The UK Terror plot: what’s really going on? August 14, 2006

Craig Murray [former British ambassador to Uzbekistan]

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year – like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes – which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t give is the truth.

The gentleman being “interrogated” had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for “Another 9/11”. The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening us and complaining that “Some people don’t get” the need to abandon all our traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

For those who don’t know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he was the Communist Party’s “Enforcer”, (in days when the Communist Party ran Stirling University Students’ Union, which it should not be forgotten was a business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line.

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the “Loner” profile you would expect – a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy marriages and young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly would have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in letting them proceed closer to maturity – that is certainly what we would have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti- terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few – just over two per cent of arrests – who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered. […]

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/index.html

British President Tony Blair has joined a burgeoning international community – by starting his own weblog.

The launch of www.tonyblair.con was reported on state TV BBC, which urged users to send in messages to the president.

Mr Blairs’s first posting, entitled autobiography, tells of his childhood, Blair’s National Socialst revolution, and the country’s upcoming war with Iran.

There is a postform for users to send in questions for the president, and a picture gallery containing a series of images of the blogger himself.

The move by Mr Blair comes amid continuing internet censorship by the Blair government.

In a country where the media is strictly controlled, the internet has become the main forum for dissident voices.

But in its bid to crack down on anti-government bloggers, the government uses one of the most sophisticated internet monitoring systems in the world.

Such monitoring will not pose a problem for the president. However, at the end of his first posting – which runs to more than 2,000 words in English – he promises to try to keep things “shorter and simpler” in future.

“With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted 15 minutes,” he writes.

Nose bleed

Mr Blair’s first entry on his blog, which is available in Persian, Arabic, English and French and includes an RSS feed to get future new entries to readers, is dated Friday.

He begins by telling users of his humble origins. “During the era that nobility was a prestige and living in a city was perfection, I was born in a poor family in a remote village of Edinburgh” he writes.
His father was a “a barrister and lecturer” and a “pious man”, who had decided to move the family to London when Mr Blair was just a year old.

Describing himself as a “distinguished student”, the president tells how he excelled at school, coming 132nd out of more than 400,000 students to take a university entrance test – despite suffering from a nose bleed at the time.

He talks about his admiration and affection for the leader of the Bolshevik revolution Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and discusses Britains’s upcoming war with Iran, calling former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein an “aggressor” who was “intoxicated with power”.

The French are also heavily criticised by the president. At one point he describes it as “grease of the Axis of weasles” for what he says was its support for the “terrorist groups” which had tried to support Iraq’s secular government.

And the blog’s current poll asks the question: “Do you think that the US and UK intention and goal by attacking Lebanon is pulling the trigger for another world war?”

‘Publicity stunt’

It is not yet clear how well Mr Blairs’s blog will be received. User figures already appear high – by 1100 BST on Monday, nearly 12,000 people had taken part in the online vote.

But Jultra, a London-based blogger, told the Associated Press news agency he thought the president’s efforts were merely a publicity stunt.

“Blair used to have nothing to do with the internet and even talked against journalists and bloggers before he became president,” he was quoted as saying.

[…]

BBQ Strikes Again.

Full size image

“Don’t let it get above 4.7”

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“Are you now, or have you ever been?”

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“Avoid the 714 and the 2236”

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“What is that buzzing?”

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“Thats enough.”

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“The theatre of noise is proof of our potential”

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“Be Happy”.

Tip of the hat to ‘Matt Coggan’.

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/8287

The US Census shows that there are about 300 million people living in the USA.

Suppose that there are 1,000 terrorists there as well, which is probably a high estimate. The base-rate would be 1 terrorist per 300,000 people. In percentages, that is .00033%, which is way less than 1%. Suppose that NSA surveillance has an accuracy rate of .40, which means that 40% of real terrorists in the USA will be identified by NSA’s monitoring of everyone’s email and phone calls. This is probably a high estimate, considering that terrorists are doing their best to avoid detection. There is no evidence thus far that NSA has been so successful at finding terrorists. And suppose NSA’s misidentification rate is .0001, which means that .01% of innocent people will be misidentified as terrorists, at least until they are investigated, detained and interrogated. Note that .01% of the US population is 30,000 people. With these suppositions, then the probability that people are terrorists given that NSA’s system of surveillance identifies them as terrorists is only p=0.0132, which is near zero, very far from one. Ergo, NSA’s surveillance system is useless for finding terrorists.

Suppose that NSA’s system is more accurate than .40, let’s say, .70, which means that 70% of terrorists in the USA will be found by mass monitoring of phone calls and email messages. Then, by Bayes’ Theorem, the probability that a person is a terrorist if targeted by NSA is still only p=0.0228, which is near zero, far from one, and useless.

Suppose that NSA’s system is really, really, really good, really, really good, with an accuracy rate of .90, and a misidentification rate of .00001, which means that only 3,000 innocent people are misidentified as terrorists. With these suppositions, then the probability that people are terrorists given that NSA’s system of surveillance identifies them as terrorists is only p=0.2308, which is far from one and well below flipping a coin. NSA’s domestic monitoring of everyone’s email and phone calls is useless for finding terrorists.

NSA knows this. Bayes’ Theorem is elementary common knowledge. So, why does NSA spy on Americans knowing it’s not possible to find terrorists that way? Mass surveillance of the entire population is logically sensible only if there is a higher base-rate. Higher base-rates arise from two lines of thought, neither of them very nice:

1. McCarthy-type national paranoia;
2. political espionage.

The whole NSA domestic spying program will seem to work well, will seem logical and possible, if you are paranoid. Instead of presuming there are 1,000 terrorists in the USA, presume there are 1 million terrorists. Americans have gone paranoid before, for example, during the McCarthyism era of the 1950s. Imagining a million terrorists in America puts the base-rate at .00333, and now the probability that a person is a terrorist given that NSA’s system identifies them is p=.99, which is near certainty. But only if you are paranoid. If NSA’s surveillance requires a presumption of a million terrorists, and if in fact there are only 100 or only 10, then a lot of innocent people are going to be misidentified and confidently mislabeled as terrorists. […]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/rudmin1.html 

Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri al-Yawm has quoted Mamduh Ismail as saying he met al-Muhajir, also known as Sharif Hazaa, or Abu Ayub al-Masri, in Tura prison in Cairo, where he has been held for seven years.

“Sharif Hazaa [al-Muhajir] is in Tura prison, and I met him two days ago while I was visiting some of my clients,” Ismail, a lawyer known for defending Islamist groups, told the newspaper.

Al-Muhajir is on the “most wanted” list issued by the Iraqi government last week. The US military in Iraq has put a $5million price on his head.

The US army media centre in Iraq said: “We cannot comment on the news that … al-Masri is in an Egyptian prison and not in Iraq, we have to clarify that from the Egyptian government.”

The US military had announced after the death of al-Zarqawi that al-Masri had been appointed the leader of al-Qaeda’s organisation in Iraq.

The military said al-Masri was born and brought up in Egypt. He then went to Afghanistan, where he trained in bomb-making before going to Iraq in 2002. […]

http://english.aljazeera.net/

They obviously have a list of ‘bad guy assets’ and didn’t check to see if this name was on the action list.

Pathetic lapse!

Who is the aggressor?

What aggressive, militarist regime recently held war maneuvers in the Pacific and tested intercontinental missiles that could carry nuclear warheads for 4,800 miles?

The wrong answer to this question is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The right answer is the United States.

On June 14 [2006], the U.S. Air Force held what it called “a quality control test” for its fleet of 500 Minuteman III missiles. One missile traveled 4,800 miles towards the central Pacific, and three test warheads landed near the Marshall Islands. According to the Air Force, that was where they were supposed to land. The Pentagon is supposed to have almost 10,000 nuclear warheads available.

[…]

One Star!

AND

For the first time, a Japanese destroyer will participate in a U.S. anti-ballistic missile test off Kauai’s Barking Sands facility today.

The Navy said the Japanese guided-missile destroyer Kirishima will be stationed off the Pacific Missile Range Facility, “performing long-range surveillance and tracking.”

Today, the San Diego-based cruiser USS Shiloh will fire a Standard Missile 3 and try to intercept a drone missile midcourse in its flight northeast of Kauai fired from the facility.

[…]

Two Stars!

–

Ha! yeah I should have dugg it too!

Technorati Tags: missile test, korea, united states

Take a look at the long promo for this film:

http://www.freedomtofascism.com/index.html

Project SHAMROCK, considered to be the sister project for Project MINARET, was an espionage exercise that involved the accumulation of all telegraphic data entering into or exiting from the United States. The Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) and its successor NSA were given direct access to daily microfilm copies of all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegraphs via the Western Union and its associates RCA and ITT. Operation Shamrock lasted well into the 1960s when computerized operations (HARVEST) made it possible to search for keywords rather than read through all communications.

Project SHAMROCK became so successful that in 1966 the NSA and CIA set up a front company in Lower Manhattan (where the offices of the telegraph companies were located) under the codename LPMEDLEY. At the height of Project SHAMROCK, 150,000 messages a month were printed and analyzed by NSA agents. In May 1975 however, congressional critics began to investigate and expose the program. As a result, NSA director Lew Allen terminated it. The testimony of both the representatives from the cable companies and of director Allen at the hearings prompted Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Frank Church to conclude that Project SHAMROCK was “probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken.”

One result of these investigations was the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which limited the powers of the NSA and put in place a process of warrants and judicial review.
“Operation Shamrock” was also the name of a plan to bring chidren to Ireland from post World War II Germany

• ECHELON: America’s Secret Global Surveillance Network
• The NSA’s Global Spying Network | by By Patrick S. Poole
• The National Security Agency: The Secret Unveiled
• Development of Surveillance Technology & Risk of Abuse of Economic Information | PDF
• Schneier on Security: Project Shamrock
• House report on Project Minaret and Project Shamrock

[…]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_SHAMROCK

(Institute for Fiscal Studies, April 2005)

The area under the line represents how much your life is p0wn3d by the State.

————————————————–

“Government, what long arms you have!”
“All the better to arrest you with, my dear.”

“Government, what big lies you have!”
“All the better to ruin you with, my child.”

“Government, what big fears you make!”
“All the better to scare you with, my child.”

“Government, what big cctv you have!”
“All the better to see you with, my child.”

“Government, what big taxes you get!”
“All the better to beat you up with.”

After reading/writing posts on Blogdial about the linking of ID card uptake to passport applications as part of the government’s ‘volutary’ introduction of the NIR, http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=108 and following, the following thoughts sprang immediately to mind:If I refuse an ID card, I will be unable to get a passport.

If I cannot get a passport, I am for all intents and purposes interned in my own country.

My government cannot deny my travel and/or entry and exit to my own country.

Therefore it follows: passports must not be required for a British citizen to transit UK borders.

Could this last part be true? I had no idea.

So I wrote to Charles Clarke (clarkec@parliament.uk). I have yet to receive a response.

I wrote to the Home Office general enquiries address. I have yet to receive a response.

I wrote to my MP, Hugh Bayley, who is one of the least rebellious members of the Labour party and has consistently voted in favour of the introduction of ID cards.

He is a typical, spineless, mindless, gimp of a career politician.

I wrote to him and he failed to answer my questions. I am a constituent of his. He works for me. I remind him of this fact. It is something to remember. They work for you.

I wrote to the UK Passport Service and asked them what exactly are “the legal requirements for a UK citizen entering and leaving the UK of their own free will.”

They replied:

A person who is a British citizen is not subject to immigration control and is free to enter or leave the United Kingdom without restriction. A British citizen who travels on a passport issued by another country will need to apply for a Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode to be endorsed in his passport to confirm he has unrestricted entry to this country.

I was stunned! What did this mean? As a lay reader I immediately thought, there is NO requirement for a passport! I can come and go as I please!

And if I decide to use a second passport, perhaps Irish, or Canadian, or one obtained as outlined at sites such as http://www.escapeartist.com/passports/passports.htm all I need is a stamp showing I have the Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode. Then I’d be free from having to ever enter the NIR. Right?

Well, obviously I can’t be right. There must be some legal requirements stipulated? Some guidelines as to how I prove I am a British citizen? And the CoERA… will application for this stamp be subject to NIR enrolement?

First, on the requirements, all I can find is actually on the CoERA page…

2. THE RIGHT OF ABODE 2.1 If you have the right of abode in the United Kingdom, this means that you are entirely free from United Kingdom immigration control. You do not need to obtain the permission of an immigration officer to enter the United Kingdom, and you may live and work here without restriction. 2.2 However, you must prove your claim by production of either: a) a passport describing you as a British citizen or as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies having the right of abode in the United Kingdom; or b) a certificate of entitlement to the right of abode in the United Kingdom issued by or on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom.

So a UK passport may be required, although the expiry date remains in question: why should a passport allow free travel one day, and not the next, due to an arbitrary 10-year limit? Is even an expired passport proof of British citizenship?

Are other documents also valid? A birth certificate, for example, which is required in order to get a passport! It seems that I would have to wade through: “The law covering the right of abode in the United Kingdom is contained in the Immigration Act 1971, the British Nationality Act 1981 and the regulations made under them.” in order to find the details. But I would like it stated in clear, factual, lay terms by the UKPS or the Home Office, if possible. As for the CoERA stamp, the application at present seems to be postal only. No interview, no data-rape.

To summarise the current situation: I remain confused as to the exact requirements outlined in my communication with UKPS and on their webiste. I have therefore asked for clarification on exactly what this (a British citizen is not subject to immigration control and is free to enter or leave the United Kingdom without restriction) means in practical and legal terms.

The answers to these questions must be found. If you can help, get in touch. If you know the current legal status, get in touch. If you want to prevent the government from closing every loophole and interning British citizens for want of a ‘voluntary’ NIR entry, help us to know the facts as they stand, so that we may exploit this loophole and disempower the NIR.

In 1948 George Orwell wrote 1984. He envisioned a nation whose citizens have no expectation of privacy under a dictatorial government that relishes in perpetual war. A state whose alliances are arbitrary, and where deviation from the party line is considered a lapse in loyalty that is subject to harsh retribution. Orwell’s city is a prison where there is no place to hide from a government that can track a persons every move and even read their minds. People live under constant scrutiny and must show I.D. to travel in their own town. The goal; to know everything about everyone. People randomly disappear, or are publicly kidnapped. If an error is made, history can be revised or erased by a propaganda machine that is subject to no restraint. When the year 1984 rolled around, people thought Orwell had got it all wrong. Now it looks like the only thing he got wrong was the date.
2006 is the new 1984.

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.

[…]

Prominent people with views that were considered to be associated with Communism, such as Paul Robeson, were once prevented from travelling abroad by the U.S. government. W.E.B. DuBois, founder of the NAACP, was accused of pro-Communist sympathies and denied a U.S. passport. He renounced U.S. citizenship afterwards. However, the U.S. Supreme Court held in the 1958 case Kent v. Dulles that international travel was an inherent right which could not be denied to American citizens. The US government has two primary methods to get around this ruling though. The first is to declare US passports illegal (or “invalid”) to use for travel into or through a particular country by US citizens without special permission. The second is to ban US citizens from spending any money related to travel into a particular country without special permission. Sometimes the two are combined to make it effectively impossible for everyday US citizens to exercise their rights established in Kent v. Dulles to travel abroad freely. The US government can get away with this because the two methods are not technically travel bans since it’s only a ban on using a passport or spending money. Even so, the US State Department still has the right to screen people before issuing a passport and to revoke a passport.

As mentioned before, at various times, US passports have been issued with a list of countries or regions to which the holder is forbidden to travel using the passport without special permission. These countries have previously included Albania, Cuba, People’s Republic of China, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya (removed in 2004), North Korea and Vietnam. In 1957 China protested their inclusion in this list and successfully campaigned for its removal. The US State Department oversees these restrictions, and will implement them usually in response to what they perceive to be clear and present dangers to Americans travelling in the aforementioned countries. Despite this, it is alleged that politics appears to be the actual motivation, as US citizens who have defied passport restrictions and gone to such countries sometimes report no danger whatsoever. When the US State Department bans passports from being used to travel to a certain country, it will usually state in the passport or on government websites that the US passport is “invalid” for travel to the particular country. To legally use a passport for travel to such a country, one must obtain a special endorsement or “validation” from the US State Department. Such exceptions to the passport travel bans are usually given to International Red Cross workers on a sponsored mission, those visiting family in such countries or those whose travel “is in the national interest.” Travellers that choose to ignore the restrictions try to do their best not to get their passport stamped or keep any receipts indicating travel to such a country. As of March 2006, US passports are valid for travel to all countries in the world. Although US citizens are no longer banned from using their passports to travel to Cuba, because of U.S. Treasury Department restrictions on U.S. citizens who visit Cuba, that country will similarly not stamp a passport, as it is now against Cuban law to stamp American passports. Thousands of Americans defy this de facto travel ban by going through third countries like Mexico, Jamaica, or the Dominican Republic. US pre-clerance customs agents sometimes catch and report US citizens getting off Cuban planes in Canada and the Bahamas. They then run the risk of being fined by the US government upon return to the United States. As of March 2006, Cuba is the only country that the US government officially restricts its citizens from visiting.

23% of Americans in 2005 have a passport. Unlike most other parts of the world where one needs a passport just to travel 3 hours in the same direction, Americans can travel passport-free within a landmass roughly twice the size of Europe and a passport is not required to travel to Canada or Mexico. Nor do American citizens require a passport to return to the United States from locations in the Western Hemisphere. However, according to a new law, a passport will become necessary in order to return to the U.S. from these locations by air or ship by the end of 2006 and for entry via land border crossings by the end of 2007. In the meantime, for American citizens returning from locations in the Western Hemisphere, a US birth certificate or sometimes even a US driver’s license often is enough.

[…]

The British Monarch

The British Monarch, who is also the monarch of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, et cetera, does not carry any passport, and this is not because of her status as the sovereign of more than one country. The real rationale is that, in a monarchy, passports are issued in the name of the monarch to her subjects, asking foreign governments to grant the passport holders free passage, assistance, and protection. Since the monarch cannot issue a passport to herself – and, in any case, she can personally ask foreign governments for her own free passage, assistance, and protection – she does not carry any passport. […]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passport

Does this mean that Her Majesty will be exempt from getting an ID card? If she doesn’t hold a passport, that means that she will never be compelled to be entered into the NIR.

Hmmmm!!!

Further information: freedom of movement, and ka-tzetnik, and propiska, Economic and social liberals have a generally negative attitude towards identity cards on the principle that if society already works adequately without them, they should not be imposed by government, on the principle that “the government that governs best, governs least”. Some opponents have pointed out that extensive lobbying for identity cards has been undertaken, in countries without compulsory identity cards, by IT companies who will be likely to reap rich rewards in the event of an identity card scheme being implemented.

Very often, opposition to identity cards is born out of the suspicion that they will be used to track anyone’s movements and private life, possibly endangering one’s privacy; for instance, a person will probably not want others to know he or she is attending meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous. In countries currently using identity cards, there is no mechanism for this. However the proposed British ID card will involve a series of linked databases, to be managed by the private sector. Managing disparate linked systems with a range of institutions and any number of personnel having access to them is a potential security disaster in the making.[1]

Opponents have also argued that some nations require the card to be carried at all times. This is not necessarily impractical, as an ID is no more cumbersome than a credit card. However, opponents point out that a requirement to carry an identity card at all times can lead to arbitrary requests from card controllers (such as the police). Even where there is no legal requirement to carry the card, functionality creep could lead to de facto compulsion to carry.

Some opponents make comparisons with totalitarian governments, which issued identity cards to their populations, and used them oppressively.

• They point out that the issuing of unique biometric identities was taken to its logical conclusion within living memory by the Nazis (see Godwin’s Law), when they tattooed unique concentration-camp detainees numbers on the arms of people taken to be processed by the Final Solution.
• More recently, the apartheid-era government of South Africa used pass books as internal passports to oppress that country’s black population.

[…]

France

France has had a French national identity card since 1940, when it helped the Vichy autorities identify 76,000 for deportation as part of the Holocaust.

In the past, identity cards were compulsory, had to be updated each year in case of change of residence and were valid for 10 years, and its renewal required paying a tax. In addition to the face protograph, it included the family name, first names, date and place of birth, and the national identity number managed by the national INSEE registry, and which is also used as the national service registration number, as the Social Security account number for health and retirement benefits, for the access to the personal judiciary case, for taxes declarations.

Later, the laws were changed so that any official and certified document (even if expired and possibly unusable abroad) with a photograph and a name, issued by a public administration (or enterprise, such as railroad transportation cards, or student cards issued) can be used to prove one’s identity (such as the European driver’s licence, a passport, …). Also, controls of identy by the law enforcement forces (police, gendarmerie) can now accept copies of these documents, provided that the original is presented within two weeks. Any of these documents must be treated equally to proove one’s identity when accepting payments by checks, issuing a new credit (however credit cardsare now much more common and do not require such additional proof, as all French credit cards issued by banks include a processor requiring a four-digit code, the magnetic tape being almost never used).

The current identity cards are now issued free of charge, and non-compulsory. Legislation has been published for a proposed compulsory biometric card system, which has been widely criticised, including by the “National commission for computing and liberties” (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés, CNIL), the national authority and regulator on computing systems and databases. Identity cards issued since 2004 now includes biometric information (a digitized fingerprint record, a numerically scanned photograph and a scanned signature) and various anti-fraud systems embedded within the plastic-covered card.

The next generation of the French green card, named “Carte Vitale”, for the Social Security benefit (which already includes a chip and a magnetic tape with currently very few information) will include a numeric photograph and other personal medical information in addition to identity elements. It may then become a substitute for the National identity card.

[…]

United States

Main article: Identity documents in the United States

There is no true national identity card in the United States of America, in the sense that there is no federal agency with nationwide jurisdiction that directly issues such cards to all American citizens. All legislative attempts to create one have failed due to tenacious opposition from libertarian and conservative politicians, who regard the national identity card as the mark of a totalitarian society. Driver’s licenses issued by the various states (along with special cards issued to non-drivers) are often used in lieu of a national identification card and are often required for boarding airline flights or entering office buildings. Recent (2005) federal legislation that tightened requirements for issuance of driver’s licenses has been seen by both supporters and critics as bringing the United States much closer to a de facto national identity card system.

[…]

Hong Kong

See also Hong Kong Permanent Identity Cards

Hong Kong has a long history of identity document, from paper document to recently smart card. It has not yet aroused much controversy from its first issue.

Compulsory identity document was first issued in 1949, the year the establishment of People’s Republic of China. The issue of identity documents was to halt large influx of refugees and control the border from mainland China to then-British colony Hong Kong. The exercise was completed in 1951. Although the registration was compulsory, it was not required to bring the document in public area.

The identity document was replaced by a typed identity card with fingerprint, photograph and stamp from 1960. Another replacement was taken in 1973 and new card was with photograph but no fingerprint. Stamp colour was to identify permanent residents from non-permanent.

From 24th October, 1980, it is compulsory to take the identity card in public area and produce it to a policeman when asked. This law was to halt waves of illegal immigrant to the city.

In 1983, the issue of identity card was digitalised to reduce forgery and from 2003 a smartcard embedded identity card replaced the old digital cards.

The issues of card is in general giving more desire effects than harms. It helps to reduce the crime rates in the region and provide fast access to mainland China and Macau.

[…]

Others

According to Privacy International, as of 1996, around 100 countries had compulsory identity cards. They also stated that “virtually no common law country has a card”.

For the people of Western Sahara, pre-1975 Spanish cards are the main proof that they were Saharaui citizens as opposed to recent Moroccan colonists. They would be thus allowed to vote in an eventual self-determination referendum.

Some Basque nationalist organizations are issuing para-official identity cards (Euskal Nortasun Agiria) as a means to reject the nationality notions implied by Spanish and French compulsory documents. Then, they try to use the ENA instead of the official document.

[…]

Countries with compulsory identity cards

Note: the term “compulsory” may have different meanings and implications in different countries. Often, a ticket can be given for being found without one’s identification document, or in some cases a person may even be detained until the identity is ascertained. In practice, random controls are rare, except in police states.

• Argentina: Documento Nacional de Identidad. Issued at birth. Updated at 8 and 16 years old. Small booklet, dark green cardboard cover. The first page states the name, date and place of birth, along with a picture and right thumb print. It’s a hand written form, and the newer models have a adhesive laminate for the first page. Next pages issue address changes, wish to donate organs, military service, and vote log. Half of the pages have the DNI (a unique number), perforated through the first half of the book. Prior to DNI was the Libreta Civica (“Civic booklet”), for women, and the Libreta de Enrolamiento (“Enrollment Booklet”), for men. A few years ago there was a big scandal with the electronic DNIs that were going to be manufactured by Siemens, and it was decided that no private corporation could control the issuing of national identity. The federal police also have an identity that is valid sometimes instead of the DNI, which many people prefer to carry because after the loss of DNI there is a long process (caused only by bureaucratic reasons) in which the person is limited in some situations which require the DNI. Random controls cannot be made without a judge’s order, except in situations such as military border checkpoints.
• Belgium: State Registry (in Dutch, French and German) (first issued at age 12, compulsory at 15)
• Brazil: Carteira de Identidade. Compulsory to be issued and carried since the age of 18. It’s usually issued by each state’s Public Safety Secretary, or sometimes by the Armed Forces. There is a national standard, but each state can include minor differences. The front has a picture, right thumb print and signature. The verse has the unique number (RG, registro geral), expedition date, name of the person, name of the parents, place and date of birth, and other info. It’s green and plastified, officially 102 × 68 mm[3], but the lamination tends to make it slightly larger than the ISO 7810 ID-2 standard of 105 × 74 mm, resulting in a tight fit in most wallets. Only recently the driver’s licence received the same legal status of an identity card in Brazil. There are also a few other documents, such as cards issued by the national councils of some professions, which are considered equivalent to the national identity card for most purposes.
• Chile: (Carnet de identidad; First issued at age 2 or 3, compulsory at 18)
• China(mainland):(First issued at school age, compulsory at 16)
• China(Hong Kong SAR) : Immigration Department (Children are required to obtain their first identity card at age 11, and must change to an adult identity card at age 18)
• Estonia: id.ee (in Estonian), [4] (in English)
• Germany: Personalausweis (in German) It is compulsory at age 16 to possess either a “Personalausweis” or a passport, but not to carry it. While police officers and some other officials have a right to demand to see one of those documents, the law does not state that you are obliged to submit the document at that very moment, but that you have to be able to submit it at all (bring it to the police station/municipal office the next day, or know where it is and can show it to the police at your home, etc.) You may only be fined if you do not possess an identity card or passport at all, if your document is expired or if you EXPLICITLY REFUSE to show ID to the police.
• Indonesia: Kartu Tanda Penduduk (KTP)
• Israel: Teudat Zehut (first issued at age 16, compulsory at 18)
• Italy: Carta d’Identità
• Hungary: [5] (in Hungarian) It is compulsory to possess and carry either an ID card or a passport from the age of 14. A driving license can be also used for identification from the age of 17.
• Madagascar: Kara-panondrom-pirenen’ny teratany malagasy (Carte nationale d’identité de citoyen malagasy). Possession is compulsory for Malagasy citizens from age 18 (by decree 78-277, 1978-10-03).
• Malaysia: MyKad. Issued at age 12 and updated at 18.
• Netherlands: Ministry of Justice and Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations While it is not compulsory to possess an identity card, every person over 14 years of age must always carry, and be able to submit, identification (i.e., an identity card, passport, driver’s licence or aliens’ document).
• Poland: Dowód osobisty (compulsory at 18) The relative law is roughly similar to German one.
• Portugal: Bilhete de Identidade (compulsory at 10, can be issued before if needed)
• Romania: Carte de identitate (compulsory at 14)
• Singapore: National Registration Identity Card. It is compulsory for all citizens and permanent residents to apply for the card from age 15 onwards, and to re-register their cards for a replacement at age 30. It is not compulsory for bearers to hold the card at all times, nor are they compelled by law to show their cards to police officers conducting regular screening while on patrol, for instance. Failure to show any form of identification, however, may allow the police to detain suspicious individuals until relevant identification may be produced subsequently either in person or by proxy. The NRIC is also a required document for some government procedures, commercial transactions such as the opening of a bank account, or to gain entry to premises by surrendering or exchanging for an entry pass. Failure to produce the card may result in denied access to these premises or attainment of goods and services. Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
• Slovenia: Osebna izkaznica compulsory at 18, can be issued to citizens under 18 on request by their parent or legal guardian.
• Spain: Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI) compulsory at 14, can be issued before if necessary (to travel to other European countries, for example). It is to be replaced by Electronic DNI.

Also Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal and Thailand.

Countries with non-compulsory identity cards or no identity cards

Austria, Canada (“Certificate of Canadian Citizenship”), Finland, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland have non-compulsory identity cards.

• Sweden has recently started issuing national identity cards, but they are by no means compulsory. Most Swedes have not even seen one. Commonly people use their driving licences as ID, or a ID issued by banks or the post. Some big companies and authoritys also issue ID cards to their employees which are usually accepted inside Sweden as identification.

Denmark, Norway, the United States, the Republic of Ireland and Iceland have no official national identity cards.

Note: As noted above, certain countries do not have national ID cards, but have other official documents that play the same role in practice (e.g. driver’s license for the United States). While a country may not make it de jure compulsory to own or carry an identity document, it may be de facto strongly recommended to do so in order to facilitate certain procedures.

[…]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID_Card

Compulsory ID cards are nothing new in the UK. They were issued to all British civilians during World War II. That is until one ordinary man said no.

Clarence Willcock, a 54-year-old dry cleaner from suburban north London, must rank as one of the unlikeliest Davids ever to take on a Goliath.

Mr Willcock was stopped on December 7 1950 while driving his car along Ballard’s Lane by uniformed police constable Harold Muckle, who demanded to see the motorist’s identity card.

Mr Willcock refused. Pc Muckle told him to produce the compulsory card at the local station with 48 hours. “I will not produce it at any police station,” Mr Willcock replied.

With this act of defiance, Mr Willcock brought crashing down a giant bureaucracy which had, since the outbreak of World War II in 1939, forced an identity card on every civilian in the UK – man, woman and child.

When Willcock v Muckle eventually reached the High Court in 1951, Lord Chief Justice Goddard said the continuation of the wartime ID card scheme was an “annoyance” to much of the public and “tended to turn law-abiding subjects into law breakers”. […]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3129302.stm

[…]

A BLOGDIAL post from April 24th 2004
And I add today, from the same article:

“Let us have the credit for ‘setting the people free’,” wrote one Treasury minister in 1952, though he was really gleefully looking forward to “the consequential staff economies”.

The demise of the system was forecast while the fight against Hitler was still fierce. In October 1944, Registrar General Sir Earnest Holderness said that he did “not believe that public opinion will stand for the retention of [national registration] in its present form”.

Sir Ernest reasoned that once law-abiding citizens no longer needed to provide details of their address to ensure their ration allowances, they would not bother to keep their ID cards up to date merely because the government asked them to.

And what, my dear friends, is the difference between the British of 1952 and the British of 2006? Just what is it that they have been putting in the water that has turned a population of real people into sheeple?

How did they do it?

How much lower can they all sink before they are literally turned into cattle?

Everything says “this should not be happening” but it is, and…I can’t wake up!