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UK MPs Approve Compulsory ID Cards
Idimmu Xul writes "BBC News is reporting that the UK House of Commons has approved legislation making identity cards compulsory." From the article: "The plans, rejected by peers last month, will now go back before the House of Lords. Tories warned of "creeping compulsion" and Lib Dems said the "fight against compulsory ID cards" would go on."
Actually it is only compulsory when applying for a passport. It will not be compulsory otherwise.
unfortunately (or not depending on the law) the House of Commons has the suprime authority over all issues and can use the Parliament Act of 1947 to push a law through that the Lords reject after 3 tries to get it through regularly. the system is different in this respect; the house of representatives can't over-rule the Senate.
Still if you think thats a bad system the Prime Minister could pass the law overnight, all he'd need is to get the Privy Council (which is made up of cabinet ministers - some past and present - and a few others) to agree and then the Queen to sign it (still the Queen can refuse to sign any law and then it doesn't become law - a power which hasn't been used since queen Anne - but still exists). Then it'd be law tomorrow... and the best thing is we don't need to worry about the seperation of powers or people's rights... oh, wait...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Do you really believe that during WW2 that suspicious citizenry were not required to prove their identities in order to prove they weren't German spies?
British counter-intelligence was incredible during WW2. There are reasons for that. Many, many times 'privacy concerns' were flatly ignored by both the Brits and the US. Stuff that would make this current 'wiretapping' business, or ID cards look like nothing.
It's easy to look back on WW2 as a battle of freedom vs dictatorship, but in reality it was far more complex than that, and basic human rights regarding privacy, torture, etc were broken on all sides, not just by the nazis.
The UK had ID cards during WW2, so your point may not be as valid as you think.
Here is a page of peaceful, middle-class English protesters who have been beaten bloody.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8542,1305225,00.h tml
Here is an article documenting their continued persecution, due to their daring to speak out against police brutality:
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:ccgGv54ab-wJ: www.horseandhound.co.uk/competitionnews/article.ph p%3Faid%3D62246+Hunt+supporters+who+made+complaint s+against+the+police+officers'+behaviour+in+Parlia ment+Square+last+September+are+now+being+arrested+ for+public+order+offences&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
Another example of police terrorizing their critics:
http://prisonerjw7874.blogspot.com/
Despite all the jokes about "McChimpyBushHitler", it is interesting to see how US critics of the US State get rich and famous, while critics of the British State get their heads bashed in...
Hopefully something will change before it is too late.
Hack? Who needs to hack? Terrorists in the UK have already gained access to our driving license database for a period of years thru a symathizer in the DVLA (our version of the DMV) and used it to target victims. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/3 951945.stm for more details.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
That's a typhic black-white reasoning scheme at it's best. Just because ID-cards were introduced in the Third Reich (and have been used for doing a lot of bad things) doesn't mean that they are evil by definition.
By that kind of logic we should get rid of the olympic torch right away, because it was introduced in 1936 in Berlin (look it up if you are in doubt).
I don't read replies by ACs.
In the UK, we are suspicious of:
(1) The cost - that this is going to be a cash cow for the biometrics companies. The majority (if not all) of all UK government IT contracts, have costs that end up spiralling out of control, and have hefty cancellation fees. There is a fear that the government will charge an administration fee every time your address changes, and fine anyone who fails to update their address. Consider students, homeless people and contract workers who change address regularly.
(2) The invasion of privacy - governments departments such as the DVLA are already in trouble for selling personal information (names and addresses) to questionable private car clamping firms (with owners who have criminal records) who have sent threatening letters to car owners.
(3) The arguments for the need for ID cards have included: the ability to fight terrorism (although the home secretary admits it would not have stopped the London bombings), and the ability to fight social security fraud (although certain members of the public will be allowed to have two ID cards). If fraudsters are able to forge utility bills, passports, bank cards, what is going to stop them from faking ID cards?
(4) A good percentage of the population believe that the UK government has lost control of illegal immigration and is spending money on ID cards because they can't control the borders. And they can't target non-Christian religions, because that would be racist.
(5) Function creep - that the ID cards will be used for more basic services, such as booking flight, national train journeys and maybe even shopping purchases.
In any case, it would seem that France is also getting French ID cards
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Britain lacks a written constitution, so it is much harder to prove that a law falls foul of any fundamental rights (see below for Human Rights legislation in the UK). The House of Lords acts as the Supreme Court in the UK and can rule on whether a law is unjust or has been unjustly applied in a particular case. However, and this is crucial, British law holds that Parliament is supreme and that the judiciary cannot overturn a piece of legislation.
Having said which... There has been at least one case, Factortame, involving European (Community) law where the House of Lords, after guidance from the European Court of Justice, ruled that an Act of Parliament fell foul of European law. EC law is considered supreme over domestic law because of the wording of the Treaty of Rome to which Britain is a signatory. The Lords placed an injunction on the government forbidding them from using the Act. The government had to repeal the offending Act and bring British law into line with European law.
That is unlikely to be the case here as there is no universal EC law covering identity cards; the closest is the Schengen Agreement for border controls to which Britain is not a signatory.
The only reason the Lords overturned the Act was because of the implied supremacy of EC law in the Treaty of Rome - and even then they were loathe to do so. I strongly doubt that they would dare overturn purely domestic legislation.
The best hope (apart from hoping that EDS screw things up as well as usual) is that there could be a challenge under the Human Rights Act 1999 which embodies most of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. If the ID cards system were found to fall foul of the HRA (and I'm not going to say if it could - INAL) then the courts could make a 'declaration of incompatibility' between the ID Cards Act and the HRA.
In such a case the government is not obliged to change the law, but it must at least review the offending legislation. The law would continue to apply, but people would still be able to take their cases before the courts and claim damage. If the British government refused to repeal or amend the law then plaintiffs could take their claims to the European Court of Human Rights which has the power to lay down massive fines against the government in the hope of shaming it into compliance.
HTH.