particular law will be to stop people endangering the lives of (military, police) who capture terrorists, or sort out hostage situations. This all evolved after a security officer was shot whilst on a raid to capture suspected al-quaeda(sp?) terrorists - kneejerk reaction, yes, but there we go.
>But in the UK, the populace seems to accept the government-fostered fantasy that the government is actually working for the "common good"...
Not at all. What grants you this impression? For example, look into the (lack of) support Blair has against military action against Iraq, with the Americans, WITHOUT support and authorisation of the United nations. Look into the handling of the Fire Fighter's strike by the Deputy Prime Minister.
What puzzles me is the fact that people think that we have "private" lives and that the Government doesn't know anything about us. They think that by having an ID card, suddenly we'll all be on some huge database and that this is "wrong".
Well wake up people, you're already on a huge Government database. Look at some of the information they've got on you:
Identity theft is becoming a problem in the UK, surely a national ID card scheme with biometric data contained within it will help protect your identity?
"ban"?
wtf is =your= problem. at least its a brit who gets mad, the brits need more like him, and less of the milque toast LOOSERS like you.
I think that was great! Please mod the parent up as funny.
insanehippie dot net
First of all, let's get one thing straight: the research, conducted on behalf of an ID card manufacturer said that 80 percent of the people they surveryed were in favour of entitlement cards.
/. story submitter has, is ignorant BS.
Entitlement cards, which do not currently exist in the UK, and for which there is no planned supporting legislation have being occassionally discussed as measures to help tackle benefit (welfare to you yanks) fraud and illegal immigration. They are not intended for the everybody, only for those who are receiving state aid, and then only to confirm their identification.
For the benefit of the ignorant - which, from reading the posts attached to this story seems to be a large percentage of those that have added their tuppence-worth (that's two pennies worth) - Britain is heavily targetted by illegal immigrants from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and, lately, even Afghanistan.
These immigrants pay couriers thousands of pounds to smuggle them into the country where some of them claim political asylum and where a great many just disappear into the background. Even unsuccessful asylum claimants are a serious problem as over 80 percent do not leave the country dispite having no right to stay.
The main reason immigrants come to Britain, as opposed to countries a lot closer to their native lands or even one of the many countries along the way, is that Britain is seen as a soft touch immigration-wise. Compared to how they are treated elsewhere in the developed world, asylum seekers are treated very well during and after their appeals processs. Additionally, as Britain is a multicultural nation that has many large immigrant communities, it is easier for illegal immigrants to hide themselves in the crowd.
Naturally, it's not in the British government's interest to have illegal immigrants and other people who aren't entitled to do so making fraudulent claims for benefits (welfare). The problem has to be addressed, if only to stop individuals making multiple claims - in one case, a west African man staying here illegally had over 100 different identities and was getting thousands of pounds of tax payers money that he wasn't entitled to every single week.
And that's ignoring the terrorism angle - if illegal immigrants can gain entry to and remain in the UK so easily then so can operatives from Al Qaeda, etc.
Clearly, this is a fraud and security issue, not a population control one. Treating it as such, and sensationalising it the way that the
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You can get my fingerprints when you pull them from my cold dead...
Oh, wait.
The research ... saw 1,000 people interviewed by telephone.
The results are - inevitably - based on the replies of people willing to answer personal questions in a telephone poll.
People who are worried about privacy are less likely to answer questions on any subject from to a telephone interviewer, precisely because of their worries. So their views are under-represented.
The choice of a telephone poll to investigate privacy concerns - rather than truly anonymous research - suggests incompetence or deliberate bias.
Privacy is a fundamental part of our rights and should NEVER be trod upon. If this was ever implemented I would want to make sure that it would never encroach upon my rights of anonymnity.
This is not true. Nowhere in the constitution has our government promised its citizens a right to privacy - not to say that it shouldn't be, but it's not.
I have taken part in a few surveys in my life. With a question like this, there is always an "IF" phrase at the beginning, or the question is presented as a choice.
Given that this survey was given by a company which hopes to make biometric ID cards, the question was probably much like:
"IF it would prevent terrorism and identity theft and IF biometric ID cards would make everything in your life more convenient and safer, with no possibility of negative consequence, would you support them?"
Or:
"Would you rather have biometric ID cards or to have your wife and children raped and killed before your very eyes?"
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
http://www.xanthas.com/corp.html
Simone Yakamoto - Director of ©Xanthas Mobile
Prior to joining Xanthas, Ms. Yakamoto was a Vice President of Information Technology within Constellation Energy Compendium, formerly Cleveland Gas & Electric, where her career spanned 25 years. Ms. Yakamoto holds two Bachelors degrees from the University of Osaka in Mathematics and Economics, and a MBA from Loyola College of Maryland. She oversees all wireless development efforts including the soon to be finished LikeLike-to-Go project.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I'm British and no poll has EVER favoured ID cards. The British government is trying to make them compulsory but there is overwhelming rejection to them. A figure of 80% for ID cards is pure fantasy. There will be now way they will be introduced.
BTW yeah we have CCTV cameras in the High Streets (where the shops are) and these cameras are used to catch drunken hooligans at night and the very dangerous I-don't-care-if-you're-watching-me-steal groups of Eastern European shoplifters during the daytime.
As much as I respect Ben Franklin, I have to completely disagree with this. Even if someone is stupid enough to want to give up liberty for safety they still deserve liberty. If you start determining who liberty is for based on what they "would give up" or whatever other box you want to check off (skin color, political views, etc) for who "deserves" it, then no one has liberty. Everyone has to have full liberty, or 100% of it is an illusion.
And this new just in...
Company that stands to make millions from a technology is sells, promotes concept with skewed statistics indicating overwelmingly that the public wants the product and they want it now in spades.
Somewhat surpisingly, the public also declared that the product should cost four times what it can be offered for now.
Etc, etc, etc...
PS. Now we get to wait for it to be made law, and then watch the MPs/ministers involved become well paid non-executive directors of the self-same company. Cynic moi?
For those (Brits) wishing to state their opinion on the subject click here
If nature abhors a vacuum, why isn't there more dust in the world?
In the whole of the US, apart from while driving, requiring ID is considered the same as any other search and seizure. Therefore a warrant and/or "probable cause" is required to compel someone to present ID.
See the relevant U.S. Supreme Court case.
Somebody has already mentioned the purvasive CCTV camera that make the UK the most visually monitored country in history.
And it's been proven to reduce crime, and help crime detection, high profile cases like the murder of Jamie Bulger show how CCTV can be extremely helpful, and outweighs any paranoia concerns about being watched while in public. When CCTV is fitted into every home, then we'll complain, not before.
What about the partial criminalization of encryption under the RIP Act? You have to give the government your key if they demand it, otherwise 2 years in prison. The governement has sought, and obtained, powers to monitor e-mail, web usage and phone calls without judicial warrants.
How is being asked to hand over your key, any different to being asked to open your safe on production of a warrant ? Do search warrants mean locks and safes "are partially criminal "?
As for monitoring email, web usuage and so on, the Americans have that field completely sewn up.
The private right of gun ownership has been substantially destroyed in the past several years (with a concurrent rise in violent crime, including a rapid rise in gun use by criminals).
Don't even go there. We WANT tight gun laws, we don't want a gun in every bed side drawer culture. For more information see these comments.
People now go to jail in the UK for so- called "hate speech".
And you can't yell fire in a theatre despite having "free speech". Personally I'm in favour of not being able to say "blacks go home" "Jews faked the holocaust and are all money obssessed thieves" "Muslims are a lower form of life". The law came into force, because racial minorities were being harrassed with verbal abuse morning noon and night by British racists. Your right to free speech ends when it is designed to harm me, just as yelling fire in a theatre is illegal.
What has broken their will, I don't know--years of inept socialist rule? Some post-colonial ennui? Too much spotted dick?
Nice troll, we spent the best part of 2 decades under hard right rule with Thatcher, so spare me the brits are commies crap. As for breaking our will, we broke the governments will over expanding data access laws last year , and over 5000 people wrote and complained about ID cards this year.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
But we are years ahead of them in our weather control doomsday device technology!
actually ... I believe soccer was the original name in use in the UK, formed from the original of Association Football (as opposed to Rugby Football and other forms of the game).
...) ...
History here
Think this link describes it all (haven't checked... too tired
The research, which was conducted on behalf of the euthanasia group EXIT --which supports the introduction of death for the senile and ill of health -- saw 1,000 people interviewed by telephone between 17 and 19 January, 2003.
Who takes poll conducted by or for people with vested interest seriously?
This ID card poll will likely be used for spin by corrupt members of government who want greater surveillance of the public.
Snippet from my SKILFUL.com site:
Why do government have no respect for your right to privacy?
Liberty has to be one of the most important things in life. Well up there, behind health and safety of your family, must be the right to go about your daily life without being forced to live it under oppressive surveillance. For it surely is oppression - being spied upon by the authorities in all that you do. Knowing this information could be used against you, for any purpose they see fit. The so-called all-seeing eye of God over you - meant to instil respect of them and fear of authority.
It can be proven they use propaganda to deceive you into believing them. How?
Ask Security Services in the US, UK, Indonesia (Bali) or anywhere for that matter, to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught!
Garry
That ignorant trolls like you get modded up as "insightful" or "interesting" is sad.
Here, for those who are interested in the truth, are the facts:
1. The overwhelming majority of CCTV in the UK are privately owned and maintained.
Stores, shopping precincts, bars, airports, train stations, etc are, just like in the US, privately-owned premises. And, just like in the US, they have CCTV cameras installed for security and safety purposes.
Where's the problem here? Shouldn't a store owner be entitled to put a camera up in his shop to deter would-be shop-lifters? Shouldn't an airport or a train station have cameras installed to monitor passenger traffic flow and thereby ensure passenger safety?
Would you be happier if the store owner felt less secure whilst earning his livelyhood or if the occassional passenger fell onto the tracks because a station platform was dangerously overcrowded?
2. The majority of government-owned cameras are watching the roads.
Again, these are mainly concerned with the safety of road users. Monitoring traffic jams and detecting motorists speeding through red lights isn't exactly a Big Brother scenario - so why make it out to be?
3. A minority of government-owned cameras are installed in and around high security installations and other potential terrorist targets.
Number one on this list is the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The area around that building is CCTV city, and has been for some time. Gee, I wonder why? Is it because the British goverment is obsessed with what the US Ambassador is having for lunch, or is it because it's a terrorist target?
Gee, let me think...
(Not too long ago, you could drive around all four sides of Grosvenor Square. But, some time in the last decade or so, some bright spark decided it was far too tempting to a potential car bomber and the side that houses the US Embassy was blocked off and protected with anti-tank measures. Not even Buckingham Palace or Downing Street are that secure. Next time you're in town, check it out - it makes Fort Knox look like an open air picnic camp.)
It's worth bearing in mind that Britain's been a terrorist target for over 30 years now. The IRA has been blowing up bombs, killing men, women and children all over Britain whilst freely raising funds in the US since before I was born. We can't (and won't) live in a society where there's someone watching you on every street corner so the security forces use CCTV cameras where they have to to ensure public safety.
(For the benefit of the "cameras can't stop terrorists" brigade, I'll point out now that IRA members rarely try to martyr themselves on suicide missions. They prefer to go in, place their car bomb, etc, and get out. Naturally, being spotted and caught is something they try to avoid, and evidence has shown that CCTVs do help curtail such activities. Suicide bombers are a different breed.)
4. Most CCTV footage is very poor, even when enhanced.
Most cameras are very low quality, black and white monitors. Getting a positive identification from one, even after the picture has been forensically enhanced is very difficult.
How such cameras (even if every single one of them was interlinked, actively manned, etc) could track my movement day in, day out is ridiculous to contemplate. There isn't a camera within half a mile of my house, and I live in a densely populated suburb of London, so where would they start?
So before you yanks (and sorry, but it is mainly yanks) go spouting off about how CCTV obsessed Britain is and how 1984-like our society is, why don't you examine the data? The real picture is a far cry from the sensationalist BS being spouted here.
So, "people need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights", huh? US Patriot Act anyone?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
>It has been illegal to privately own guns in >this country for many years now - indeed, you >have to join a gun club and purchase a license >should a non-police/military person wish to >fire a gun (only in the aforementioned club, of >course. With blanks).
.22LR rifle, a .17HMR rifle, a .273 rifle and a 7x64 rifle. And I'm not a member of any club and I certainly don't use blanks - pretty hard to shoot rabbits or stalk deer with blanks.
Either you're an American troll (likely, considering your spelling of the word 'licence'), or woefully misinformed. It is perfectly legal to own shotguns and rifles in the UK, only handguns were banned in knee-jerk legislation following the Dunblane massacre.
I personally own a 12 bore over-and-under shotgun, a
I do believe that if the only shooting that you do is target shooting, then you must be a member of an approved club. But for sporting and pest-control gun ownership, just drop by your local police station and ask for an application form for a shotgun certificate or a Firearms Certificate (needed for the rifles). It's a very straightforward process.
Cheers,
Nick (who's forgotten his password and the password remailer seems v. slow)
theft got just that bit easier. and because corporations and the governments want cheap and fast gratification.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
I am only in favor of this if they also make it mandatory that we login to the internet using this card. Forget about linking what I view online to my network MAC address, I want it linked to my DNA. Hasn't Speilberg already made a movie about this?
... then fax your local MP (UK citizens only). stand.org.uk are campaigning against this, and you can use a web-based, quick fax submission which will help register an anti-ID card opinion.
There was recently a story in the Register (and BBC news) on how there was a large amount of negative feedback using a web-based fax gateway (FaxYourMP.com I think). The government are doing a separate study on this as well, which the stand.org.uk campagn is against. They have received assurances from the government that any web based complaints will be treated as seriously as regular letters of complaint (much easier too).
If you don't like it though, there is a quick and easy opportunity to register your displeasure at it: www.stand.org.uk.
---
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" - Gandhi
If you read the UK Government's consultation on ID cards, it does have questions like 'We'd like to hear from private-sector organisations who would like to help us run this.' I can't remember the exact wording, but the implication is that the private company that runs it could make a reasonable profit on the big pile of private data it has, meaning the government wouldn't have to pay so much.
80% public support
I have met only one person who thinks identity cards are a good idea. But as he was a right-wing bigot who was attempting to tell me why asylum seekers were "the scum of the earth", I choose to discount his opinion.
I would only support an identity card if I was not required to carry it at all times, if I did not have to pay for it, and if the system was not administered by the current bunch of arseholes playing at government.
Indeed, I'm of the opinion that the government collect far too much information on it's citizens. Every new tax credit involves a 30 page form that asks all sorts of strange questions. I'm sure they only do it because they can, not because it's necissary. The identity card idea is just more of the same.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
Several years ago, in Germany we had a discussion about creating a central database to hold biological data especially of the male population. It was meant to prevent rape because the perpetrator would be pretty easily identified.
The problem that a lot of people miss is that such central databases make it _very_ easy to trace your entire life and doings.
Imagine: you go to a pub or bar and drink a beer. You leave genetical evidence on the glass. You touch some wall and leave genetical evidence, you lose a hair in the subway, etc... it would be possible to trace nearly all you do.
I am no criminal. I do not want to be easily traceable.
-- I love the smell of Blue Screens in the morning.
I really don't understand what is the matter with all slashdot people - I have absolutelly no problem with goverment having my ID and my biometric info, why should I? I mean, most of the arguments here go: Oh, it's obviousluy a bad idea, this info can always be abused. Now, would someone cool down and explain in plain words why are you afraid of someone having your biometric info?
Or is it yet another American phobia? (Anybody see Bowling for the Columbine?)
And i'm publishing a study that states that money donations to me are generally accepted!
I don't know where you live but the low income housing estates round me all have CCTV monitoring.
There's a camera outside my gran's house which is specifically placed to overlook 10 houses in the cul-de-sac opposite from which trouble has traditionally eminated.
She loves it btw. Aggro outside her house has disappeared.
To say it's only in shopping areas is truly misleading.
Maybe it's time you took a trip outside London once in a while.
Our state loves cameras. We have speed cameras now that don't just snap passing speeders but track your car along the road for through multiple cameras and uses them to calculate your *average* speed along the road. The ring-road at the end of my street has them and they cover over 3 miles of thoroughfare.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
>Either you're an American troll (likely, considering your spelling of the word 'licence'), or woefully misinformed. It is perfectly legal to own shotguns and rifles in the UK, only handguns were banned in knee-jerk legislation following the Dunblane massacre.
Woefully misinformed; thanks for the heads-up, I never knew that.
our curriculum vitae's ?
The Classics Police will be around later to remove your identity card and rough you up a bit.
Curricula vitorum, maybe?
Rights can be forfeited. That's one thing you're free to do with liberty- you can squander it, and give it away. Once you've done that, it's gone, and it's difficult to say why you still deserve it. Which is sort of the point- its an unwise trade.
The Franklin quote is cited in every privacy story. There sure seem to be more and more boneheads every day who need to hear it. It seems that most people really don't mind a tyrannical snooping government as long as they're taken care of.
I gave up my essential liberties to obtain a little temporary security, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
Revising our asylum and immigration laws and investing in the actual infrastructure of the welfare system would solve the problems you mention. How many illegal immigrants are deported each month and how would an id card change the powers that the authorities have in such matters? If half the money proposed for identity cards was spent on modifying our existing system, there wouldn't be a problem.
Cheers.
There's no CCTV in my street, my neighbourhood, my house, my garage, my desk....
My gran has 3 CCTV cameras on her street.
It's a council estate, no shops for miles around.
Mind you, she loves it. the frequent trouble has moved on to somewhere else.
The housing estates were the fancy of the post-war socialists in an attempt to artificailly create communities. It's has worked rather too well. Nottingham's biggest estate - Broxtowe - has a community alright. There are 16 year old children that never leave the estate. The whole place as 'run' by 4 or 5 large families and the comminity shields itself through inter-marriage. The place is a fuck up. Car crime is endemic. Organised child abuse exists thanks to the past efforts of the local church. CCTV cameras are all over the place.
CCTV cameras are a solution but to the wrong problem.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Nuff said
We don't have ID cards in the UK because of WWII when the spectre of the words "Papers" loomed over us.
And how does this "only" solution work?
Do we have inter-city border checks for every person ?
Perhaps we could make life a bit simpler by having two queues, one for whites and one for non-whites, after all, only the tan skinned ones could come from abroad.
We are already in the position of forged passports & birth certificates and I really really don't want biometric data stored on a piece of plastic that I will lose at least once in my life.
You can't get new eyes when your old ones get forged
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
And it's been proven to reduce crime, and help crime detection, high profile cases like the murder of Jamie Bulger show how CCTV can be extremely helpful
This is simply untrue. CCTV lowers crime in the areas in which it is applied although street crime rises in surrounding areas not covered. I suppose the logical extrapolation is that everywhere "needs" to be covered by CCTV. Secondly, although it may have lead to a succesful trial and prosecution of the Bulger murderers (both children themselves it should be added). It did NOTHING to stop the murder to start with.
How is being asked to hand over your key, any different to being asked to open your safe on production of a warrant ? Do search warrants mean locks and safes "are partially criminal "?
I don't think the original poster expressed the point very well. The trouble with much of the current RIP legislation is not the issue of handing over the key but who is allowed to make you to hand over a key. I think the bill (act) simply states that any "official" can ask for private data. You should need a court order to get this kind of stuff.
Yet again we see the true colours of the collective English psyche (remember that Scotland has its own system of law and the Welsh simply get told what to do). The classic English way of viewing any problem is to persecute criminals with little or no regard to WHY people commit crime or indeed whether a crime has been committed (e.g. pot smoking).
To top it all off I think that secret surveilance of individuals (e.g. phone taps, mail interception etc) should be BANNED! This does not mean that it isn't done! Instead the unwarey criminal is informed that they are being watched. You may not catch them in the act after that but you will probably make them stop what they are doing which has the same net effect on society.
It is important that not even the government (and esp. the police) appear to be above the law. All people should be treated equally under the law.
As to ID cards.... If it was actually going to be useful I'd probably have one but the "entitlement" card is bullshit. It's a little too poll tax for my liking (that was a laugh - pay up or you can't vote - which means you can't complain about it). More importantly I really don't want to pay for this crap! I fork out enough in travel, tax, local taxation and sales tax as it is.
"None of this shit works" -W.Shatner
One of the other attractions to government is that such a system provides a national identity database such as which doesn't currently exist. I work for a company that is shortly to go live with a project for the UK Passport Office which will provide electoral registration information to support passport applications. In time this information will be extended to other government bodies which would not be able to share it between each other, so it's going to happen anyway.
As for biometric testing, the UK Goverment's approved suppliers are almost all terrible at what they do: congestion charging is about to be introduced in Central London and relies on a system that can read car number plates. Capita, the contractor who were hired to develop the system, managed to get it to read one in early December. It goes live in a fortnight, and it's currently 4/1 that it will be abandoned before the end of the year. Other companies such as EDS, Siemens and Schlumberger Sema will be in the running to manage the system. A search of The Register or Computing magazine's news pages will show that these are not companies to whom you would entrust your identity, biometrics or no.
And pay-as-you go phones are still anonymous aren't they? And make up 2/3rds of mobiles.
In the UK there is no real way of proving who you are or aren't.
Sure there are birth certificates & other paperwork but if I want to assume a new identity it's not that difficult, you just do it. Eventually with enough bits of paper containing your new name you can get just about anything that anyone else can.
The only real trouble you'll get is in paying income tax. Everything else is just done on your word.
And I know all of that because I live under an assumed identity. It was pretty easy. If you really need to get an N.I. number to pay income taxes then obtaining someone elses birth certificate and assuming their identity is pretty easy too.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Article 12.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The article states that 1000 people were interviewed by telephone.
I would be interested to see how these people were chosen. Chances are they were pulled from a database of people who didn't check a box on a form at some time saying they didn't want to be contacted by telephone for marketing/research.
These people already have little interest in their privacy.
Current ID cards have almost no protection against identity theft. You see, even in the US we have national ID cards, they just don't work very well. New identity cards are an attempt to improve the situation.
If you think they aren't going to succeed, then you have to say why. But your blanket statement is simply logically flawed.
Really, if Europeans want to have ID cards, no one in the UK has a problem with that, and no one here is interested in arguing with Europeans who think that ID cards are "no problem at all".
The people of the UK are Europeans--it's a simple geographic and political fact.
Do you want your eyes plucked out to get around a problem you have had?
Hence the fight last year to stop everyone and their mother being able to access private data, which I mentioned in my parent post. I agree. My point was that while RIPA screws with our privacy, we can get the law changed. Meanwhile the Americans are on British soil, scanning every electronic and phone communication they like via Echelon, and as a foreign army, we have no power to stop them.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
... are close relatives.
According to the UK's goverment figures, mate, the biggest benefits fraudsters are, unsurprisingly, native white people.
Are they worst for that? No, of course not. They are simply more.
Far to many people in the UK are so ready to follow their prejudices in spite of information widely available regarding this kind of issues.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
or the goatsheep or something
Because as of October 2003, the USA will be requiring a passport with biometric information for all foreigners from countries participating in the Visa-waiver program with the USA. (Meaning those countries (mostly European) from which you can 'freely' travel to the USA instead of first needing to go through a long and arduous process to get a visa.)
Why the USA is requiring this? Well, because of the creepy teeeerrorists of course, duh! Blame the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001
Oh, you didn't know about this? Well, no one does. There's been like no mainstream media attention whatsoever about it from anywhere, and all the governments are just quietly implementing this. One of the few sources I could find was this one from last year dealing with Australia going to do it.
I don't need any of those pieces of paperwork but all of a sudden it will be a legal requirement to have an ID card to go and see the doctor.
We have free health care don't forget. If I get injured I can call an ambulance, get taken to hospital and get treated without any worries. Introduce an ID card and should I hurt myself the first thing I will need to do is find my card.
Had a crash and trapped in a car - "Sorry mate can't do a thing unless you've got a card."
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Living in london i just want to make some things clear that the great media's of the world might have screwed up on. The general mood over here is that:
-We hate George Bush.
-We think Blair is not our priminister, but Bushes assistant
-We dont want ID cards
ok not everyone agrees but i can tell you that any survey that says 80% of people want ID cards is complete bullshit.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Well current counts are about 8000 against 2000 in faviour, I think the card makers got the stats back to front.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Didn't go and blow holy fucking shit out of every country that's got a slightly different culture we might have a leg to stand on.
Why do you think we get all the greedy, right wing, imigrants come to the country? well maybe because it looks far too much like home.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
They were trying to make business in Myanmar, I ignore if they managed to do so with such fine gentlemen as the mafia that rules that poor country.
And they also produced some work for a certain goverment I can't name (because then my very small anonimity will go down the drain) which is embargoed (although legal where they did it, their headoffice is in the US).
Wonderful SLB.
I think we should take into consideration the fact that almost all "geek" sites on the net feature a distictly different audience than any survey "on the street". _We_ may be against biometric ID's, knowing our bit about the technology behind it and having our portion of paranoia since we read 1984, but _we do not_ represent the majority of the people out there, do we? From day-to-day experience I'd like to judge that an overwhelming amount of people is plain dumb. For them politics is honest unless the news report another "scandal", Windows(TM) _is_ their computer (if they have one) and biometric ID's might sound like a good idea against criminals... I guess the question that should really be asked here is: "Do we want democracy or 'The ruling of the geeks'?" :-)
How is being asked to hand over your key, any different to being asked to open your safe on production of a warrant ?
The trouble is even if data was completly random, and they ask for the key (which you can't obviously give them, or prove the data is random) then your a criminal.
It's guilty until proven innocent, which is wrong.
The same headline applied to any other industry would not surprise anyone. It's a little dishonest to use such obviously biased research to further political goals.
Glad to enlighten you. It's probably a credit to the law-abiding nature of the firearms-owning community in this country that you didn't realise this. There are many, many more legally-held in guns in the UK than there are illegal ones, particularly in rural areas - virtually every other household round where I live (rural southern Surrey) has a shotgun or old .22 for rabbits, woodpigeon or driven game. Deer stalking is widely practiced around the country on Forestry Commision and NT land - just look for a giant stepladder next time you're out walking in the woods - it's a high seat used in deer stalking. We now have more deer in this country than at any time in the past several hundred years, and deer stalking has gone from being a preserve of the rich to being accessible to anyone on a modest budget (firearms certificate: £50, 2nd hand rifle: £300, 2nd hand scope: £150)
Unfortunately, the tabloid papers don't seem to be able to distinguish between a legally held weapon used for target shooting or hunting, and an illegally held weapon used for shooting rival drug dealers. Interestingly, the two groups of firearms do not really intersect - organised criminals prefer to import weapons rather than steal sporting guns from legal owners.
Hope this enlightens you a bit more.
Nick
This is a dangerous path. The goverment need time in issues like this. They need severeal years of intence research to make a good decision.
I hope the goverments remember that..
Already it is hard enough to clean up an error on our credit reports; for example, one of the big three still thinks I used to work for the Virginia Dep't of Corrections. I can only imagine how hard it will be to correct errors on a national ID card. The bigger the beaurocracy = the harder it is to correct mistakes.
Where's the forest? And what are all these trees doing here?
I agree completely -- it's a very unwise trade. However, that doesn't mean the unwise are undeserving of liberty. Saying that we take away liberty for certain reasons means there is no liberty. Even our worst criminals should have liberty -- from behind bars, of course. I don't think you're confusing liberty and freedom, but a lot of people do that.
The argument is that liberty is endowed by the Creator, and men are not justified to take it away, and the purpose of government is to secure that right. If you start picking and choosing who is undeserving then its easy for you to be deemed undeserving by whomever gets to do the choosing.
-Entitlement cards is the euphemistic, new Labour name, given to identity cards. Typical spin to try to implement something without proper consultation.
-For the benefit of the ignorant, which seems to be reduced to yourself and the BNP, the asylum and illegal immigration problem of the UK is minuscule. If the UK would allow to stay every single person that applies for assylum (legitimate or not, around 100000) that would amount to 0.16% of increase in the UK population. I leave to you the wisdom of stopping this immigration in a country with an ageing population. These people that so many deride in the UK could be the difference between having a pension and care for the elderly in 20 years time. Just to put things in proportion Iran has 4 million of Afghani refugees, that is millions. Obviously the UK is not a "soft touch" (Iran is due to proximity, bleh, how difficult is to figure that one out?). The UK agricultural industry would come to a standstill without these people. And so on.
-France, Germany, Denmark, Holland have more immigrants staying in relative terms (new immigrants/population). In absolute terms Germany and France receive more (obviously since they pass through there first).
-You are not seriously claiming that all illegal immigrants pay thousends of pounds to be taken to the UK?
-Ah, terrorism, the modern blame-it-all of the people that run out of arguments. Most (all?) the 11/9 attackers were legal US residents. Oh, and I forgot the nasties of the IRA that obviously can be legal UK residents.
Although it is desirable to know who is going into a given country and where they are this has to be done without scaremongering tactics adhering to the truth and ignoring the fascist impulses promoted by the lowest kind of journalism practicised in some places.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What?!?!
Thay probably tricked them into thinking they were voting for some kind of Free-Be-A-Millionare-Lotto-Scratch-Card or something.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
Let's face it...
most of these immigrants are from countries which fought hard to "throw off the oppressive colonial yoke"...now they're desperately seeking it back...
It goes without saying that the European Colonial Governments were positively progressive and humane compared to what has replaced them...Did they *really* fight for independence and self-determination???? No..they fought to throw the whites out "their" country.
If THEY have a right to national identies based on THEIR CULTURE and RACE then Europeans should too.
NOT a White Supremist but neither will I be a White Inferiorist
Pinochet in Chile used the list of members of the communist party to hunt down his "enemies".
Just imagine what he would have done with a biometric based ID card.
Never in my country?
Yeah sure, I can mention several democracies that were taken over by dictators. Think about that when preparing to support such measures.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That's easy to test. Last time I checked, your MP was legally required to respond to every written letter they received from one of their constituents. With due allowance to the fact that one idiot could send a thousand pointless electronic communications in the same minute, will there be a similar legal requirement on MPs to address issues their constituents raise with them via electronic means?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The three speed cameras I pass on the 2 miles to work.
the 4 cameras in the car park
2 upto the entrance
and 1 in the lobby
That's 10 so far
Then there's the bomb factory I live next to, 1 camera every 30 feet or so.
I don't need to keep a photo album. I get my picture taken by at least 30 different cameras every day even before I've gone into town
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm sure the ad goes something like this....
Tired of people from other countries blowing themselves up at your bus stop? Worried that someone will fly a plane into your office building? Or how about those pesky terrorists that just love to sabotage the federal postal system?
Well, now with BIO-NID (Biometric National Identification) your worries are a thing of the past! One look at BIO-NID will have would-be hackers (terrorists) and terrorists (terrorists) shaking in their imported boots! Be the first one on your block to have BIO-NID, and be the life of the party! Just LOOK at this really hot chick. She thinks you should get BIO-NID.
Hot chick: Yes I do!
"BIO-NID, Security for the future"
Well, if that's the best reason you can think of (a ten or so year old case) then that's poor.
Just watched this again on SciFi. It's a somewhat bad B rated made for TV flick about a secure gated community.
But it does help make the lesson that "those who would sacrifice liberty for security shall have neither."
The more stuff you have, the more it costs to keep it.
you think its not happening right here at home in the states? Silently passed,not sure how itll work from what it sounded like my fingerprints will be saved on a smartcard license, Connecticut is leading the way with the idea
There are still some significant differences, though. In particular, I cannot be legally required to produce a driving licence or my National Insurance number in the UK, other than for purposes to which they are relevant (e.g., driving my car, or arranging my financial details). We're still a long way from wanting (or, quite possibly, needing) a universal ID card yet, IMHO.
That said, I totally agree that the privacy vs. identification issue is not a black and white one as too many people make out. That Ben Franklin quote that a certain type of weenie keeps posting to be clever is getting old real fast, and I rather doubt that those posting it would stand up to be first in the firing line when it came down to it.
By the way, I actually did have my identity messed up back at the start of last year, when a government weenie in a tax office mistyped one of those magic numbers. I suddenly worked two full time jobs on opposite sides of the country, and lived in two different places simultaneously. My tax allowances were revoked, without notice, and the first I heard of it was when my pay cheque was short. It took three months to clear up the mess; that started with the tax office refusing to talk to me on the phone because the details they asked for to confirm my identity (my address and current employer) "didn't match what was on their system".
Thanks, but if the government can screw up this spectacularly with the systems it's got in place just now, I'm real happy not to have a legally rqeuired universal ID card, where a similar screw up could interfere with everything I do.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I don't think it matter what the people in England say, as they are all subjects of the Queen. Not like us valuable citizens, our leaders always listen to us...
However, I recently asked a community policeman about this. His view is that they are simply a complete waste of money, but they reassure the large number of unbelievably stupid Brits who never stop to think. Anyone who cares to visit UK towns late at night will see the usual muggers and vandals, all wearing the same identical grey sweatshirts and anoraks with identical deep grey hoods. Any criminal with more than one brain cell will have that one figured out in no time. The CCTV cameras may catch drunks who are too stoned to care - another delightful facet of UK life - but will then have no deterrent effect whatsoever.
The simple problem is that for the last 30+ years the UK has put large amounts of money into policing Northern Ireland and playing at being a world power (despite being poorer than Germany, France or Italy which don't play those games any more) and is now too cheap to have a proper police force. All this biometric scan and CCTV stuff is about trying to do things on no money, while wasting nearly $10 billion a year putting wall to wall police and soldiers into NI and supporting its backward economy. The UK is now about to build 2 aircraft carriers to, and I quote the BBC, "Project UK power around the world". Its Prime Minister wants to go and sort out foreign countries while at home the infrastructure is falling apart and, in a country where handguns are banned, gun crime is rising faster than any other. It's a pity that George keeps pandering to his little pal Tony instead of telling him to go home, sort out his own crappy country and shut the fsck up.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
"What about the partial criminalization of encryption under the RIP Act?"
:)
Amazingly, a friend of mine pointed out that parts of the RIP law are illegal under EU rulings on Human Rights...which the UK totally agreed to. Of course we've wrote to our MP to highlight this fact...
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
Everybody here's fine with
Say's who? I wish folk would stop asserting in statements that the public is 100% behind something.
Just this morning, I heard one of our Firefighters union representatives (who are in the midst of industrial action in the UK) say that the public were "100% beind them".
Which we're not.
80% of UK
Or have we just all been telling each other that This Kind Of Thing Is Bad for so long that we've lost all our critical faculties?
I am seriously interested in what the answer is.
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
You are not required to carry your driver's licence while driving. As you say, if you are stopped by the police and you don't have it, you are given what is known in the vernacular as "a producer", which means that you have to turn up in person at a police station with your license within 7 days. But it still isn't an offence.
I have also read some advice to never produce your licence at the scene, even if you have it on you. The paperwork involved in a producer means that sometimes you'll get let off, either on the spot or when you visit the station later.
Thats why tens of millions of authentic ones get replaced ever year in the US cable TV market. Credit card mag stripe fraud is has only recently gotten into the high 5 figures for fake cards. The same vendors pushing this are pushing the ever so insecure but more buzzword bingo compliant smart cards for other things.
First of all, if the guards demand papers and you don't have the right one, you can always bribe them for a few marks, or kill them. If they're sitting at a desk it's trickier.
Secondly, I thought the reason the Brits wanted the ID cards was to keep the French problem in check. And when you wash them, they're mostly white.
Thrid, someone stealing your identity, but attaching it to their biometric data, which is always trusted, is a valid point.
Lastly, if eyes can be forged, I'm pretty sure that means you *can* get new eyes.
IHBT. IHL. IWHAND.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
The Government now has a moderately difficult time locating you. Additionally, irresponsible members of the government would have a difficult time framing you - if they so desired.
With DNA, and other biometric data at the fingertips of 'BIG BROTHER' abuses would be much easier - and I would imagine more prevalent than today.
Case in point: With new DNA identification technology available, prosecutors resist every way possible to have this applied to death row inmates in the U.S. Are these people worried about truth, or maintaining thier conviction counts? I wonder how these prosecutors can sleep at night, knowing they sent innocent people to the death chamber? More importantly, do we want this mentality in charge of our biometric data?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Thank you for making that decision on my behalf. You are - at least in my case - completely wrong. It seems to me that it's only a highly vocal minority who have anything against ID cards, most of whom I wouldn't be surprised to find wearing tin-foil hats. If I had the option of carrying a single, conclusive identification document, I'd jump at the chance.
It took me two weeks last year to open a joint bank account with my wife, due to the bank quibbling over what was suitable identification and what wasn't. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, credit card statements, bank statements, utility bills, NHS cards and signature samples were among the items that were requested and submitted to prove who we were and where we lived. This was despite the fact I'd already had an account with them for 10 years. The really laughable bit was when the bank insisted on seeing a utility bill in both our names, so I phoned British Gas, asked them to add my wife's name and send a new bill. British Gas did so without question - they didn't want any kind of proof of who the additional name on the bill was, but somehow this makes it ok for the bank. I know other people who have had the same kind of trouble.
Please let me have my ID card. If you don't wish to carry one, and would prefer to carry all the other statements, bills and certificates in order to demonstrate who you are, then that's your look out.
The British TV sitcom Yes, Minister offered a brilliant precis of push-polling technique:
Rights can be forfeited. That's one thing you're free to do with liberty- you can squander it, and give it away. Once you've done that, it's gone, and it's difficult to say why you still deserve it. Which is sort of the point- its an unwise trade.
That is sort of the point of the US Constitution: even if the people vote for it, you theoretically can't get rid of basic rights like the right to free speech, to not incriminate yourself, to keep and arm bears, etc.
Of course it doesn't quite work like that in practice; witness prohibition.
I don't understand all this bitching about privacy.
How is your privacy removed by a card that identifies exactly who you are?
What freedom have you lost? The freedom to lie about who you are? The freedom to pretend to be someone else? IMHO those "freedoms" should be lost.
They also refered to them as 'entitlement cards' which is name given the ID cards about to be issued to asylum seekers and refugees that to allow access to health care and social security without a national insurance number (citizenship).
...it's all about money. If less 3rd worlders are allowed into the West (i.e., England, America, etc), then the working class citizens will have MORE money in their wallets, and the people who own businesses and the stockholders of large corporations will have LESS money in their wallets.
And if more foreigners are allowed into the country, then the working class citizens will have LESS money in their wallets, and the people who own businesses and the stockholders of large corporations will have MORE money in their wallets.
And that is why Schlumberger went to England with this proposal, instead of going to the USA with it. In England, there are fewer people, and they are less easily manipulated by globalist propaganda, which is not the case with the USA.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
In other news...
- Average A-Level and GCSE pass rates exceed 100%.
- 80% of university students want to pay for their own tution fees.
- Less than 0% of the population of the UK are pro-hunting (therefore all of the participants of those hunts are a figment of your imagination)
- And 80% of the population support Tony Blair and his role with the Anti-Iraqi jihad.
- And 105% of the population think that Tony Blair and George Bush are both really cool and clever guys... And that they make a really nice couple. Really. Nice.
Of course, there is no possibility of vote-rigging, cooking and/or stuffing the ballot. These are actual genuine results of surveys.No wonder I have lost all faith in ZD's publications. Their reseach is shoddy at best and their conclusions are highly dubious and always seem to be sweyed by the movement of money.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
Sounds like a good sort of arrogance to me. Not all arrogance is bad, you know.
One obvious source of bias is that the survey was done by telephoning the subjects. Most people concerned with privacy are ex-directory and are registered with the TPS to avoid junk calls.
Having a national identity based on culture and race is a BAD IDEA.
Well... in this case it's because I want everyone else to have plates too, because I want to be able to identify them in the advent of an accident, etc.
Without license plates, the cases of a hit-and-run would likely be much greater. If some idiot in a Ford slams your car and takes off half a fender, he/she could then peel off away and not worry about anybody being able to readily identify him/her.
Granted, you might bring along a similar arguement for tagging people, but tagging one's person is a lot worse than tagging one's property - and the majority of people aren't involved in such incidents on a regular basis.
time for a war on corruption.
"Deserve" means to be worthy of, to earn something. You can be guaranteed something (by the Constitution or your Creator), but it doesn't necessarily mean you deserve it. Franklin says nothing about taking away anyone's liberty. It has nothing to do with race or political views. The quote simply refers to the choice of what do you value more? Essential liberty or temporary security?
If you trade away your liberty, you deserve what you get--no privacy, the Ashcroft gestapo, Big Brother, etc. And none of those will give you any real security. (See second sentence of quote.) You don't deserve liberty anymore, because you gave it away. You did nothing to earn it or be worthy of it. You sold yourself to Big Brother and are now subject to whatever Big Brother determines your rights to be (Big Brother doesn't believe in inalienable right? Oh, boo hoo. Shoulda thought of that before you sold out. But at least you're secure, right?). You now have to hope that someone else, who didn't sell out their liberty, comes along and gives liberty back to you through a revolution, or you can stand up and earn it back yourself. Or, you can just not give it away in the first place!
OT Side Note: "Deserve" is a word that has recently taken a beating. I'm always hearing advertising saying things like "get the car you deserve" (usually offering high interest loans on $30,000 SUVs to people with poor/no credit). Bullshit! You deserve praise for saving a life, you may deserve a bonus or raise for doing something for your company, but you do not deserve a car you can't afford. People are confusing "deserve" with "entitled to because I think everyone (Society, The Man, the lender at the bank, etc.) is against me".
Renember, when gloves which prevent leaving fingerprints everywhere are outlawed, only outlaws blah blah blah.
"Everybody here's fine with supplying the gubmit w/ your retinal scans and fingerprints, right?"
Yes. I am.
I'm from Spain, but in the last four years I've been living in USA. Each time that I go back to Spain, it is harder for me to tolerate that subject. They are becoming very very racists. They classify and discriminate whole groups just because some individuals make do something wrong, and they are incapable of using reason in that subject.
I guess that this is "another common" feature of the European cultures. At least, this time (not like at the beginning of the 20 century) at goverment level they are not pro-discrimination. The problem is that I am not sure, what would happen if they let the majority to decide.
That's the scary part of Europe,
After all, why not get 6 of your mates, kick someones door in at 3 am and rob them, when you know for a fact that they are unarmed and defenseless?
And by definition, criminals do not obey laws, including gun laws.
Perfect!
Eventually, after everybody has had his or her privacy invaded they would come to realize that the id cards might not be good idea after all. Have any of you read 1986? Seriously, we could get some tp (Thought Police not toilet paper) action going on.
"Bob, it looks like you just got back from Italiano's diner! You need some pepto bismo? Oh, and why stop at that cheesy fetish shop when you can go to Porn central!"
It's minority report... With cookies... IS THERE NO JUSTICE!
I have no problem with having ireffutible proof to showing who I am. I do however have a problem with the enevitable tracking of my movements and the security of information that could be changed to allow someone else to be me...
so I guess no this actually sucks a lot...
retinal scan in its bloodshot, totally stoned format, more power to them :)
Some people might voice some objections, but when push comes to shove they'll all give in, if that's what it takes to get a driving license.
As long as people can live together in one country, they should. The only reason for there to be more than one country is fundamental differences as to what is right and what is wrong.
Secondly, I thought the reason the Brits wanted the ID cards was to keep the French problem in check. And when you wash them, they're mostly white.
While the French haven't been our best neighbours the "problem" isn't French people trying to get into Britain, they are perfectly entitled to move to and live in Britain any time they want under EU law.
The situation is that people are using the channel tunnel as a way to get here from mainland Europe. These people are eminating from the poverty striken Eastern Europe countries, Russia and China and all manner of places where our pasty white skin just doesn't fit in.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
"I'm making this up," you protest. No I am not. The biometric data is called a photograph and the card is called a driver license.
"But you aren't forced to get one.". Yeah, right. I guess we could all just get around on foot in the US without any trouble.
Without a driver license it's difficult to pay by check or even pay credit card in many places. It certainly makes it hard to get into a bar if you don't have one. In fact, it's so difficult to get on with your life without a license that the Department of Motor Vehicles issues an id card even to people who don't drive.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I'm not trying to get flamed here, but could somebody please explain to me, in a calm rational manner (I've heard all the "The Government is inherently evil" arguments), why this would be so terrible?
I already carry a licesnse, health card (For the Canadian Health Care System they assign us Health cards), 3 credit cards, 2 ATM cards, a travel pass, a student card, and more. So, obviously, my personal data is recorded anyway. It seems to me that this would just amalgamate those cards into one (hopefully), and make it a little more secure so Johnny McMugger has a harder time using my ID.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
It's sad that an ignorant foot like you who probably doesn't even own a passport let alone have any first-hand experience of Britain should post crap like this as if you're some kind of authority on the subject.
Let me debunk some of your disinformation for the benefit of those who are more interested in the truth rather than sensationalism:
Anyone who cares to visit UK towns late at night will see the usual muggers and vandals, all wearing the same identical grey sweatshirts and anoraks with identical deep grey hoods.
I live and work in London and I regularly go out late at night in and around the capital. I've done so for over 15 years. Total number of times I've been attacked in the street: 0.
Contrary to your anecdotal opinion, the streets aren't lined up with muggers and vandals looking to relieve me of my wallet or smash up shop windows.
Similarly, not every street corner in the average American city is populated by crack dealers looking to sell you a fix, crack whores looking to blow you to earn one, or crack heads looking to pop a cap in your ass.
The CCTV cameras may catch drunks who are too stoned to care - another delightful facet of UK life - but will then have no deterrent effect whatsoever.
Drunks don't get stoned. Drunks get drunk. Stoners get stoned. Duh.
That aside, alcoholism isn't half the issue here that it is in the US, so please don't suggest that drunken rampaging youths are as prominent as you seem to think muggers and vandals are.
Yes, people sometimes leave a pub, club or a bar drunk but let's not pretend that doesn't happen in the US. In fact, when I was at university, the people who got the most drunk and the most wrecked on a regular basis were overseas students from, surprise, surprise, the US. Yet, amazingly, I don't have a mental picture of all Americans having a drinking problem (apart, of course, from the George W. Bush and family).
The simple problem is that for the last 30+ years the UK has put large amounts of money into policing Northern Ireland and playing at being a world power (despite being poorer than Germany, France or Italy which don't play those games any more) and is now too cheap to have a proper police force.
First of all, when was Italy ever a world power? Or when did France and Germany ever have empires that were on par with the British empire? Ever heard of Canada, Australia, India, etc, all former British colonies?
I think you need to buy a new history text book and a new atlas because the ones that you've got now are useless.
Secondly, since when was the UK economy inferior to Italy's? It's probably ahead or on par with that of France and, perhaps, a notch or two behind Germany's. But, given that both France and Germany have bigger populations (much bigger in Germany's case), that's hardly surprising is it? I don't have exact figures to hand but I know that the GDP per capita of all three countries isn't more than a few percentage points apart. So, I ask you, how are we poorer than Germany, France and Italy?
While you're browsing Amazon for those school books why don't you pick up an economy text as well?
All this biometric scan and CCTV stuff is about trying to do things on no money, while wasting nearly $10 billion a year putting wall to wall police and soldiers into NI and supporting its backward economy.
Sorry, but you seem to be stuck in the 1980s. Perhaps I could interest you in living in the 21st century?
There haven't been troops actively patrolling Northern Ireland for many years now. The peace process there is advanced - although not as advanced as I or many others would like - and the levels of sectarian violence are almost non-existant. The cost of policing in Northern Ireland isn't a multi-billion dollar operation, not by a long shot.
Backward economy? Sure, the troubles in Northern Ireland hurt the local economy but people aren't exactly living in caves there. There are jobs there just like there are jobs everywhere, and, now that peace has finally broken out, a lot more employers are looking to open up sites in Northern Ireland.
The UK is now about to build 2 aircraft carriers to, and I quote the BBC, "Project UK power around the world".
The Royal Navy's commissioned two new carriers to replace two aging ones that are being decommissioned. The Navy's aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes were the vital cogs in liberating the Falkland Islands after the 1982 Argentinian invasion. Without them, there would have been no way that the islanders could have been freed, proof enough that their not just for show.
The Fleet Air Arm also played a critical role in the Gulf War, and is on standby to perform its duty there once again should Britain go to war with Iraq once more.
So what's your point here? That Britain, an island state with dependencies in every ocean, shouldn't have a navy capable of protecting its interests?
Its Prime Minister wants to go and sort out foreign countries while at home the infrastructure is falling apart and, in a country where handguns are banned, gun crime is rising faster than any other.
Yeah, well I agree with you there. Our Prime Minister spends too much time worrying about standing "shoulder to shoulder" with George W. Bush than he should. I don't want a war with Iraq and neither do 90 percent of the British public. 75 percent don't trust George W. Bush either. 90 percent are convinced that he'll go to war with Iraq no matter what the UN inspectors report. It's sad that our PM is dragging us into a war that we don't want just so he can be Dubya's best friend.
Your gun crime argument is more crap though. Bare in mind that the total number of gun crimes in the whole UK for the whole of 2002 was around 3,900. And also consider that the definition of a gun crime includes waving around a replica (ie, imitation) firearm just as much as it does a crime that involves an actual gun. The number of actual gun crimes that involved a gun actually being fired was probably one fifth or one tenth of that figure.
Still, 3,900-odd gun crimes in a country with a population of 65 million. Compared to how many in a country with a population of 300 million (the USA)?
I've got more chance of being hit by lightning or winning the national lottery (14 million to 1 odds) than being shot by someone in the street. Can you say the same?
Yep, gun crime sure is "out of control" over here.
It's a pity that George keeps pandering to his little pal Tony instead of telling him to go home, sort out his own crappy country and shut the fsck up.
Oh I wish it were so. What you don't seem to realise is that just about every country on the planet, even America's oldest and closest allies, is opposed to George W. Bush's foreign policy blunders - Kyoto, missile treaties, landmines, the International Criminal Court, steel tariffs (free trade, pah!), the ongoing Middle East crisis, and, above all, war with Iraq.
If it wasn't for Tony Blair's poodle impression then George W. Bush would be all alone in wanting to go to war with Iraq. Bush needs Blair's support - not the other way around. What's amazing is that he's willing to give it, despite the overwhelming opposition of the British electorate. If the situation were reversed, and Americans voters were opposed to helping Britain fight a war, there's no way that Bush would lift a finger.
So, as you can see, your world view and, even your local view of Britain, is pretty off the ball. How you can open your mouth to offer such off-base opinions is amazing. In future, please try to restrict your comments to subjects on which you actually know something about. That way you'll save me the trouble of another lenghty posting rebutting such mindless and misinformed drivel.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Well, in the USA you cannot verbally harass anybody. That in itself is a crime. The difference is that in Britain, if you say "blacks go home" even when there are no black people around, you still go to jail. The government is acting as thought police. If you think the wrong thoughts, you are considered a criminal. If that's not fascism, I don't know what is.
"Jews faked the holocaust and are all money obssessed thieves"
While I agree that Holocaust denial is deeply ignorant and cruel, I find it ironic that Europeans are engaging in Nazi and fascist tactics when it comes to dealing with Holocaust denial. The government is defining what the "correct" history is, and anyone who strays from the official version gets labelled a criminal and locked up.
Why waste the time with an entitlement card. A nice bar coded tatoo would be sufficient. Now to decide where to put it.... On the forehead... no... In the palm of your hand! Yes, that's it!
From the country that gave us Big Brother
comes...Big Brother! A liberal/commie/socialist
idea, and a bad one at that. Hey if the
Brits want to bend over for the one world
government types, let them. They already
gave up their firearms. Get ready folks,
because the next step will be those big
screen TVs where they can see whatever
you do (ala 1984). Putting restrictions
on the law-abiding does NOT stop the
criminals! Good luck!
I believe you are free to insult Moslems, since religions have no legal protection (except for the outmoded blasphemy law). Otherwise you could invent a crackpot religion and claim legal protection.
And, of course, you can still be transported for life for expressing republican views.
Although we seem to be running out of colonies lately...
yeah i read '1986' hollywood was ou of idea so theymade a sequel:)
Closed Circuit Television cameras hooked to recording devices chip away at your right to privacy.
National ID cards chip away at your right to be anonymous.
Fairly clear except for one thing, you do not have a right to remain anonymous. If a policeman asks you who you are, you are obliged to tell them. If they are investigating a crime and you lie to them about your identity, you are now guilty of a crime as well.
If someone issues you an GeorgeOrwell(TM) ID card and you lock it in a safe deposit box and never ever show it to anyone, how is this a problem? Does problem occurs when things are attached to the National ID card? Maybe when policemen can force you to produce the card to prove your identity, or banks, or insurance companies, or employers, or immigration officers, etc? All these institutions already require you to submit evidence that you are who you say you are, so what changes? Why is something that says "You are you, and nobody else" bad?
Got the nail right on the head. I personally like the concept put forward in the Star Ship Troopers book, not the movie(the movie was pretty far off from the book, but who wouldn't like co-ed basic training). Pretty much two kinds of people civilians and citizens. Civilians where the type that are willing to roll over and submit to what ever is needed to "protect them" as a consequence they could not hold public office or vote. Shy of opinion polls he had no say in what the government did. On the other hand the citizen could, but the catch was that he had to earn it. The next generation (it doesn't matter which, it's always the next one) doesn't apprietiate the sacrifices of the previous (Wars, monetary, time, and effort). Well instead of handing them their freedom and the rights on a silver platter for them to squander, they had to earn it through public service. Public service could be anything from being a cop or a fireman to serving in the Mobile Infantry. Basically it had to be any form of duty that was for the benefit of society, but at personal risk to the individual. In the end, in theory, it would at least put people in the government that cared more about the whole of society than themselves. In this system the sheep could go on being sheep, and hopefully it would create shepards of greater moral character than the typical "public servants" we have in office these days.
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
... and I can tell you that all my roommates and I have enjoyed the sense of security provided by having Mr. Fox guard our home.
There does seem to be a lot more room in here since Mr. Fox was hired...
Big corps do this kind of thing all the time, commission a study and throw out the results if they don't like 'em.
It's actually important for a company to know these things for their internal decision making but if the study's result doesn't support them no one else would ever know. It's a pretty bad way of doing science, because even if the individual researchers aren't biased and use a good methodology the overall results made public end up being way out of whack.
The same thing happens in benchmarking all the time.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Unless you count things like bribery and corruption. I'm not saying the Japanese are particularly corrupt or anything, but 'violent' crime there is very low.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
England changed their minds later, but they were the ones who really got the whole thing going, in order to build their sugar holdings in Jamaica and such.
But they certainly got better later. One telling difference in attitude was the attitude to native-Americans compared with the nascent US government. The UK looked at the Indians as being 'subjects of the king', and therefore deserving of rights, while the US just looked at them as savages to be wiped out. If the US lost the revolutionary war, the Indians would have been a hell of a lot better off, that's for sure.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Actually, it's kind of interesting. The Spanish just inter-bread with everyone, which is why south and central America are full of 'Hispanic' people. You also need to realize that England attitude changed a lot after the revolutionary war.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I recently went into get a state ID after, erm, my suspended drivers license got confiscated when I was stopped for speeding.
Anyway, here in Iowa they stopped putting SSNs on Driver's licenses. It used to be an option. If you didn't want your SSN on the drivers license, they would give you an ID number. Now they won't even let you put your Social Security number on it. The idea is cut down on Identity theft. Social security numbers are really becoming unpopular for identification.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...cannot be trusted.
This example is a violation of liberty, though. Forcing you to participate in some government mandated activity, just so you can have the right to vote, is not liberty. That's just as much Big Brother as '1984' and you're just as much a slave to the system as the "sheep".
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought Peace?
Reg: Oh, peace? Shut up!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Working class citizens will have LESS money in their wallets as corporations export jobs to countries with cheap, desperate labor.
If people could traverse borders as easily as capital and goods, there wouldn't be masses of cheap foreign labor for corporations to exploit.
Corporations wouldn't leave their home countries when workers demanded fair pay, wages would equalize worldwide, we'd all be fat and happy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
(Remember the ads about the so-called Microsoft converts?)
Rob Schneider was an animal, a hot chick, and a stapler. Now Rob Schneider is suffocating to death in the back of a turnip truck. HAHAHAHAHA! It's funny because something bad happens to someone really irritating.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I can't even imagine the conversation that contains "Hey Bob, let's go eat!" "Great idea, Sam! But not Chinese, we had that yesterday... how 'bout we go for some British food?".
On the other hand, I can well imagine this triggering the need for biometric information... after all, after actually eating British food, you'd want to be able to restore your metabolism from the backup copy on your card.
-- Terry
The problem is that the supposed 'safeguards' that protect our identity are so weak, and because 'identity' is over-relied on. Rather then having a single thing (our SSN, in this case) being used a better solution would to get a secure log-in to use when requesting credit and banking services. That's really the only thing that a cross-organization identity is needed for (getting a credit rating)
As for everyone having their fingerprints registered, well, I would guess most Americans would rather have a few criminals go free then knowing the government has their fingerprints stored in a database somewhere...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Managed to get a Driver's License with just his name on it. No picture, no SSN or address. So it's possible in at least one state to do that.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What I am unhappy about is the insidious introduction of the NHS number (maybe not entirely unlike a social security number for American viewers?) as a citizen ID number.
Without really resolving the question of whether we want, acept or dislike intensely the idea of an ID card, we are likely to get this hung on our medical records master indexes, and then before it dawns upon everyone, we may have lost confidentiality to an extent similar to Americans with insurers and HMOs.
And all for ostensibly reasonable purposes.
When it gets worse (and it will), what else should we do? More nothing!
Why? Because everyone should have the right to commit fraud and get fake IDs! You never know when you might have to be a fugitive from the law...
I say we stop having people in real life be "Anonymous Cowards".
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I'm prepared to believe that the majority of cameras are owned by the Highways Agency. But I've seen 'traffic control' cameras in North London being used to track cars/people regularly. In Edmonton (N London) the Metropolitan Police is building a CCTV centre with capacity for 4000 video feeds, and has requested shared video feeds from privately owned CCTV cameras throughout London. The City of London has a CCTV system that logs car registration plates & supposedly the faces of the drivers. The Congestion Charge CCTV ring will record licence plates in the centre of London (and may be adopted elsewhere in the UK.) I support (& pay for) law N order but that doesn't stop me worrying about a surveillance infrastructure that can be integrated into whatever Orwellian scheme the Home Office is buying/selling.
What gives you the idea that you'll be permitted
to choose who you show the card to? Or who scans
your retina? Government-supplied identity papers
drift off into mandatory identification fairly
readily; for example, in California it is illegal
to leave your house without your ID card. And
you *can* be stopped on the street and ordered to
show the card. It doesn't happen that often, but
it does happen. Especially if you're rude to the
secret police.
And if you'll look at the pro-ID arguments, you'll
note that a very large proportion hinge on showing
it being mandatory. You really trust everyone who
thinks it'll stop illegal immigration *not* to
encourage their MPs to permit Arbitrary
Inspections?
The existance of biometric data on the card does
not protect you. It simply makes it so that
whomever you *do* decide to permit to scan your
retina has the data necessary for a replay
attack - with your identifying information, they
can reliably convince a suitably vulnerable
machine that they are you. (See c't's review
of an assortment of consumer biometric devices -
while most of the spoofing techniques used are
obvious to a human watching the machine be used,
if the machine operator cooperates with the
spoofer, they can generate a record that says you
were here and is *as good as your card was* at
proving that you are in fact, the owner of Your
Name and the person who bought that ammonium
nitrate...
And without the central repository to check
against, the card just says "Someone with this
retina says their name is ZYX.".
I also find something rather amusing in an
anonymous post supporting identifying everyone...
#include printf("[Yeemp: deekoo~tentacle.net]\n");