UK Announces ID Card - Will Create Mass Criminality

23/11/2004

But prospect of central audit trail raises concerns

If adopted, the plan would create a central audit trail of every citizen's major transactions with both government and business.

The proposals are revealed in the Regulatory Impact Assessment, a document accompanying the ID cards Bill published this week. It says the Bill allows for the national identity register (NIR) to record when and from whom any checks on the database take place.

According to the document, typical uses could include:

• Banks and other finance firms for combating money laundering and identity fraud
• Employers to check a job applicant's immigration status
• Retailers to help protect against credit card fraud

As part of the proposals, Whitehall is also evaluating the possibility of using a future generation of chip-and-PIN readers for checking ID cards at point-of-sale.

The Home Office says the use of ID cards will ensure security and consistency and make the system easier to understand and to operate.

'We are proposing to make online checks against the register the norm, except in those low risk/low value cases where a visual check is judged to be sufficient,' said a spokesman.

Mike Rodd, external relations director at the British Computer Society, says the proposals go far beyond what was ever intended for ID cards.

'The potential to connect and collate information about people that may be commercially sensitive will make the population at large very unhappy,' he said.

'To create this huge database of information starts smacking of some sort of authoritarian state. This could really cause an outrage.'

Professor Jim Norton, a senior policy advisor at the Institute of Directors, says the government would be inundated with data.

'Recording every high value transaction doesn't sound like a great idea to me,' he said.

'The idea of having a huge database and sucking vast amounts of information into it seems to me to be remarkably na‹ve on one hand and a potential major burden on business on the other.'

HandsOn 26 - Liesegang Experiment

I. Pre-Lab

LEGAL UPDATE...

Efforts by Camilo's defense lawyers to introduce evidence about his legal duty, under international law, not to return to Iraq, were rejected by the military judge. After listening briefly to the proposed testimony of international law professors Jules Lobel and Francis Boyle, the judge ruled that he wouldn't allow the military jury to hear any evidence of international law violations. This reduced the trial to the simple issue of whether Camilo had returned to Iraq, as ordered, on October 16, 2004 or not.

The defense also filed a motion asking that charges be dismissed because a treaty between Costa Rica and the U.S. bars "compulsory military service" by either country of the other's nationals. Since Camilo is a Costa Rican citizen and his eight year enlistment contract expired in April, 2003 the treaty should have prevented the military from keeping past his discharge by imposing a "stop loss" order. Without requesting additional briefs or testimony, the judge rejected this argument.

After deliberating very briefly, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty to desertion charges. Even though four enlisted men who'd served with Camilo all testified to his bravery and diligence as a squad leader in Iraq., the jury imposed a maximum sentence of one year in prison, Bad Conduct discharge and loss of all rank and most pay.

Citizen Soldier supporters are urged to write letters of support and solidarity to Camilo at the following address:

Pvt. Camilo Mejia
1490 Randolph Rd.

Ft. Sill, OK 73503

You may also encouraged to write Major General William Webster urging him to drop all criminal charges and to separate Sgt. Mejia administratively at:

60 Macneely Rd.
Ft Stewart, GA 31314

Please send copies to Citizen Soldier, 267 Fifth Ave., #901., New York, N Y 10016

[...]

http://www.citizen-soldier.org/CS07-Camilo.html

There cant be anyone anywhere tha is surprised by this can there?

George Galloway said he was 'angry' after the case.

MP George Galloway has been awarded £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over claims he received money from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

The Glasgow Kelvin MP was awarded the damages in compensation for articles published by the paper in April 2003.

He had denied ever seeking or receiving money from Saddam Hussein's government, which he said he had long opposed.

The newspaper said it was in the public interest to publish the claims, based on documents found in Baghdad.

Mr Justice Eady said he was "obliged to compensate Mr Galloway... and to make an award for the purposes of restoring his reputation".

Outside the court, Mr Galloway said: "I had to risk absolute and utter ruin to bring this case.

"If I had lost I would have been homeless, I would have had everything I possess taken from me and would have been bankrupted and forced out of public office.

I don't feel in any way happy about the award of £150,000 George Galloway George Galloway profiled

"In those circumstances I don't feel in any way happy about the award of £150,000.

"I feel angry that I have been effectively banished from the floor of the House of Commons for more than a year, I have had to risk everything to bring this action.

"I feel angry against [former telegraph owner] Conrad Black, [former editor] Charles Moore and [Lord Black's wife] Barbara Amiel."

A Telegraph spokesman said the judgment was "a blow to the principle of freedom of expression in this country". [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4061165.stm

How on earth can this be described as " a blow to the ..." they LIED and now they have to PAY. If anything, this is a small victory for justice. If it was a true victory, the damages should have run into the millions, since Galloway would have lost everything he had. The Telegraph will suffer nothing at all due to this loss.

And that is not right.

This is
LONDON
02/12/04 - News and city section

Police fingerprint system wiped out
By Paul Waugh Deputy Political Editor, Evening Standard

Police investigations across the country have been crippled by a huge crash in the national fingerprint computer system.

All 43 forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police, have been hit by the shutdown of the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (Nafis).

The blunder, described by insiders as the biggest ever police IT disaster, means national checks have not been run on suspected criminals or evidence at crime scenes. A police memo leaked to the Evening Standard reveals the network collapsed more than a week ago.

Written by Bruce Grant, head of the Met's Fingerprint Bureau, it states that the meltdown "means that no offender's identity can be verified".

The crash is the latest costly IT disaster to hit government departments or agencies. The Tories today demanded a full inquiry and seized on the incident as proof that David Blunkett's plans for a national ID card system could be wrecked by a computer failure.

The Nafis system, which is run by American computer giant Northrop Grumman, has been the Government's most prestigious police IT project.

It allows an individual force to check if a fingerprint matches hundreds of thousands of others. The Standard has learned that the system went offline at 4.30am last Wednesday, plunging into chaos every one of the 43 fingerprint bureaux across the nation.

Several forces were back on the system by last night but some parts of the country are still not connected today.

A Home Office spokeswoman said that while forces could not check prints nationally they could run local checks.

Are you at risk of Identity Fraud?

If the answer is yes to any of the following questions, you could be vulnerable.

* Have you ever lost your purse or wallet?
* Do you keep all your credit cards, store cards and driving licence together in your purse or wallet?
* Do you use online chat rooms or belong to members web sites?
* Are all your pin numbers and passwords the same so that they are easier to remember?
* Do you use Internet banking?
* Do you regularly eat out at restaurants?
* Do you throw away receipts, bank statements and utility bills without shredding them?

Travellers face chaos and hospitals are only providing emergency services.

Trade union leaders are furious with $8bn in public sector spending cuts in next year's budget, pushed through last week by Mr Berlusconi.

The European Commission had warned Italy to reduce its public debt, which is the third largest in the world.

But economists say the planned reforms - tax cuts and a squeeze on spending - give little relief to industry and are unlikely to boost the sluggish Italian economy.

Flights cancelled

"[This] general strike is the best response to the social massacre of this well-to-do government which gives to the rich while heavily cutting services to citizens," Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, the head of Italy's Green party, told Reuters.

The stoppages will hit air traffic, especially between 1200 and 1600 (1100 and 1500 GMT). National airline Alitalia has cancelled over 100 flights.

Trains have stopped running and will not start again until 1300, while post offices and government buildings will be closed all day.

The protest marks the fourth general strike in Italy since Mr Berlusconi took power in 2001.

Industrial action in Italy may be inconvenient, says the BBC's Tamsin Smith in Rome, but it is always flamboyant.

Banners, balloons and marching bands will fill city streets and squares across the country, our correspondent says.

The largest demonstrations are expected to take place in Turin, Milan and Venice, where leaders from the country's three main unions will address the crowds. [...]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4053809.stm

This is the only way to attack a rogue government that takes your money and abuses it, and your trust. Shut the whole country down, and have a USEFUL party!