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UK anti-ID card campaign Gains Momentum
Jack writes "The British No2ID campaign, which opposes the creation of a National Identity Database to hold biometric data on all UK citizens, has created an online pledge as part of an effort to publicise their cause. The three-day old pledge has recently gained the attention of the blogging community, with bloggers bringing a thousand new signatories to the pledge today alone. Readers in the UK are invited to look at the No2ID FAQ on the plans for mandatory ID cards - some of it makes for scary reading." Update: 06/14 17:13 GMT by T : Side note: Tom Steinberg, director of MySociety.org (organizers of this petition) writes "The ID pledge is cool in that it is so big and successful, but it is a very small insight into what pledgebank.com can do." It's actually a much more general organizing tool.
I think its pathetic that the intelligence community which failed abysmally to thwart 9/11 and then come up with crap schemes like this to trace and identify possible terrorists. I'm sorry but they should be looking at schemes to find terrorists that don't involve abusing a cictizen's right to privacy.
I equate my right to privacy with my right to personal freedom so eat that you "freedom"-loving police-state-loving psychos.
For years the media were just talking about the ID cards, and never mentioned the database. Either because they wanted to distract from this fact (conspiracy theory... ?) or they were just too stupid to see the actual problem (Journalists, eh..). In my eyes the database is the actual problem! This is why you are not required to carry your card with you: The police can x-check you against the database at any time anyway and this way can always find out who you are, even if you don't have your card on you! The UK government keeps saying 'Other countries had this for years', and THEY HAVE NOT! They had cards, but NO CENTRAL DATABASE!!
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I don't live in the U.K., but this makes sense to me.
I don't care if the government or whoever knows who I am and where I live. They already know that, because I pay taxes. So now because of opposition to this national ID thing, my name's in a database somewhere. Well, God forbid anyone would put me in a database besides the oh-so-trustworthy twenty to a hundred direct marketing firms who are sending me catalogs all the time.
But: The fact that my name is in the hands of this random anti-ID petition site whereever does not put me at risk that in a year, I'll go to sign up for a Barnes and Noble discount card or something, and they'll demand to see a copy of my signature on this anti-ID petition before they will give it to me. Or that someone-- maybe the clerk at Barnes and Noble-- will get hold of the SQL ID for my signature on the anti-ID petition website, and use that, since it is valid proof of my identity, to go sign up for two or three credit cards in my name.
A national I.D. card of the sort that's being proposed here, however, does neatly create these problems and a number more like them. The problem here isn't the mere act of being identified, it's everything that happens after that. So I don't really see being identified by some random website somewhere in order to prevent or just protest a problematic ID card program as being a problem.
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I'm quite impressed at how the anglosaxon world reacts to ID cards. They are present in most countries, and are a far cry from a fascist tool.
As far as my experience goes, in Italy you can get fined for loitering if you are found without "papers" and you are over 18. Yet nobody ever asked me papers without a good reason (airport, electoral office, and such things). Never seen an evil use of that, and can hardly conceive one.
In Norway, in order to do many things you have to be registered at the Forlkeregister. For instance, to open a bank account, have a job and the such. Banks and employers must in turn report on your savings and earnings to the tax office, so that your tax papers come into your mailbox already filled in, and you have to worry only about minor adjustments. If anyone accesses these data on a non-routine basis, you are automatically sent a letter notifying you of who asked (usually they need your permission).
Finally, it baffles me how people are so nervous about a stupid piece of paper or plastic. On the No2ID site I read taurinities like it would cause racial discrimination, fingerprint people like criminals (I have been taken fingerprints only once in my life, at the military draft visit), and will be useless against crime. Never mind there are heaps of experience in continental Europe of criminals caught because they provided a not-good-enough fake ID (one I remember was mafia boss Madonia). The claim that identity theft would not be affected is simply ludicrous: the very term "identity theft" is exclusive to the anglosaxon world, as identity theft is impossible with an ID-card system; in continental Europe, we don't even talk of it.
And last but not least, how can be that people are worried about ID cards when living in countries where the government has been given insane powers to detain people without trial and rights, like in Guantanamo?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I find it amazing that a Labour government is the one proposing such a scheme, had this been proposed under the conservatives it would have died on it's feet.
I think the reason they are proposing it is firstly so they can pretend they are taking serious steps to address terrorism, illegal immigration and benefit fraud and secondly because all the companies who may well be involved in providing an ID card system are telling them what a great idea it is.
Worryingly a lot of random people I talk to about this are in favour of a scheme which does all the things the ID cards will supposedly accomplish and so are broadly in favour of the scheme in general. However as soon as they think about the actual practicalities of the scheme, especially the bit where they end up having to pay for it, they begin to change there minds.
The trouble is that this ID card scheme is badly thought out with very few clear achievable goals and hugely expensive, the bottom line is that the money could be spent on more effective and more practical measures which do not end up in a giant IT fiasco and attempts to create all knowning databases on all of us.
So what your are saying is that we should give up important civil rights to catch some frauds? I'm sure europe would have been a better place if you were caught for voting twice. I'm sure real criminals will better their life if they realize can only do monetary transactions through cash. I'm sure biometric data at ATMs will finally put a halt to all those banks & card sevices going bankrupt.
Get the picture? Civil rights are traded for pennies. Near-unbreakable IDs have less to do with terrorism than with control, efficiency, direct marketing and (mis)use by greyhats.
Also given the notorious and consistent failure of UK government IT projects, I bet my left testicle that someone will crack it and freely distribute everything they find within five years. Goodbye witness protection etc. etc. This time Daily Mail readers will be able to find every paediatrician at their home address and call them ALL paedophiles.
See the difference?
The grand-parent clearly just threw out his/her post to get some reactions and some karma.
We are against the idea of being forced to identify ourselves, being forced to carry id cards, and more commonly against the idea of spending vast amounts of public money for a system that clearly won't live up to expectations.
We are against a system that will be fragile and prone to abuse by having a single point of failure, and we are against the fact that it will not solve *ANY* of the problems that the Labour government claim it will:
* Fighting terrorism. Oh dear, it's the 'T' word. Compulsory id cards in Spain didn't stop the Madrid massacre. Those flying the planes on September the 11th entered the US with valid documents. It won't stop any sufficiently determined terrorist attack here either.
* Cracking down on illegal immigrants. Since most illegal immigrants tend to find work at the very edge of the law to begin with, ID cards won't make any difference. In fact, what happens if you suddenly deny everything to those who are already in the country? They'll probably turn to crime to survive.
* Identity theft. Won't be stopped by this scheme, for sure - anyone sufficiently determined will be able to get around this. Biometrics is not a mature technology, and has never been implemented on this kind of scale. Besides, most 'identity theft' is just credit card fraud anyway, which is a whole different matter.
* If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear. Well yes, we've heard this one before, and we know why it's a terrible argument. The best way to enslave the people is to do it slowly, etc.
> Just out of interest, which important civil right is that?
Being able to move around freely and anonymously if you've done nothing illegal. (Vs. being treated like a suspect/potential criminal by default.)
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"We really don't have any enemies. It's just that some of our best friends are tr ying to kill us."
Just to clarify: since in fact no Afghan soldiers were involved, no "act of war" was in fact committed. The taliban "government" came to power with aid of the US and were later removed by US force. A souvereign state with innocent civilians was raped over an issue that is primarily US internal.
Surely, Afghan training camps weren't there out of American pattriotism. But neither were the Saudi families on US soil that paid for the camps. They were NOT hunted, caught, killed, or tortured without trial in Guantanamo. Far from that. They were put on planes and allowed to escape to Saudi Arabia even when the post-9/11 no-fly measure was still in effect.
Fingers could equally point at agencies, airport security, North-American, European and Asian countries. That's what I mean by Afghanistan being related only peripherally and Iraq not begin related at all.
OK. I'm ranting, so I'll stop.
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Ps. Thanks for spelling corrections, but please have another go
Perhaps you should suggest to your neighbour that he and all other police officers be fitted with webcam/microphone/3G phone combos so that the public can monitor them via the Web as they perform their duties. Of course, as a paragon of virtue with nothing to hide, he could have no objection.
Also, who cares what the identity of a defendant is. The important point is that the person who committed the crime is the one that is prosecuted. The "real name" of that person is irrelevant.
Changing the subject a bit, the ID card issue will be the poll tax all over again. Wait till the notices to attend a registration centre 40 miles away, on a work day, and the hand over £80+ start hitting door mats. Suddenly, an awful lot of people with suddenly be far less keen on ID cards.
Just to clarify: since in fact no Afghan soldiers were involved, no "act of war" was in fact committed
Here's an idea: How about America privatize its army. Just spin it off into its own independent corporation.
After that, oh, what? It's invading other countries purely at random? Well, what they choose to do in their own time is their own business.
Pentagon Inc troops are marching on France? Paris in ruins, the government overthrown? The U.N. a little upset about this act of war? Oh now hold on a fucking second there. I'll not hear you slandering the U.S. like that. Since no American soldiers were involved, no "act of war" was in fact committed.
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Every single goddamn thing in your post after the sentence I quoted above has not one thing whatsoever to do with the Afghanistan invasion. They are entirely, entirely separate issues.
The problem with the Bush administration is that they abandoned the "war on terror" after a few weeks blowing random things up in Afghanistan, ignored crucial issues with Pakistan, ignored crucial issues with Saudi Arabia, ignored root causes and in fact exacerbated root causes. The problem is not that in their brief, feeble attempts at combatting terrorism instead of just using Terrorism as an excuse for other things they want, they started with going after the groups in Afghanistan. The fact the Reagan clan helped the Taliban to power is extremely important, and the persons responsible (such as, for example, much of the current Bush Administration...) need to be held accountable, but this does not rob America of the right or need to react when groups which are literally a guest of the Taliban are launching attacks on the U.S.. And those of you who just plain denounce things the Republicans did because the Republicans did them are making things very difficult for those of us who are trying to get America to denounce the Republicans have been doing because they are wrong.
In the meantime, if you seriously think that substate entities can't commit acts of war, then you are in for some rude awakenings. States are effectively no longer able to wage war, at least not against the U.S.. Iraq proved that. This means that states are no longer going to try. That does not mean no one will. It just means it's nothing but privatized armies from here on out.
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