Who is terrified about the introduction of compulsory biometric ID Cards

[bennywhale]

[bennywhale]

1. Me

[bennywhale]

2. Why?

[bennywhale]

3. Just am

[bennywhale]

4. fair enough

[bennywhale]

5. I wonder what anyone else thinks

[bennywhale]

6. well it is 3 o clock in the morning

[Anarcho-Socialist]

7. Enough of your dissent...

...or you shall be reported to the Ministry of Propaganda and Re-education.

:)

[non sociopath skin]

8. I'm with all three Bennies on this one.

The Skin

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. But which of his identities will get the card?

:-)

[Anarcho-Socialist]

23. To the Gulags, skin

:bounce:

[ikri]

9. People will see the truth of ID Cards eventually

Once they've been issued with a new ID card and when businesses decide that in order to do pretty much anything you'll need to use one, then people will wake up.

Imagine a day:

You go to the doctors/dentists for a scheduled check up, they check your ID card to verify who you are.
You visit the bank to pay a bill, they verify your ID here too.
You visit a shop, realise you haven't got any cash & need to pay via debit/credit card. Your ID card will be checked here too.
You get some cash from the bank, they check your ID card here.
On the way home you decide to rent a DVD, they ask for your ID card here too.

Thanks to the audit trail that the ID card will provide, virtually every step of your life will be checked. Eventually it will be possible to use this audit trail to build a profile on your activities, even if they claim that this will never happen the data from this audit trail is far too useful to ignore.

Absolutely none of this will have helped prevent crime in any way.

[Vladimir]

10. Exactly right n/t

[tjwmason]

11. I wouldn't say terrified - but fervently opposed YES

I heard one person say that they're likely to be a casualty of the smaller majority. Does anybody have any opinion on that Parliamentary maths?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. That all depends on the Tories

and doesn't it fill you with fear to have your civil liberties in their hands? If they made a party decision to oppose the card, then they'd definitely be voted down - there are enough Labour MPs opposed to them too to overthrow the government majority.

If Howard (or his successor - I haven't heard any timetable for legislation yet) ends up supporting it, then it will get through - I think there would a few rebel Tories, since some are genuine libertarians, but I doubt enough. David Davis, who is still shadow home secretary, and the favourite successor to Howard, is reported to be extremely sceptical about the cards - so there is some hope there.

[tjwmason]

15. There's a genuine split in the Tory Party

Howard likes them (he tried to bring them in way back after all), but others are vociferously opposed. I've found that it splits them in odd ways too, I know several members of the "Hang 'em flog 'em" brigade who are almost as anti-I.D. as I; and then more moderate types who see nothing wrong with it and support it almost be default.

My local M.P. is Shadow Attorney General, I'm minded to write to him to see what his views are.

[bennywhale]

20. I wrote to Jim Cousins

my Labour MP asking him how he would vote in the ID card bill, and he sent be back an unintelligible letter about the data protection act.

I sent him a further letter and recieved some ramblings about anti-social behaviour.

My third letter got no reply so he can fuck off.

I sent a letter from my fathers address so i could get a Tory view. Peter Atkinson, and i think he revealed how they're going to vote.

He said that although he had principled objections, Labour would be able to jump on the Tories for being soft on Crime if they objected, and i think assuming i was a Tory supporter, joked about a worse crime against the citizens of Britain would be aiding another Labour government. Ha Ha

Spineless bastards, why are people scared of their principles.

[D-Notice]

12. The innocent have nothing to fear

[Briar]

16. This is the attitude which terrifies me...

...the presumption of guilt instead of innocence.

[D-Notice]

17. Same here!

Who cares about the fact that for hundreds of years we've had a presumption of innocence?

Anyway, ID cards prevent terrorism ;-)

[ikri]

19. "ID Cards prevent terrorism"

Tell that to the Madrid bombing victims.

I find it bizarre that whilst we may or may not be being targeted by fundamentalists we need ID cards to help stop it (except of course, tourists won't require ID cards).

But during the IRA's bombing campaign when they were highly successful in their bombing campaigns, nearly killing 2 different prime ministers (neither would have been a great loss if they had succeeded), we had no need for ID cards.

Direct attacks = No ID cards
Vague threats & presumptions = ID cards

:wtf:

[D-Notice]

26. But that was pre-9/11...

You need to have a post-9/11 mind-set & face up to the challenges that face us each & every day. ;-)

We need to have ID cards as the terrorists hate our freedom & they'll take it away if we get complacent... :-)

Don't you believe our politicians when they say we need it for our own good?

[bennywhale]

21. The innocent being who exactly?

Thatcher's police and security services would have just loved to have had ID cards to deal with the miners in the Eighties. They would have been able to crack the skulls of pickets on the hard shoulder of the A1 rather than at the picket line.

"Function Creep" is bound to occur with these cards and database as at present the database will hold an...

Unspecified and unlimited amount of information. And the ID cards will be used in unspecified and unlimited circumstances.

This database will change the relationship between citizen and state for ever. Fingerprinting machines and Iris scanners will pop up everywhere in conjunction with this system. Banks, workplace, clubs...(a club near me has already introduced fingerprint technology for its VIP nobheads)

Its naive to think that the information on these ccards and the database will not spread and spread. If you are stopped on a demonstration for example and asked for your card do you honestly think the fact that you were on that demonstration will not be recorded on to your database.

CND, Greenpeace, Animal rights activists (who are apparently all terrorists now), peace protestors (a dozen of whom were detained under the 'terrorism act' for protesting outside an arms fair), May day (remember those detained all day in that street), Countryside alliance, fuel lobby, in fact any demonstrator or protester of any persuasion, protesting against the state is at risk from being profiled and therefore targeted by the state for exercising a legitimate democratic right.

I refer you back to the eighties. MI fucking 5 were attending Union
meetings and obtaining jobs at strike prone factory. So Union membership on the database then.

We'll be completely restricted, monitored and contained by the state if we act against it in any way. States worldwide have tried and many obviously do get these things into reality. Its a control tool and ours will be the most sophisticated and comprehensive.

Will we need these things to vote?

Will our political persuasions eventually sneak onto them?

Furthermore our database will be able to be accessed by god knows how many government officials.

And can we or the government of today guarentee our protection from abuse of this huge power from the next say twenty governments. Of course it can't.

From what i can gather Identification papers and cards have only ever been used by the state for oppression. Nazi Germany, Rwanda (who had their ethnicity printed in their cards i kid you not), Cambodia, China, Argentina, Soviet Union, Today: Uzbeckistan, Burma, Ukraine... The list is actually endless. Any oppression by the state of sections of its citizens, first needs methods of identifying them.

We are sleepwalking into a nightmare!

But if you've got nothing to hide you've got nothing to worry about. Right?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

22. I agree. Innocence is subjective

Peace protestors today might be deemed tomorrow's traitors.

[D-Notice]

25. I think you misunderstood my post

I should've put it in quoation marks - I was being sarcastic

I'm opposed to ID cards on grounds of civil liberties & costs (£80 each?! That's just for start - double it & we'll be somewhere near the starting cost...)

Anyone signed up to NO2ID?

[tjwmason]

27. Signed No2ID a while ago

They've just sent an e-mail out - they're holding a photo-op on the day of the Queen's Speech. Meeting at the statue of Boadicea (corner of Westminster Bridge and the Embankment) at 10:45 a.m., Tuesday 17 May.

[bennywhale]

28. NO2ID is where

i got access to my MP. You just type your postcode type your message and they send it too them.

Gotta get the momentum going on this now. As soon as parliaments back it'll be on the agenda fast

[bennywhale]

29. I realised the sarcasm when i re-read it but

still thought it was a good "title" to attach my rant to

[D-Notice]

30. Fair enough then!

Just thought I'd make my positon clear :-)

[Oggy]

18. Not me

'cos I ain't going to get one. They can F off.

And if even a large minority, say 22%, say this, it wont happen.

You don't believe 22% will be enough?

Question then. What was the percentage of elegible voters to vote Labour? If it's enough to get them in, its enough to stop ID cards.

[bennywhale]

24. You'll have no choice

The cunning bastards are going get the data from new driving licences and passports. They are going to have your fingerprints and/or iris image on them. Thats why the date for introduction of the ID cards in in about a decade. By then the government reckons 80% of the population will have obtained new passport and/or driving licence.

Its Blackmail. If you want to travel freely from this island you'll have to give us your fingerprints.

If you want to drive within the country of your birth, i'm afraid we'll need your iris image.

So in eight years or so, they'll collate this info, set up your personal database and the ID card will just land on your doormat.

[Oggy]

31. Damn

off to the gulag for me.

[Taxloss]

32. Just reject them.

The UK is unused to proper civil disobedience; rejecting the testing will fuck up the system.

But I think the cards are dead already.

[bennywhale]

33. They're gonna ressurect them ASAP

civil disobedience won't work cos most of the public think they're a good idea.

An information campaign is needed to highlight the consequences. The gov. is just using base fears and prejudices. Fight terrorism, combat immigration.

Anyway the way they're being introduced is through the passport and driving licence. Both these are going to become biometric. So to drive you'll need to give fingerprints, travel need to give iris image. Thes don't need to go through parliament cos they're voluntary, but 90% of the population uses them. So they'll have all the data and in a few years the card will just land on your doormat.

No choice

[Briar]

34. According to Bliar

he listened to the people and learned they wanted Big Brother to protect them.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. You're right there: Guardian - Fast track for ID cards

The cabinet has decided to rush through its controversial identity cards legislation, one of the centrepieces of tomorrow's Queen's Speech, to try to take advantage of the Tories' post-election disarray to get it through the Commons, Whitehall sources have confirmed.

Ministers privately believe they can overcome any renewed Labour rebellion over the legislation by relying on the backing or abstention of some Tory MPs to get it through its second reading vote within a fortnight.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/queensspeech2005/story/0,16013,1484810,00.html