Reading the UK dance music press for research at work I was pleasantly surprised to see one letter complaining about a “dressy ‘up-West'” club that required photo ID on entry, which the door-staff would scan and keep ‘for their records’. The writer of this letter quite rightly refused to give up their ID and didn’t enter the club, they also ask that others do the same as clubs will soon see the light. Sadly they also say “I’m actually all for CCTV and ‘big brother’ devices”.

Another letter is about Lush Life, an artist flying to the UK who was detained at Heathrow for four hours without any contact with the American embassy (he was a US citizen) whilst immigration made a dossier of his career and details including scans of his album cover, record contract and several pages of his rhyme book, which would be kept on file.

I hope these people will connect the dots between NIR, biometric passports and ID cards before it’s too late.

Finally I came across this whilst trawling livejournal recently.

The truth seeps through grasping fingers across forked-tongued mouths… and dribbles away, unseen by the many, reviled by the few…

Ministers also announced that the new agency will operate a passport verification service so that businesses can guard against identity fraud by checking the credentials of their customers against the biometric database. The Home Office claims this could be worth £325m in benefits to business.

And the benefits to individuals…. ?
There you go. You will be asked for your ID card by anyone who wishes to ask. And you will be denied service if you refuse to comply.

This was tagged on the end of a piece in the Grauniad noting that the Safety Elephant will charge you the full price of an ID card plus passport, even if you ‘opt out’ of having the physical card itself. This is to make having the card seem like a bargain, obviously!

One notable thing is that the Guardian (not alone, but…), while obviously opposed to ID cards, appears to be doing nothing to spell out their danger. They pick up on minor quibbles, like cost, and ignore major stuff like unfettered database access to anyone who will pay! Government charging people for data-rape, and then selling access to the data!! Ignored!!!

Why am I surprised? I’m not. Just very disappointed.

So instead, be inspired. Remember the wise people who came before us and Got Things Done. Remember those who despised the way things were, the way they were going, and got up and changed them themselves.

Today, I remember Margaret Mead.

Remeber what she knew to be truth:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Look at the record of who voted for this shameful bill:

The Conservative Home Affairs front bench voted with the Labour Government !

David Davis
Edward Garnier
Patrick Mercer

Most of the Conservatives seem to have abstained, with only a few “rebels” actually voting with the liberal Democrats against the acceptance of compulsion to register on the NIR, and to pay £30 even if you do not choose to be issued with an ID card

Interestingly these include Adam Afriye, the only black Tory MP for Windsor.

It seems that David Cameron’s Tories cannot be trusted on civil liberties issues any more than Michael Howard’s Tories could.

[…]

http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?p=23712#23712

And the full list is here:

http://www.spy.org.uk/

No one should be surprised that the tories have voted for this; they also voted for the illegal colonization of Iraq. The fact of the matter is that NONE of these people can EVER be trusted. Democracy is hopelessly broken, and the only way for you to be free is if you TAKE your freedom by force.

All the MPs wailing about the abolition of parliament bill and how bad it is will no doubt cave in on that one also, secretly relishing the unlimited power it will give them should they come to office.

It is clear that Britain is being dismantled before our very eyes. What you have to decide is what sort of country you want to live in, and how you are going to make that country come into being. Its no good sitting trying to tweak the system as it is; the greatness of Britain used to depend on the gentelemens agreement that power should not be abused. As soon as murdering gangster garbage got elected, ie no gentlemen in office, the system could be used to roll out near instant tyrrany, since there are no checks and balances that can stop any law of any type being passed, including laws that abolish parliament, sell our soverignty to other countries and even call for the murdering of humans.

Clearly all the people now in charge and the corrupt system itselt needs to be thrown out and proper checks and balances need to be installed so that an ID cards bill, any bill diluting the sovereignty of the British nation etc etc becomes an absolute impossibility.

Nothing less than this will suffice. Otherwise, we will be forever beating off further attempts to enslave us, even if we beat the ID cards bill and anything else these nightmare manufacturers can dream up.

The first step is to completely disobey any law that violates our freedom. That means absolute refusal to enter into the NIR. Second, the physical and unauthorized dismantling of the nascent surveillance system, ie no more CCTV trained on public places, and no more cameras watching the roads. Period.

Failing to do precisely this as a first step means total failure.
Then we must create a document (watch this space) that outlines our rights, categorically and unambiguously.

If you are not willing to do this, and then live by it, then you might as well give up and allow Soviet UK to swallow you up. Half measures will not do the job. There is no room for compromise. You can either live free or become their property.

As you can see, the feeling is widespread:

And these are the people who have blogs…many people who are not detectable by the blogosphere are absolutely incandescent with rage.

From the linked BBQ article:

‘Background checks’

The government is launching a new Identity and Passport Service on 1 April, incorporating the existing UK Passport Service, to administer the scheme.

Interviews will begin “later this year” for passport applicants.

People applying for passports will have to visit their local passport office where they will be interviewed, fingerprinted and have “background checks” carried out on them.

Their details will be entered on to the database and they will be issued with an identity card, although they will not be forced by law to carry it.

About 80% of the UK population has a passport and all will have to be renewed within the next 10 years, at an initial rate of about 7 million people a year, a Home Office spokesman said.

Mr Clarke was not willing to set a date for ID cards becoming compulsory, saying it would depend on the rate at which passports were renewed, he told reporters in a briefing at the Home Office as the current plans became law.

So on Aprils fools day, the insanity will start. Note how Clarke says that the date for the cards becoming compulsory depends on the rate at which passports are renewed, ie the rate at which people register. If people do not register en-masse, the system will fail completely.

This is why I keep saying that it is crucial that no one register for this madness. Now is the time for the facts about renewing your passport are published, so that people understand that there is no requirement for you to have a ‘valid’ passport to leave the UK.

People are starting to stand up and be heard.

From my (other) favourite blog 2lmc spool.

One of Britain’s leading symphony orchestras has been forced to scrap an American tour, partly because of the “mind-blowing palaver” and cost of securing visas for 100 players and staff.

the cost of arranging the visas, estimated at £45,000, would render the trip uneconomic

For those in the US whose response is “fine, we don’t want any of those pansy orchestras around”, there’s also this:

Other agents said rock musicians, also fed up with the process and expense, were refusing to visit the US to work. Katie Ray, of Traffic Control Group Ltd, which secures visas and work permits mainly for rock bands, said some artists were now choosing not to tour in the US.

Of course, the usual rubbish emerges at the end of the article.

John Caulfield, the US embassy’s consul general in the UK, [said] “We are all paying a cost because of terrorism.”

Indeed, I remember all the terrorist outrages caused by rock bands and orchestras in the US. Oh, no, wait, no I don’t.

But Shadow Home Secretary David Davis vowed that if the Tories win the next election his first act as Home Secretary would be “to do away with this Bill”.

Lib Dem MP Nick Clegg said the Bill would “erode privacy, curtail freedom and cost an extraordinary amount”.

He added: “It is a monstrous expansion of big, big government.”

[…]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006140528,00.html

so in between now and then, you must make sure tha you do not register for the NIR. That no one is registering and the database is virtually empty, with people doing anything they can to avoid going on it, with widespread and vocal hostility and disobedience, we will make the scheme look totally pathetic.

Anyone who willingly registers  is now an enemy of Great Britain and the British people.

So now there is no choice. You must take a stand. Will you continue to be a free man, or submit to being a numbered citizen?

Labour’s manifesto promised ID cards would be voluntary

The battle over the government’s controversial ID Cards Bill has ended after peers accepted a compromise deal.Under the compromise, anyone who renews a passport will have their details put on a national ID database – but will not have to get a card until 2010.

[…]

“The amendment preserves the integrity of the National Identity Register by ensuring that everyone who applies for, or renews a passport or other designated document has their biometric information and other identity details placed on the register,” he [Burn’em] said.

“However, it also goes towards meeting the concerns of those who have argued that the card itself should not be compulsory at this stage by allowing those who apply for or renew their passport before 1 January 2010 to ‘opt out’ of being issued the ID card itself, even though their identity details will be entered on to the register.”

[…]

Do you see yet? The Lords, for all their worthy bluster, cannot prevent ID cards when the government agrees to abide by the exact wording of their manifesto. A card will not be compulsory, but you will still be tagged.

You know what to do. You have been told.

“I take the view that it is part of being a good citizen, proving who you are, day in day out,”

The words of Andy Burnham, the treacherous pirate in charge of the NIR/ID card scheme, whose poison is can be read here.

Mr Burnham was asked why Labour had not told voters that the cards would be compulsory. He replied: “Actually, we did. […]

Whilst this is true of the actual legislation and there have been many posts on Blogdial and elsewhere to highlight this, the Neu Labour lie machine have also remorselessly spun the concept of a ‘voluntary phase’ and a secondary vote being required (before punishments can be implemented). It is a tragedy that the mainstream media have largely been unquestioning (I mean *real* questions) in the spun accounts and only now that the House of Lords are providing a wafer thin bulwark against the legislation are the government being asked to account for the true picture.

“The irony is that if we were to listen to what the Lords are saying, we would actually create two biometric databases: one for the passport system and one for the new National Identity Register. […]

This is another deception, the international requirement for biometric passports can be satisfied by simply having a machine readable version of your passport photo – there is no need for any other extra information to be collected by the passport agency to fulfill this requirement, and certainly not the level of information the government wants for NIR.
Secondly only last week it was announced that the government were looking at distributing the NIR database between various companies in their cackhanded way of addressing a ‘decentralised’ database.

Additionally this morning he came up with the old chestnut of the ‘unelected chamber defeating the will of [20%] of the people’.

Now back to ‘being a good citizen’, his words describe the sort of country where people will have to use ID cards to access public/stakeholder services – imagine that you have to submit your NIR number to;
gain tax credits – and every time you actually want your child to use a nursery or pre-school creche you have to have your ID card scanned (for quality control);
or what if petrol (or travel mileages) were to be rationed, every time you buy a train ticket or go to the petrol station you have to submit ID;
Access public buildings – e.g. borrow a book from a library;
Use an internet cafe (ID already required in Italy);

These and other scenarios may seem bizarre, but I ask, in what other sorts of circumstances will ‘good citizens’need to be “proving who you are, day in day out”.

—–

Admin – how do you get large text to work in wordpress?

Alex Jones provides another belly laugh:

Virginia Training Manual Lists Property Rights Activists As Terrorists
Says video cameras, binoculars, sketch pads are terrorist tools

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 28 2006

A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.

The manual, discovered by the Virginia News Source, is keen to emphasize that terrorists are not only Middle Eastern in scope and the main focus is afforded to domestic terrorism.

Included with Hamas, Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad, the following groups are identified as terrorist organizations.

In any anti-government and militia movements
Are property-rights activists
Are in any racist, separatist and hate groups
Are an environmental and animal rights activist
Are a religious extremist
Are in a street gang

Presumably, tourists, journalists, hikers, bird-watchers, scuba divers, artists, painters, and anyone who takes a photograph is also now a terrorists according to the official list of terrorist paraphernalia provided.

– sketch pads or notebooks
– maps or charts
– still or video camera
– hand held tape recorder
– binoculars
– SCUBA equipment
– disguises

Reading further into the manual, associations between domestic terrorists and the supporting the American Revolution are subtly made. In Alex Jones’ 2001 documentary 9/11: The Road To Tyranny, FEMA officials give a seminar in which they identify George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers as terrorists.

The manual encourages people to report any suspicious activity to an authority figure. Presumably, if property rights activism is deemed suspicious then anyone protesting or communicating about the recent eminent domain issue will be reported and investigated on grounds of terrorism.

The manual concludes by encouraging state employees to seek more information from FEMA and Homeland Security.

Shortly after 9/11 a Phoenix FBI manual that was disseminated amongst federal employees at the end of the Clinton term caused waves on the Internet after it was revealed that potential terrorists included, “defenders of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN, ” and individuals who “make numerous references to the US Constitution.” Lawyers everywhere cowered in fear at being shipped off to Gitmo.

This manual is another surreal and frightening reminder that government officials are being trained to embrace a Gestapo like mentality whereby any political activism or even individualistic outdoor leisure activity is deemed to be suspicious and a possible indication of terrorism.

Click here to read the Virginia manual in full.

This manual is interesting for another reason. First of all, there is an image of a man in a gas mask that looks just like Booji Boy:

and more seriously, there is this:

Where this ‘anit-terror’ manual tells people how to avoid identity theft.

I wonder if the people who wrote this and the people who read it and take it seriously made the intuitive leap that it would be better if eveyone did not have a unique government assigned SSN for thieves to use.

If the REALID cards are rolled out in the USA, how is anyone going to take the precaution of removign their card from their wallet, when they will need it do anything and everything?

As for the British, we are in a very good position right now. There is no centrally stored unique number assigned to anyone, all the government databases are separate; in fact, we are in a very secure situation right now, that will only be made worse by the introduction of an ID card and the joining of all government databases into a monolithic system.

Note how they tell you to change your drivers licence number to one that is not your SSN. Translation: one different number for each different service; compartmentalization of your key documents and accounts is the answer to identity theft, the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what shit headed computer illiterate labour monsters are pushing to introduce.

They also fail to mention what ‘dumpster diving’ really is; it means going through someone’s garbage to find their utility bills, credit card recipts and other useful tidbits so that you can sucessfully become the person you are trying to impersonate. By buying a $20 dollar cross shredder, you can make your garbage unintelligible to dumpster divers. They don’t mention what dumpster diving really is because the people who authored this (and using the word author is an insult to authors) are totally clueless fear spreading morons, who use any unfamiliar word or phrase to instill fear in their ignorant readers.

Sickening and vile behaviour.

Instead of an Iron Duke, we have a Rubber Poodle. Instead of an ultra-Tory in opposition, we have have an MOR pseudo-Tony. No more pistols at dawn , just press releases over lunch….

Iron Duke fights duel over Catholics

Saturday March 28, 1829
The Guardian

It is our duty to announce to the public an event which fortunately has not been attended with fatal consequences to the personages concerned. A meeting took place yesterday morning in Battersea-fields between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea.

[…] From the Duke to Lord Winchilsea: “My Lord – is a gentleman who happens to be the king’s first minister, to submit to being insulted by any gentleman who thinks proper to attributed to him disgraceful or criminal motives for his behaviour? Your lordship is alone responsible for the consequences. I call upon your lordship to give me that satisfaction for your conduct which a gentleman never refuses to give.”

From Lord Winchilsea. “My Lord – the satisfaction which your grace has demanded, it is of course impossible for me to decline.”

The Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchilsea met at the appointed place. The parties having taken their ground, Lord Winchilsea received the Duke of Wellington’s fire [apparently not aimed at him] and fired in the air. After some discussion the accompanying memorandum was accepted as a satisfactory reparation to the Duke of Wellington. […]
There is no honour in politics any longer. There is little enough in British life altogether, for that matter. I would rant about the ‘respect’ culture Herr Blair insists we must engender, when he commands so little of it himself… but I wither at the thought. I would rail against the ‘professional politician’ as an invasive species detrimental to the natives of these Isles, for the evidence lies clear around us… these new, mutant isoforms of human beings falling somewhere between parasites and saprophytes, feeding both from the remaining living Britains and sucking the vitality from those millions already mentally dead. I long for truth, and look for someone to trust, someone to inspire, but today the clouds are low and dark and there is a sickness in my stomach and a stench in my nostrils. The sounds of Wellington’s gunshots have long since died, and in their place only the slither of snakes crawling over the rotten, bloated corpse of a once Great Britain.

The only solution, pick up your metaphorical pistols and challenge these whimpering political dogs to a fight! I will see you, Sir, at dawn, and the choice of weapons shall be mine!

‘Youre always so happy, how the hell…

You’re like a dumb dumb patriot

If youre supposed to be so angry, why dont you fight

Let me benefit from your right?

Dont you know the only way to change things

Is to shoot men who arrange things

Robin I would try and explain but you’d never see in a million years.‘

When Lord Armstrong rises to amend the government’s ID cards bill in the House of Lords tomorrow, a new stage will be reached in the epic struggle between the Lords and the forces of darkness in the House of Commons.

The former cabinet secretary is a crossbencher, and he takes his political neutrality seriously, so we can trust his constitutional instincts. His case simply concerns the issue of truth, and in effect he will propose that the Labour government must come clean with the British public about its intentions. And that can only be done by delaying the ID cards scheme until after a general election.

As things stand, Labour made a manifesto commitment to introduce the cards on a voluntary basis. Charles Clark went back on that promise by insisting that all those who apply for a new passport must submit 49 pieces of personal information to the national identity register. In practice, therefore, the scheme becomes compulsory for anyone wanting to apply for, or renew, a passport.

Lord Armstrong’s case is that this deception allows the Lords to ignore the Salisbury convention, which normally dictates that the Lords do not oppose the government on the second reading of a measure that was in its manifesto. In other words, the measures as presented last year at the election have changed radically because of this compulsion.

If the Lords have their way, it will mean the compulsory introduction will be delayed until 2011, well after a general election, which will give the public a second chance to examine and debate the proposals. This would not suit the government, because the public is gradually coming to understand the bill’s grave consequences for personal freedom.

Blair may decide to invoke the Parliament Act, the machinery that allows the House of Commons to overrule the Lords when the two houses reach an impasse on a bill. My bet is that he will do so, even though deception is involved, because the longer the ID card bill is delayed, the more people become familiar with its hidden purpose.

People are beginning to see that ID cards are not being introduced so that they can identify themselves but rather so that the government can identify them and keep track of every important transaction in their lives. […]

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/

They will never pull this off. ‘Forces of Darkness’?! There has been a sea change in the media, the public is waking up slowly. They will not get away with this. Henry Porter is only one of the voices spelling out precisely what all of this means, and just how horrible it really is.

Apparently The Glorious Benefactor finally wants to complete the reform the House of Lords in order that cloven-foot-&-mouth snakeoil salesmen like himself cannot use their business contacts to fill the Upper Chamber with supine cronies.
Whilst he may pretend that he has been committed to full reform for some time, it is demonstrable that his regime has been using the ‘unelected representatives’ as a handy stick for threatening the use of the Parliament Act in order to push through his treacherous legislation. Like all the other reforms related to Parliamentary procedures he only shows interest when his personal position is questioned and will no doubt only look at proposals as far as this is secured, or tread water until he resigns.

Rant Over.

—

Edited to add ‘badly painted’ picture:

What does a ‘stakeholder society’ mean in terms of political powerplay?

By inducing people to use ‘stakeholder services’ provided by the State (or private companies tenbdering for public contracts) instead of private sector provision, there becomes an increased reliance on the State by the individual. If the State provides these services through general taxation and ‘Credits’ then it can increase it’s share of the market by the efffect of people having to pay twice for private provision – once for unused State services and once for the private services.

Stakeholder service provision goes beyond old style public service provision which is largely aimed at helping those with true hardships and begins to universalise State provision in mid/upper socio-economic groups – the bulk of the voters.

Increased reliance on the State will mean that people perceive they have more to lose in making the State unstable (they risk the loss of a stakeholder service or have to pay twice). By inducing the notion that people are reliant on the State when in fact they are simply giving money to government in order to receive it back in the form of ‘credits’ for leading life in the State sanctioned way.

Now an unpopular government could use this ‘dependency’ to leverage unpopular legislation upon stakeholders who are in a tenuous position for example a family requiring tax credits to send their

—-

And ‘their’ I stopped.

But I pick up the theme because reading the post below on ID cards I am minded to believe that tax credits will be authorised/audited against NIR records, this will mean that the government will be gaining leverage over the majority of parents, pensioners, in fact anyone who wishes to be a ‘stakeholder’ and receive tax credits, which if the Chancellor continues his current course will be practically everyone. I belive this is how the government will induce NIR registration (rather than relying on the ‘voluntary’ choice of renewing passports).

Technorati Tags: stakeholder, tax credits, ID cards

That anonymous email that has been spreading like wildfire has done so much damage to the government’s case for ID cards, that the undersecretary of state himself has stepped up to refute it. He doesn’t even get close however:

‘ID cards will not mean we are watching you’

Sunday March 26, 2006
The Observer

I find it hard to believe that Henry Porter has read the Identity Cards Bill. (‘This ID project is even more sinister than we first thought’, Comment, last week). If he had, he would be aware of the safeguards built in to the scheme to protect personal information.

The safeguards? Are these the same assurances that were given when the Terrorism bill was introduced, that its scope would be ‘very limited’? Now we see that over 40,000 people have been arrested using this legislation, one even inside the labour conference itself in front of the cabinet’s eyes. This brazen, venal government has proven that it can never be trusted, that is run by habitual liars, and that they will use any tool they can concoct to violate people’s rights, and that they prefer to do this on a massive scale rather than on a small scale.

The government has admitted that they don’t even have a complete technical specifcaiton, so any guarantee that this man offers on that basis is simply a lie. Furthermore, all large scale IT projects rolled out by the government have been spectacular failures. They cannot do a job like this, even if it were right that they were trying to do it.

His article swallows the contents of a ridiculous, anonymous email and unquestioningly regurgitates it.

That email is not ‘ridiculous’. The fact that it is anonymous is irrelevant. Unlike its sexed up dossiers that are used to justify mass murder, this email contains only the facts, and was not compiled by stealing other people’s work, as a google search will demonstrate. They could learn from its author on the fine art of how to make friends and influence people.

The press unquestioningly regurgitates government pronouncements every day, but somehow, thats OK, but if this is done with something against their evil, it is not. This is pure hypocrisy in its most unaltered form.

Now come the astonishing doublespeak lies:

The scheme will not track your life’s activities. ID cards will be used when it is important to verify identity. That is not an everyday occurrence for the majority, while the use of credit cards and mobile phones, logged in itemised bills and statements, occurs daily. The log is a safeguard. It is important because instances where verification of identity is required tend to involve important transactions which could be open to abuse. That is why it is there – as a protection. It allows an individual to check where and when information about their identity has been checked and by whom.

This is of course, complete rubbish. The ID card WILL track your life’s activities, by design, and ‘The log’ is where your activities will be…logged! How stupid do they think we are?! If the log allows the individual to check, it allows ANYONE to check; that is the whole point of our opposition.

And if you think that you will be able to check wether M|5 or other departments has taken a peek at your records you are totally deluded; they will have special access that does not leave a trace. This means that anyone with the right connection can look at your details without your knowing. There will be all sorts of circumstance where this would be allowed, say in the middle of a criminal investigation, meaning that any policeman will need to have this back door un logged access.

“ID cards will be used when it is important to verify identity” That means every time anyone wants to check your identity. The examples of buying alcohol or cigarettes or prescription drugs are perfect; these are all instances where people will have their identites checked on a regular basis. Buying alcohol, ciggarettes and prescription drugs are a daily occurence for tens of millions of Britons every day. What this man has just done is tell a lie.

In the United States, this is already happening at places that sell alcohol, and they are using driving licenses to grant people access. Look at this article from The New York Times:

ABOUT 10,000 people a week go to The Rack, a bar in Boston favored by sports stars, including members of the New England Patriots. One by one, they hand over their driver’s licenses to a doorman, who swipes them through a sleek black machine. If a license is valid and its holder is over 21, a red light blinks and the patron is waved through.

But most of the customers are not aware that it also pulls up the name, address, birth date and other personal details from a data strip on the back of the license. Even height, eye color and sometimes Social Security number are registered.

”You swipe the license, and all of a sudden someone’s whole life as we know it pops up in front of you,” said Paul Barclay, the bar’s owner. ”It’s almost voyeuristic.”

Mr. Barclay bought the machine to keep out underage drinkers who use fake ID’s. But he soon found that he could build a database of personal information, providing an intimate perspective on his clientele that can be useful in marketing. ”It’s not just an ID check,” he said. ”It’s a tool.’ […]

http://www..nytimes.com/

This also proves catagoricaly another part of that email; private businesses will be able to build up databases containing your information, and patterns of behaviour. The visitors to bars like the one described above have their information stored in a privately owned database, which is valuable to the owner in that he can sell it to marketers who want to target people who frequent bars. That data will be sold again and again, then aggregated with other databases from other bars, until there is richly detailed information on every person who visits bars in the USA, on one hard disc that can fit in the palm of your hand. This is not speculation, this is a fact, and it is only possible because america has a defacto ID card; the driving license. A non machine readable ID card would make what is happening above impossible.

Next, we have the nonsense that ‘you already carry cards and are tracked’; it is a subtle deception. The fact that telephone companies and credit cards keep logs of your calls and purchases is actually irrelevant. Firstly telephone and credit card companies are not government organizations and the use of these services is not compulsory. Secondly you can also tailor these services to suit your needs; you can have a telephone number in any name that you like, or no name at all, to protect your identity. The same goes for credit cards; these are services provided for the benefit of customers, wheras compulsory, state issued ID cards exist for the benefit of government, not the citizen.

“It is important because instances where verification of identity is required tend to involve important transactions which could be open to abuse” This is another bare faced lie; buying alcohol, cigarettes or prescription drugs are not ‘important transactions’ except to the purchaser, who will not want anyone to know that he is taking an anti-venerial drug for example, or buying a half bottle of Stoli every lunchtime.

Under the bill, the Secretary of State can revoke a card under specific circumstances, aimed at the prevention of fraud and the protection of the cardholder’s identity.

This is utter nonsense and doublespeak; if you look at it carefully however its implications are frightening, and actually confirm the contents of the anonymous email and the other warnings of the anti ID camp. If the Home Secretary is going to revoke your card ‘for prevention of fraud’ this means that he is going to be asked to do this quite alot, meaning more than ten times a day. This means that there will have to be a special department set up to handle the revocation of cards. It means that there will be a point of entry for fraudsters to create new identites for themselves. It also means that there will need to be someone other than the home secretary making these determinations. That means an office full of people like the person below.

It means that your identity can be ‘shut off’ probably by a single phone call. All of a sudden, your card will stop working for no reason. You will not be able to withdraw money or buy your prescription or travel. Quite apart from this disruption, you will then have to enter a beaurocratic nightmare of the sort suffered by the people who are ground up by Lunar House, where immigration is processed.

Of course, you will have to pay fort the privilege of having your card replaced.

It has to be said also, that just because ID fraud is on the rise this is not a reason for HMG to create a huge, cumbersome, badly designed compulsory ID card system, that violates every citizen. It would be far better that industry tailors its products so that they meet the needs of customers; reducing fraud between private people is not a job for the state.

I note that, like other opponents of the scheme, Henry Porter fails to offer his readers any alternative means of safeguarding their identities. Identity fraud is a growing threat and we know that it enables other crime, including terrorism.
Andy Burnham
Under Secretary of State, Home Office, London SW1

[…]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1739799,00.html

Incredible. He couldn’t resist throwing in the terrorism line when this has now been admitted to be nonsense even by the government itself. It is yet another lie, in the vein of ‘if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes the truth’.

Many people have put forward ideas for making documents more secure and have offered alternatives to ID cards; the government is not interested in them because they all return power to the user, and eliminate the opportunity to track ordinary people, which is the true and sinister purpose of this scheme.

Frankly, if this is the quality of person that is in charge of everything, we are in very serious trouble, and since he is at the top, can you imagine the untrammeled incompetence of the people who will be actually running the ID card programme should it not be stopped? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Here are some links of what ‘doesn’t bear thinking about’ means, lest we forget:

From The Blarchive:

DVLA man helped animal activists

Dickinson used the DVLA’s computer records to find the addresses

A vehicle registration official who gave drivers’ addresses to animal rights activists has been jailed for five months. Barry Saul Dickinson, 34, of Manor Forstal, New Ash Green, Kent, was convicted at Stafford Crown Court of misconduct in a public office.

He had enabled protesters to find people connected to a guinea pig farm in Staffordshire.

A police spokesman said information had been used to “terrorise” families.

Insp Dave Bird of Staffordshire Police, said: “This was a breach of trust of the highest order – Dickinson abused his position as a public servant.

“Dickinson accessed DVLA computer systems to look up people’s registration numbers […]

And again:

On page 8 and 9 of the June 1st edition of MCN there is an article about 15 people who had the category ‘A’ section of their motorcycle licenses deleted when they either changed address or changed their paper driving licence to a photo card license.

This is a very important story, not only because it shows how government agencies cannot run simple databases, but it demonstrates the sort of attitude the ID agency will adopt if everyone in the UK is compelled to be entered into a ‘National Identity Register’.

The DVLA erased the motocycle ‘entitlement’ of an unknown number of riders, and had these responses to give when MCN questioned them about the mistakes:

 

MCN: Have you lost acategories from licences?
DVLA: The agency has no knowledge of any data loss occuring since its operations began in 1972, through instances such as the fire alluded to in your article (MCN, April 27)

MCN: Is it possible a category could have been deleted?
DVLA: When the driving records were converted from the local authorities to DVLA in the early ’70s, the details from some 18 million old-style ‘red-book’ licences were transferred to the DVLA database. Due to the scale and complexity of hte excersise inevitably some errors were made which could have resulted ini the driver’s entitlement being incorrectly recorded.

MCN: Are victims of errors entitled to compensation?
DVLA: If, during the course of any such investigations concerning incorrectly held data, it is established that the agency has been responsible for an error, then we consider any claims fo rcompensation.

MCN: Will the DVLA reinstate a category on a licence?
DVLA: If valid evidence of incorrectly held data is recieved from the data subjecte, the agency will, as a matter of course, take all steps to ensure that an individual’s record is updated, and, if appropriate, issue revised documentation.

MCN: Does the DVLA accept responsibility?
DVLA: The agency always emphasises the need for the driver to examine thier licence and to bring any discrepancy to its attention. […]

And so on, from The Blarchive. In these cases, simply replace ‘license’ with ‘ID card’. Once again this is not speculation, these two instances are FACT.

The anonymous email stands.

“Bill of Rights 1688”

An Act Declareing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Setleing the Succession of the Crowne

Whereas the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons assembled at Westminster lawfully fully and freely representing all the Estates of the People of this Realme did upon the thirteenth day of February in the yeare of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty eight present unto their Majesties then called and known by the Names and Stile of William and Mary Prince and Princesse of Orange being present in their proper Persons a certaine Declaration in Writeing made by the said Lords and Commons in the Words following viz

Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evill Counsellors Judges and Ministers imployed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Lawes and Liberties of this Kingdome

1. By Assumeing and Exerciseing a Power of Dispensing with and Suspending of Lawes and the Execution of Lawes without consent of Parlyament.

Bringing EU law into UK law.

2. By Committing and Prosecuting diverse Worthy Prelates for humbly Petitioning to be excused from Concurring to the said Assumed Power.

3. By issueing and causeing to be executed a Commission under the Great Seale for Erecting a Court called The Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiasticall Causes.

4. By Levying Money for and to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parlyament.

Spending money for War without permission of the population.

5. By raising and keeping a Standing Army within this Kingdome in time of Peace without Consent of Parlyament and Quartering Soldiers contrary to Law.

Military industrial complex.

6. By causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and Imployed contrary to Law.

Banning guns after a single incedent.

7. By Violating the Freedome of Election of Members to serve in Parlyament.

Postal Ballots.

8. By Prosecutions in the Court of Kings Bench for Matters and Causes cognizable onely in Parlyament and by diverse other Arbitrary and Illegal Courses.

Secret court sessions; terrorism act.

9. And whereas of late years Partial Corrupt and Unqualifyed Persons have been returned and served on Juryes in Tryalls and particularly diverse Jurors in Tryalls for High Treason which were not Freeholders.

Ending trial by jury. Introducing double jeopardy.

10. And excessive Baile hath beene required of Persons committed in Criminall Cases to elude the Benefitt of the Lawes made for the Liberty of the Subjects.

Tagging of prisoners.

11. And excessive Fines have been imposed.

Taxes taxes and more taxes, and fines.

12. And illegall and cruell Punishments inflicted.

Rendition. Guantanamo.

13. And severall Grants and Promises made of Fines and Forfeitures before any Conviction or Judgement against the Personsupon whome the same were to be levied.

‘Criminals’ can now have their assets siezed without reason. Transfers of cash must now be reported to government if they are ‘too big’.

All which are utterly and directly contrary to the known Lawes and Statutes and Freedome of this Realme. […]

http://zenblues.blogspot.com/

We have been here before it seems.

Parliament must be completely reformed and made into a tool whose sole purpose is to serve the population. That means they must be made into street sweepers and ditch clearers. International shenanigans, intrigue, nation building, border drawing –  none of this has anything to do with clean streets and our rights.

Canadian diplomat says new U.S. border security measures are onerous 

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – Canada’s top representative in New England came to Vermont on Wednesday to plead for help in opposing tough new border security measures planned by Washington on the U.S.-Canadian border.

Stan Keyes, the consul general at the Canadian Consulate in Boston, made his pitch at a luncheon with members of the general affairs committees of the state House of Representatives and Senate, where he had a sympathetic audience.

Keyes sought to emphasize Vermont and the United States’ long-standing trade relationship with Canada, and argued that both international trade and tourism could be severely hurt if the U.S. administration pushes ahead with its plan.

Rules crafted by the State and Homeland Security departments, designed to implement legislation passed by Congress in 2004, will require passports for air and sea travel between Canada and the U.S. and between other Western Hemisphere countries and the U.S. They take effect at the end of this year.

Effective Dec. 31, 2007, crossing land borders into the U.S. also will require a passport or a specially designed “PASS card,” which would not be usable at air or seaports. New rules designed to bring more scrutiny to truck traffic and other commerce also are being developed, said Jarrod Agen, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington.

The new rules will “seriously impede some $1.1 billion in trade and hundreds of thousands of travellers who cross the U.S.-Canadian border every day,” Keyes said.

Keyes said Canada’s desire for a go-slow approach to the new rules had won support from governors around New England and in other border states, and that several state legislatures were working on or had passed resolutions containing the same message.

He said he hoped Vermont legislators would pass a currently pending joint resolution that would put them on record as opposing the new rules.

In an earlier comment to a post I talked about something like this, and sure enough here you go. What this ambassador fails to understand is that the US wants to do this to the entire world. The fact it does a lot of trade with us is irrelevant, the fact that many businesses and families rely on the (perfectly reasonable) easy border-cross is meaningless. I think it’s quite clear the US simply wishes to make it very difficult for any travel over its borders, in either direction, because it wants to establish some kind of psychotic police state (we’ve talked about that ad nauseum…). In this case, it really doesn’t matter if everyone involved “opposes the new rules.” Everyone benefits from how things are right now. I know I benefit from it in some way, and would even more if for some (ludicrous) reason I wanted to cross the border. That doesn’t matter. Homeland Security is not about making advantageous decisions… can’t people see what its real agenda actually is? Sheesh.

The more the pigs squeal about how good things are, the more shit you know must be piling up.

The bigger the pig, the louder the squeal, the smellier the shit.

Blair is fundamentally wrong.

Bush is clueless.
Steve Bell is right on the money.