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UK Government Passes ID Card Bill
cowbutt writes "The two houses of the UK government, the elected House of Commons and the House of Lords have agreed a compromise on Labour's ID cards bill, after Conservative peers accepted a Labour amendment. Under the new amendment, anyone renewing a designated document (e.g. passport) will be able to opt-out of getting a card until 2010, but will still have their details put on the National ID Register immediately."
Great Britain, meet Totalitarian State.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How, exactly, is any of that supposed to help against crime / terrorism / illegal immigration / whatever?
This is going to cost the government some money. That money comes from taxes and fees. What is the British citizen getting for that expense?
I am who I am, I have my eyes, face, fingerprints, voice, etc etc etc. If my details are kept on record somewhere, WHY the HELL do I need carry ID card? It defeats the whole point of any such system.
Grrrrrrr
Britons never, never, never will be slaves!
Except to their own government!
You get waht you pay (or vote) for.
Born on a mountain, Raised in a cave!
To fight terrorism effectively, what the UK needs is mandatory RFID implants in all existing residents and newborn babies, where the RFID chip sends back a key into a central database containing fingerprints, nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences, 3-D facial image and iris scans. RFID scanners monitoring movements of all people would need to be installed on every street, in every shop, home and workplace.
Next, mandatory RFID chips in all banknotes, and a law that cash cannot be handed from one person to another without registering the transfer (which can be done conveniently at government-installed ATM-like or EFTPOS-like machines on every street and in every shop) which scan the cash and the ID cards of giver and receiver and register the transfer.
Yep, that'll stop the terrorists. Sure.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Papers please.
(Not to be confused with the East German version)
Shh.
>
>Yes, we'll still have Bush, but if we can a Democrat majority in Congress, especially a democrat majority with a fucking spine, Bush and them will spend the next two years fighting until we can hopefully replace all of them in '08 and start the long path of recovery...
Pop Quiz: On January 20, 2009, the leader of Democratic wing of the party, having retaken the House and Senate in '06, and the Presidency in 2008, will take a look at the powers available to it, and say:
a) "Look at all this power we just had dropped into our laps! Just in case we're ever tempted to use it, we'd better pass laws to prevent us from using it."
b) "Thank you very much, Republicans! It's just what we always wanted. Let us know what additional powers you'd like in place for 2016 when it's your turn."
It doesn't matter whether you work for the Democratic wing or the Republican wing. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.
"V for Vendetta" is making millions at the box office, what a cute little coincidence.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
When I'm at the airport, I want to have the following T-shirt:
FRONT TEXT: I'm carrying a picture of myself.
BACK TEXT: Do you feel safer yet?
Just be ready to spend some time in a holding cell curtesy of the "Inciting Thinking Act" of 2007.
(You think I'm joking, but if wearing the shirt sufficiently annoys the "Powers That Be" for whatever airport you're in, you likely will spend *some* time in a holding room, on some sort of trumped up charge. "Disturbing peace"/"Inciting Panic"/"Airport Terminal Dress code violations"/etc. Even if no criminal charges are filed, they are going to make your life difficult. "Take off your shoes and stick out your tounge, sir. - You have been 'randomly chosen' for increased security screening.")
* National Identity Registration Number
* the number of any ID card issued
* allocated national insurance number
* the number of any relevant immigration document
* the number of their United Kingdom passport
* the number of any passport issued to the individual by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation
* the number of any document that can be used by them (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
* the number of any identity card issued to him/her by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom
* any reference number allocated to him/her by the secretary of state in connection with an application made by him for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom
* the number of any work permit relating to him/her;
* any driver number given to him/her by a driving licence;
* the number of any designated document which is held by him/her and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs
In other words, primary keys to all the major Government databases. The only one that isn't on there is our medical records, but that's why we're all being given a special number, the National Identity Registration Number (NIRN). When this is added to databases, it will be a piece of cake for Government to index our medical records as well.
I'm sure most people here understands databases, but for those who don't, this means the Government are creating a big database on innocent citizens. In fact, it's by far the most intrusive database ever. China doesn't have anything this intrusive. The Stasi didn't. Even North Korea doesn't.
ANPR means we're already being tracked around the clock and will be linked via your driving license number. If your ISP asks for your NIRN, find a new one.
The Tories betrayed the country on this one. Well done Mr Blair, you created Orwell's 1984.
Next up, the Democracy Bypass Bill. God help us all.
...the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of now reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Next time I'm sure will be much more successful.
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
"everyone's getting so worked up about this 'big brother state', but what are you *honestly* doing that's gonna cause any serious concern/suspicion on the part of the ruling authorities?"
And that my friend is exactly why so many jews ended up in crematoriums.
1. "Okay the don't like us but we can still work, this is as far as they'll go"
2. "Okay we have to register and wear these stars, be we can still own our business. this is as far as they'll go"
3. "Okay, our property has been siezed, and we cant get a permit to leave. but they'd be crazy to go any farther...."
Right now it's a nebulous group. Next it becomes people who don't have "acceptable" viewpoints. Here in the US both the FBI and pentagon have been caught spying on quakers for gods sake.
Every time any government tries to increase its power, the citizens should always ask themselves "would I want (insert your least favorite politician or political group here) to have this power?"
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
Next up, the Democracy Bypass Bill
At the risk of invoking Godwin, I've taken to calling that one "Reichskanzler Blair's Enabling Act". Because that's pretty much what it is.
I wrote to my (Conservative) MP about it. He assured me that his colleagues are pushing for restrictions to the bill, but stopped short of saying he'd vote against it. Which makes me wonder if the Tories are under party orders to back it if it doesn't look too onerous.
The question is, will the Tories include repeal of the ID card/database/Enabling Act legislation in their manifesto? I'm very loathe to support them, but right now, they're the lesser of two evils. Oh, for a properly-functioning multi-party system...
-Stephen
What is the British citizen getting for that expense?
First a correction: we're not citizens of our country, we're subjects of the Queen. In theory she can send us to the mines on a whim, although in practice our royalty are pretty nice folks that just want to be left alone.
Not being citizens is not the problem though. The real problem is that we're just slaves of our politicians, who are all total scum.
We didn't vote for any ID cards or biometrics on passports, since it wasn't put to the vote. The scum in power want more power though, so it was bound to come without a public vote.
No of course it doesn't help anyone, except Bush of course, who uses Blair as a policy support bitch all the time. In this case the War on Drugs was getting a bit flat, so the War on Terror had to be fed the blood of virgins, or of the innocent public in this case since these measures do nothing against terrorists.
It's a sad world, especially this corner of it. Britain will be the first totalitarian police state among the G8, no doubt about that. We're already tracked in our vehicles, monitored on CCTV, recorded at our phones, and spied on at our ISPs. And now we're going to be fingerprinted and retina-scanned.
It's clearly 1983. Not long for 1984 now.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
My passport says quite clearly "BRITISH CITIZEN".
I think the human rights act would stop the queen from sending people to the mines pretty quickly aswell (and yes, it's law) so no, the queen can't send people to the mines on a whim. Even royalty has to abide by the law (although the queen *can* step in to parliament business).
Silly rabbit
That's what I thought about government when I was younger and more naive. You've nothing to fear with nothing to hide, they told me. That's fine, as long as no-one in government ever makes an honest mistake. Yeah, like that would ever happen, right?
One day, a low-level civil servant working in a tax office mistyped a National Insurance number, probably one of hundreds he entered into the system during that working day alone. Unfortunately for me, he fluked typing mine instead. My tax records instantly got tied to someone else's, I lost all my allowances without warning, and it took me countless hours ringing around countless tax offices over the next few months to get it put right.
In other words, for several months, my paycheque turned up hundreds of pounds short, without any notice, and with absolutely nothing I could do about it.
That was one number out of probably thousands typed by one government staffer out of thousands that week. Moreover, since the system now said things like I was working two full-time jobs on opposite sides of the country at the same time, it was pretty obviously screwed up when I finally did get the right person to check it. What happens when it's not just a tax allowance, but your entire life that's in the database, and the mistake isn't that your job changed, it's that you're no longer entitled to NHS medical care, or you lose state benefits you rely on to buy food, or you fail a CRB check and lose your job? And those are the nicer possibilities.
Tell that to Jean Charles de Menezes. Oh, wait, you can't, because he was shot dead by government agents after a tracking exercise went wrong and he was incorrectly identified as a terrorist.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If you live in the UK and have ever received a fine (citation) from a speed camera (everywhere in the UK) or even from a minimum wage automaton (virtually all traffic wardens in the UK are minorities) you will know that no matter how well meaning a person you are, your professional reputation or that you were only 5 mph over the limit, or simply rushing around trying to find some lose change for the ticket machine while the parking fine was issues, when you attempt to challenge 'the system', it is time consuming, stressfull and of course, if you fail in your protest, expensive. Like the introduction of iD cards, all of this simply profits the government, local authorities and the manufacturers of the technology. This is all the realisation of the distopian nightmare of having freedom, the right to make mistakes and the right to revolt ('wither revolution?' taken away from us by a corporate sponsored government who keeps tabs on it's citizens using technology. I'm British and find this far more abhorant than any terrorist threat and prey the people of the freedom loving USA reject the lot of it. The best way to fight terrorism and other crime is for us all to keep a fair eye on suspicious activity. We have souls so can judge accordingly.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Difference between British subject and British citizen
The Queen is not allowed to send you to the mines on a whim (even in theory). This is the difference between monarchy and dictatorship.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I guess the next revolution is one step closer.
It's instructive to watch history repeat itself, because it allows me to see just how Hitler and the Third Reich were able to achieve what they did without people stopping them. It's one thing to learn about it in school, when you seldom understand the full spectrum of what is being taught.
I can now safely say that it's not that people didn't know back then. Just as now, the people just DID NOT CARE enough to do something about it. So in sixty years we have learnt exactly.... nothing.
It's just sad that so many new people will have to die needlessly before we realise our error yet again. As an "intelligent" race we really don't deserve our place at the top of the food chain, because intelligence denotes reason and so far I don't see any.
I won't weep for our destruction, because we deserve it.
Visceral Psyche Films