Slashdot Mirror
UK Government May Ignore ID Card Opposition
DangerousBeauty writes "Yahoo has an interesting article up about the introduction of id cards in the United Kingdom. The main concern of people is that the UK Government has decided to ignore thousands of people who have said they opposed the cards because they commented via the internet."
Nice, ignore the comments you asked for! Ssssssmart!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah! Slashdot! Now I remember!
Who cares what "thousands of people" think. I can show you "thousands of people" who oppose just about any government plan.
...from people they can track down and eliminate.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Because anti-war = pro-Saddam.
[img-biggest rolleyes ever]
Why should a government care what people on the internet complain about? Why because people had to write in to complain or support the messure? Or bewcause of the large out pouring?
I will use the postings on Slashdot as an example of why it doesn't matter. First that's remember how many times people will be psamming from diffrent accounts over and over just to bitch and moun. Second the qualilty of the complaints might have been good from some people but what about the countrless other people who basiclly told the government to get screwed?\
The internet gives many many more people a voice then would normally complain in the real world and many of these peopl dont have much to say.
This could lose a lot of votes though, particularly if they ignore the comments they had via the web. Is this the poll tax of the Labour Party? Could they lose an election because of it? Probably not on it's own- but it could trigger an ireversible slide- Tony Blair already rammed through the Gulf War II, and that wasn't particularly popular either; if he does this as well he is creating a pattern, and one that can lose him the election.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Consider this move together with existing laws to deny people the right to protect their data with encryption, and the increasing number of urban and traffic surveillance cameras, an increasing number of which are to be upgraded to use AI able to recognize vehicle registration number plates (i.e. "license plates" in the US) so any vehicle's location can be pinpointed and tracked in real time. They have also revealed that they are developing technologies to track your location in real time via your mobile phone more easily.
I even saw a piece in one of the more respectable UK papers that described another technology currently in development that allows them to use shortwave EM from mobile phone masts to "X-Ray" buildings - allowing them to monitor your activities inside your own home or office, with the resulting computer generated images being automatically transmitted to a remote receiving station at some arbitrary location. These can be forwarded over the internet or whatever in real time to whoever has authority to see them.
So very soon it will be entirely possible for the authorities to know cheaply and routinely exactly where you are all the time and precisely what you are doing. Without even getting out of their seats, for God's sake!
Judging by the number of urban surveillance and traffic cameras about, we're not really all that far away from that situation right now, as it happens.
Just think for a moment, people: this may all seem reasonable to you now, but are any of you old enough to remember reading George Orwell's "1984" and shuddering with horror at the very idea of living in such a world? I can tell you that the police state we are now heading for would have been completely unthinkable as recently as 1975. After all, wasn't that precisely why the people of Britain fought the second world war and endured the tension of the cold war - to prevent enslavement by a totalitarian regime? Wasn't it? Well it seems to have all been a waste of time because that is exactly what we are headed for now.
The public are being very naive if they think that these surveillance capabilities will only ever be used principally to catch those we people we currently think of as criminals. History has shown time and time again how governments don't often relinquish powers which suppress dissent and maintain their own hegemony, instead they use them to squash opposition while they continue to increase those powers. And "criminals" includes whatever people the law says. In such totalitarian regimes, "criminals" can mean protesters and dissidents of all kinds - like authors, journalists, even people who just said the wrong thing in public - ordinary people like you and me, law-abiding as we understand the term now.
Once ubiquitious surveillance has been a commonplace for a few years and we are all used to it being used to track lawbreakers, it won't seem such a shock when the odd government department is occasionally caught using it for their own nefarious purposes. Just as governments at both ends of the political spectrum have already been caught time and time again using any and all available surveillance technologies to defeat their political opponents.
If current public apathy is any guide, a few years down the road after that such incidents will be off the front page (if they make the news at all) and won't even cause raised eyebrows.
By that point, if not well before, organized public opposition to any government policy will have become practically impossible as the authorities will always know in advance exactly what you are planning and will put a stop to it before it happens. In fact that's already similar to what happened at this year's (and last year's) UK May Day celebrations.
As for the justification that it will make it easier to catch criminals - let me remind you of the incisive words of Benjamin Franklin (often quoted
> Why should a government care what people on the
> internet complain about?
Because this was a Government consultation exercise that asked for commments to be submitted by email as one of the response mechanisms.
It wasn't a 'this suxxors dudes' post on Slashdot. We sent in reasoned comments based on the cost, civil liberties and feasability of the proposed plan and expect to have them taken seriously.
Also because copies of some of the responses were sent to MPs and responsible ministers by fax and email. I know from corresponence that some of the responses were sent directly on to the Home Office by MPs who received many of them from their constituents.
This is why there will be a great deal of anger if our views have been ignored. The Government seems hell bent on having these ID cards and unwilling to listen to other views.
"Because anti-war = pro-Saddam"
Pro-Saddam is much more accurate: this movement wanted to keep him in power.
"Anti-war" is not very accurate: Saddam Hussein's regime waged a war against Iraq itself, along with many other countries. George Bush and the large coalition wanted to halt this war (which they did). This movement wanted Saddam's war to continue, and opposed effective efforts to end the war.
Of course, two months ago you would have said that the anti-war protesters were "in effect demonstrating in favor of weapons of mass destruction".
"Of course, two months ago you would have said that the anti-war protesters were "in effect demonstrating in favor of weapons of mass destruction"."
Of course, they were in fact. Again, they were not anti-war at all. This group tended to be in opposition to the sanctions which crippled Saddam's WMD programs" anything that diminished or endangered this regime, they opposed.
"there were estimates of up to 2,000,000 people opposing sending British forces to the Middle East. If the Government can so easily ignore 2,000,000"
2,000,000 is less than five percent of the population of the United Kingdom. This is hardly a large group, and is hardly "the will of the public". You can probably find a similar sized group in the United Kingdom who would favor taking back Rhodesia and India to re-instate the Empire. Is Blair so bad for ignoring those too?
I don't think I made myself clear. When I said 2,000,000 opposed, I should've said that this figure was actually the number of people marching through the streets of London in protest. In fact, the majority of the UK population were against a war in Iraq.
Somehow, I doubt this will change your opinion.
"Somehow, I doubt this will change your opinion."
Yes. When a leader goes out on a limb against the wishes of those of ill-intent who are uninformed on the matters, that is something to be applauded.
Someone mentioned earlier the similar example of the Presidents of the 1960s in the United States who pushed for civil rights even though the majority opposed it. Which view won out in the end?
Why mention the 2 million if it is irrelevant?
"In fact, the majority of the UK population were against a war in Iraq."
If they truly were, they would have supported Blair, who was instrumental in ending Saddam's war against that country.
"The Conservative party is even more right-wing than New Labour"
There is nothing right-wing about the Labour party, except maybe if you sit on the far-left edge, and think that the 93% who are to the right of you are "right-wingers".
"I'm sure there's a mechanism in England for doing that. Otherwise, accept the fact that England is not a democracy."
Someone here recently stated that the United Kingdom was a "democratic monarchy".
Too bad they went silent when asked for the last year that the Queen was elected, or any election year for any British monarch.
If they want to ignore my, and many others', reasoned views when I aired them as an interested, informed voter, I will simply ignore the law they make regarding them.
Forced registration to the database? Fuck that. I'm putting my foot down at ID cards. Roll on the civil disobedience, I'm ready to play. You guys can mouth off, and hopefully won't vote Labour (not Conservatives, please, remember the poll tax? Maybe Lib Dems are worth a try? Your call, though), and people like me will do all of that and go straight to action.
Posted anonymously; to do otherwise would be missing the point.
AFAIK they are one of the few countries in Europe that don't have IDs. But one of the EU treaties provides that people only need IDs to travel many counties of the EU (the ones that signed that treaty). UK signed and still their people need passports to go around Europe because they don't have IDs.