The Government began the whole sorry process by saying that the Bill would be valuable in the fight against terrorism; yet, to be fair to the Home Secretary—I am occasionally fair to him—on 8 July he said that identity cards would not have prevented the tube attacks on 7 July. We know that 9/11 would not have been prevented by identity cards. The people who committed those crimes had pilots’ licences and passports. Those who committed the crimes on 7 July were perfectly happy to be filmed by the railway station closed circuit television. The problem was not hiding their identity, but hiding their intention—[Interruption.] I am glad to see that Members on the Treasury Bench find the subject so tremendously funny.

When the Government lost their first argument they said, “Oh, perhaps we’ll try benefit fraud”. However, we know that benefit fraud will not be dealt with by the possession of identity cards or by the information in the national identity register. Then they said, “Well, let’s try immigration, that’s bound to help”. The Home Secretary is trying that again this evening, but the problem is that one does not have to register on the national identity register or hold an identity card if one is in the country for less than three months. When a person enters the country as a tourist, how are the Government to know that they have not remained beyond the permitted time?

There is the problem of the free travel area between the UK and the Irish Republic and the free travel area in the European Union. What will that do? Far from preventing immigration illegalities, it will exacerbate ethnic problems and cultural division in the UK. Do the Government want to give a free hand to the British National party? Anybody who thinks that is a good idea should vote for this sordid Government this evening.

The Government then said, and the Home Secretary repeated this evening, that the measure would deal with identity fraud. When the Bill began its passage in the summer, identity fraud cost the economy £50 million, but during the summer months the cost rose to £1.5 billion. I do not know why, and the Government have produced no evidence to support that fact. Indeed, we are having a Third Reading by assertion with an absence of proof. We cannot have legislation that is created in this form or pushed through in such a way, and we cannot tolerate a Government who have absolutely no understanding of the constitution of this country.

The Government moved on to say that the scheme would prevent other forms of serious crime. As the hon. and learned Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) pointed out on Second Reading, no serious criminal will be too bothered about whether he is required to register for, or have, an identity card. The money would be far better spent on police officers, gaining intelligence about the activities of criminals and producing a proper border control police.

The Government have blustered and demanded that we agree with all their assertions, despite the lack of evidence to prove them. Eventually, they have ended up saying that it would be more convenient for us all if we had identity cards and information was stored away on the national identity register. If the Government want to see the population of this country wandering around with a form of barcode across our foreheads, or with a mark to allow us to come out of our houses, they are not the sort of Government whom this country needs. We should certainly not be promoting such a society.

The Bill is obscene and absurd and it will do nothing but damage the country’s interests as a whole. It will do nothing to advance the causes that we all share: defeating terrorism; doing away with benefit fraud; and tightening up our immigration rules, which the Government have randomly let fall apart. Of course we want to deal with identity fraud and serious crime, but the Bill will not do that in its present form and would not have done that in its first form. It is a ridiculous and stupid Bill.

What will the scheme cost the citizen? All of us over the age of 16 will have to pay not only the £30 cost of buying the wretched card, but the travel costs of getting from the outer isles to the Glasgow centre at which one will be processed, as though one were in some gulag, or from rural parts of the country to other cities.

What will the scheme cost the country as a whole? We all know that the cost will be somewhere between £8 billion and £19 billion, but the Government say that the cost of a card will be only £30. The whole thing is utterly absurd, and the more one examines what the Secretary of State has to say, the more absurd it becomes and the more absurd the Government are.

Let us step aside from the practical arguments against the Bill and consider a matter of principle: the relationship between the citizen and state, about which the Government care little and know nothing. They have forgotten about constitutional history—if they knew anything about it—and the proper relationship between the Government, Parliament and the judiciary. All that is swept aside with great windy bluster from the Home Secretary and his junior Ministers. It is time for Parliament to stand up for what it is supposed to and to defend the liberties of the citizen, not to kowtow to this appalling Government and go down on bended knee and grovel as they pass more and more appalling legislation to destroy the rights of the citizen. It is no good for the Government to say that this is all exaggeration—just look at what they have done already and what they intend to do through this Bill and other legislation to eat into the liberties of the citizen.

This is a bad Bill from a sad Government. It is legislation by statutory instrument. The Government are providing 61 separate powers to enable the Home Secretary or his successor to produce secondary legislation. The Bill contains very little detail. It increases the penalty for misbehaviour. One could easily be fined up to £2,500 for what the Government politely call a “civil penalty”, and if one does not pay that, off one goes to prison.

The Bill amounts to little more than a denial of democracy. The House should be ashamed of it, and I trust that all people of honour in the House will increase the Government’s embarrassment by reducing their majority to way below 32—indeed, we should kill this Bill. […]

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2005-10-18c.797.2

When the history of all this is written, it will not be possible to say that no one was warned, and that no one spoke up and stood up to be counted.

This story about physical data traces on hard disks was on the digg front page. (A known problem addressed by a number of programs). But it raises a few questions:

Will the server disks for the NIR have an audited destruction procedure?
Likewise all disks for companies and services accessing NIR information?
Will ‘free space’ on such disks be frequently and systematically erased?
Will there be enforcable methods for immediately erasing data in temporary files on all computers accessing NIR information?

Every time you answered ‘probably not’ is an opportunity for NIR information to be stored onto a hard disk and retrieved in a way similar to the article (and there are plenty of other ways). Every such answer is another reason not to register.

And when I say all computers I include your local NHS Trust, your banking & mortgage adviser, DVLA, car rental firms, IPS, travel agents, any company that verifies credit card purchases agianst NIR, law enforcement officers here and abroad (and companies with RIPA powers), etc, etc.

Are you inspired yet?

Chirac backs down on employment law

Staff and agencies
Monday April 10, 2006

The French government today bowed to weeks of protests and said it would replace a controversial employment law which made it easier to fire workers aged under 26.

Stunned by the biggest street demonstrations in almost 40 years, the office of the president, Jacques Chirac, said a new plan focusing on youths from troubled backgrounds would replace the “first job contract”.

“The president of the republic has decided to replace article 8 of the equal opportunities law with measures to help disadvantaged young people find work,” said a statement from the presidency.

[…]

And, of course, I know you haven’t forgotten this…

A few people deciding enough is enough, refusing to put up with an unfair law and doing something about it.

And the governments changed the laws. 

Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday April 9, 2006
The Observer

Rogue drivers are evading thousands of speeding tickets by exploiting a loophole in the law that enables them to ignore roadside cameras.

One motorist has been clocked speeding more than 100 times without being caught, while another has got away with driving at 119mph in a built-up area.

The phenomenon has prompted police to call for a change in the law. The scam involves offenders registering their cars at one of a network of ‘mass-mailing’ addresses used legitimately by businesses instead of at their own homes. When the driver triggers a camera, the penalty notice is sent to the mass-mailing address. Police seeking the motorist find only a shopfront where nobody lives.

Speed cameras generated more than £114m in fines last year and are credited by safety campaigners with saving lives. Figures released last week revealed that the speed of most drivers had dropped as the number of cameras had increased.

Tory frontbencher Andrew Selous, who is campaigning for a change in the law, said uncontrolled speeding by individuals with no fear of being caught risked deaths and serious injuries. ‘There is the danger, and there is the sheer injustice of it,’ he said. ‘If you or I are caught doing 35mph in a 30mph limit, we get three points on our licences and a £60 fine. People may resent that, but understand there is a reason for it.

But there are segments of the population who have wised up to clever ways of getting round this, which is extremely dangerous and downright unfair.’ […]

A Home Office spokesman said the national identity register being introduced to back up planned ID cards would help, and added: ‘We are examining how serious the issue is.’ A Department for Transport spokes-man said the DVLA database was ‘97.5 per cent accurate’. […]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1750138,00.html

No no no, you fucking morons.

The ‘sheer injustice’ is that the cameras are there harvesting you in the first place, not that there are people who are smarter than you who have managed to evade the shears.

They are not doing it to ‘cheat’ speed cameras, they are doing it to drive freely on the roads that they own and pay for. Whose side are you on you idiots?! And once again, how this article is not related to the NIR and how people will corrupt, avoid and abuse it is staggering. They simply repeat unquestioningly a home orifice blurt of bullshit.

Let me spell it out for you; people will be using these tactics and more if the NIR is not stopped. They will be justified in doing so, and it will be only the stupid and the sheeple that will be caught out and made slaves by it.

Alarm over shopping radio tags

By David Reid Click reporter

RFID technology broadcasts information to electronic readers

Supermarkets have already brought everything under the sun under one roof, and along the way been accused of denuding the High Street of butcher, baker and candlestick-maker.

Now they are introducing a new technology that some say threatens a fundamental invasion of our privacy.

We are all familiar with barcodes, those product fingerprints that save cashiers the bother of keying in the code number of everything we buy.

Now, meet their replacement: the RFID tag, or radio frequency ID tag.

These smart labels consist of a tiny chip surrounded by a coiled antenna.

Good tracking

While barcodes need to be manually scanned, RFID simply broadcasts its presence and data to electronic readers.

It means the computer networks of companies can track the position and progress of billions of products on rail, road, sea and shelf.

You start to ask yourself: ‘who has the ability to read the chips and what do they do with the information?’ Vint Cerf, internet pioneer

Albrecht Von Truchsess, from the German supermarket chain Metro Group, which uses this technology, says: “RFID really brings a revolution to everything that is transported from one point to the other, and in the future you will have it really on everything.

“That means that we don’t have to do anything while the goods are on the way from the production site to our stores. It is just done automatically.”

For all the benefits the technology promises, the roll-out of RFID is in danger of being derailed by the public’s perception of it.

A Christian author in the US, for example, has just published a book claiming RFID will evolve into the mark of the beast featured in Revelation and presage the end of the world.
[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/4886598.stm 

David Reid is a total dingbat.

What he has completely missed is that combined with the NIR, when you throw away that beer can with an RFID tag on it, someone can know that it was you that left the beer can in the street. Of course, it was not YOU that left it in the street, because as a BLOGDIAL reader, you do not litter; but if the garbage bag being used to transport your refuse to the tip splits, and then drops your garbage in the street, you will be fined, and will have to prove that it was not you that did the littering.
These systems are infinitely more dangerous when a national ID card is in place. You might say that, “I wont have to show my card unless I am buying alcohol or cigarrettes, so RFID cant track my purchase of bread”. This is an incorrect assessment. If you pay by credit card and have your identity checked with the NIR, your number will be connected to every item that you purchased, and its unique RFID tag serial number.

All of these stories relate directly to ID cards and the NIR. To leave them out of the picture in an article like this is simply wrong, especially when you are discussing the privacy aspects of this technology.

Reading an article by the Grauniad’s Art Critic, he states that his daughter’s name is Primavera.

In light of the recent trend for naming children such things as Chanel, Chardonnay… even, in the US at least “Chanel (269 girls), Timberland (six boys), Porsche (24 girls) and Armani (273 boys and 298 girls).

Parents named their children after everything from bottled water (Evian) and soft drinks (Fanta) to Western hats and cologne (Stetson), wine (Chardonnay) and beer (Guinness)”
… even with these bizarre choices, Primavera struck me as the most pretentious of the lot. I imagine Mr Jones sneering at the hordes of Chardonnays in Essex from his oh-so-chi-chi Islington terrace, while smug over his choice of pasta dish (or season – take your pick).

Maybe it’s just me.

In the future, perhaps all children will be named after a favourite vegetable. I know in many cultures names have specific meaning – Aslan is Turkish for lion, for example – but Primavera Jones…

I’ll get my coat.

This morning, I am listening to music on vinyl. Currently John Parish, How Animals Move. There has been Art Tatum, The Bible and others.

Some records seem to accumulate dust and fluff more than others. Kate Bush’s Ariel is one I have recently noticed gets particularly fluffy towards the end of each side.

Anyway, I just had a wonder… if I had kept all the fluff I have ever had to remove from my needles through the years, would I have enough for a pillow? A duvet? Or maybe just enough for a stuffed toy in the shape of a 7″ record?

Would the pillow be comfortable? Would I be able to sleep for all the musical memories stored so close to my ears?

Welcome to the new series ‘Why You Should’nt Register at the NIR’, where we give examples of how your life will be impacted by obeying the ID card legislation.

This is from the Guardian:

TV Licensing knows you’ve bought a TV

Picture a world where innocent shopping transactions must be reported to the authorities, who can then persecute the shopper. Vicky Kennard wanted to buy a present for her mother-in-law and ordered a video and DVD player from Dixons. It was to be delivered directly to her mother-in-law’s address, but nevertheless Kennard – who does not own a television – was contacted soon afterwards by TV Licensing. She was told that Dixons had informed it of her purchase and that she must either buy a licence, prove someone else in the house had one, or provide the name and address of the person she had bought the video player for. “Surely under the Data Protection Act, Dixons had no right to pass on my details,” Kennard says. In fact, Dixons and all other dealers are required by the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967 to provide TV Licensing with names and addresses of everyone who buys or hires TV-related equipment within 28 days of the purchase. Otherwise they face a fine.

Guardian

Now magnify this to everything you buy.

Someone somewhere, or even worse, some computer somewhere, will know what you have boutght and where, and then will tax you accordingly. This is already happening without a national ID card; imagine what they will be able to do with the system up and running.

And now, this illustrates once again, the dangers of insider shenanigans at the NIR:

Officer sold secrets to gangsters

Merseyside Police say O’Leary’s behaviour was ‘despicable’

A policeman who sold surveillance secrets to gangsters has been jailed for three-and-a-half years. Former Merseyside officer Gregory O’Leary, 39, gained information from force computers which was then sold to the underworld for £1,000 a time.

O’Leary, who drove a BMW with a personal number plate, admitted six counts of misconduct in office at an earlier Liverpool Crown Court hearing.

Mr Justice Openshaw said other officers would be “outraged by his treachery”.

The court heard O’Leary, who joined the force in 1985, could have made up to £80,000 from selling information.

BBQ

And there you have it. An insider selling access to private and sensitive information to the highest bidder. Now; imagine the NIR; the aladins cave of information on everyone. Imagine one insider who manages to get a copy of a large part of it. Such information would be worth much more than £80,000. Also, since this information is unique, every time this happens and the bulk data is copied, eventually it will be possible to create a mirror copy of the entire NIR database of biometric data. This data will never be out of date, since it is unique to each individual.

This sort of thing has happened before of course, specifically where the girlfriends of criminals got jobs with the sections of the police service dealing with computers so that their lovers could keep tabs on investigations.

You should not put your data into this system under any circumstances. As soon as you do it, you put yourself at risk, and of course, the more people who enter the register, the more valuable it becomes.

Finally, that BBQ article says that:

Mr Justice Openshaw said other officers would be “outraged by his treachery”.

Well, outraged is a llittle strong. It is a well known fact that ex police officers with friends still in the force check out people all the time. A little bird told me that she uses her friends in the force to check out potential tennants to see if they have criminal records or not. Once again, this abuse is happening right now, and the NIR will only make it worse.
Where is part one of this series you say? Why, its right here.

If you find an example that should appear in this series, email irdial@gmail.com

Voters Revolt

Brief Summary

Britain is embroiled in an almighty battle between “us” and “them” – the voters of Britain versus the new ruling class which ignores our views. Our elected representatives are under the thumb of the political establishment. The forces of bureaucracy and political correctness are throttling the rights and liberties of the people.

Slowly we are being herded into a police state from which it will be hard to break free. We must act now. We must force the parties to reform the system and give power back to us.

The British people will not tolerate this attack on their liberty. We must leave the political establishment in no doubt that at the next general election many will vote for the party which is most committed to giving power back to the people.

They won’t want to listen. They will fight to keep the power they have taken from us. We must therefore stand firm and use the power that STRENGTH IN NUMBERS gives us. We must send the politicians a very clear message that their lives are about to change!

The Mass Withholding of Council Tax

The mass withholding of Council Tax is one weapon at our disposal. It would be much more effective than isolated individual protests and far less risky. A mass withholding would demonstrate the number of votes at stake and the determined resolve of those taking part. The parties have to be convinced we can affect the result of the next election. This action will not be necessary if the parties accept that they must take steps to restore our democracy.

One to watch.

It is time for new labour legislation in this province. At present, it is too one-sided. Individual rights are being totally ignored.

We have far too many strikes in Saskatchewan, which could have been prevented if we had some politicians with a little backbone. It appears they are only interested in the public at election time for votes.

Controversial issues are not touched or discussed.

Unionized employees of the Sobey’s grocery store on south Albert Street have been on strike for six months. It is a great store with honest, hard-working and self-reliant workers.

[…]

If joining a union is so good for its members, then way should they be forced to join? It should be voluntary, as in other organizations.

If a union member is not satisfied with the salary or working conditions, then he or she should look elsewhere for a job that fulfills all expectations and demands.

Compulsory unionism is called “the new slavery” because once a union has been voted into a workplace, there is no going back, especially for workers who didn’t want to join in the first place. Freedom of association is lost in the labour movement and in its place is coercion of its members. Coercion is contrary to all principles of freedom.

The Leader Post

[…]

You get the picture.

And in case you think I use that article because I couldn’t easily find harsh words about the UK government:

From time to time I, like many of us, muse on what is wrong with the people who run our country. Are they stupid? Are they naïve? Or are they actually downright wicked?

[…]

Consider, for example, the likely outcome of possibly the nastiest Bill to go before Parliament since the Six Acts of 1819, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. The Commons has given a second reading to this Bill, which would increase the already great ability of ministers to bypass Parliament in enacting, repealing or amending (according to Clause 2 of the Bill) “any legislation”. The Bill would especially be used, if enacted, to import EU law into our own without any parliamentary scrutiny, but could be used for even worse things besides.

[…]

Frankly, these plans are so absolutist that one could make a strong case that the Queen should abdicate rather than give her assent to either of them.

To obviate that horror she, Parliament and the British public must demand a straight answer to a straight and vital question: what is so wrong with our democracy that Labour wishes so ruthlessly to end it?

There have been quite a few views aired like this in the Telegraph recently, by ‘Establishment’ figures, it makes wonder whether there was a time when the nobs could simply ‘arrange an accident’ for ‘here today gone tomorrow’ political figures.

The notion that queen should abdicate rather than assent to the legislation talked about is interesting – is it a veiled call for her loyal subjects to oppose the proposed laws? Like I say interesting, and on a day when the Guardian publishes a piece explicitely citing Marx!

The new UK Identity and Passport Service, spawned out of the Passport Service after the ID Cards Act became law on Saturday, has celebrated its birth by trying to stop people renewing their passports whenever they want to, whether or not the passport is about to expire. The change in terms and conditions has been slipped into the website without announcement, and is quite clearly ID card related. [The Register]

Basically you can guarantee that if your ‘strategy’ is to look for loopholes in current legislation you are a sitting target and being as useful as going on a demonstration.
The government are making certain that you will have to *fight* for your rights if you want to return this country to a free, peaceable, libertarian democracy.

Edit:
The IPS site now has the fact you can renew your passport at any time on it. But the points above stand, legislation can and most likely will be amended to suit the government – loopholes are pretty trivial to close especially so if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill is enacted.

So cock-up or a symptom of the endemic bullying of the Home Office?

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.

Water cannon could be used to quash street protests (Guardian)

Water cannon could soon be used to quell serious civil disturbances on British streets after a successful display of their effectiveness to senior police officers. […]

What are the government going to do next that they feel is BEYOND DOUBT that people will protest against?

It could be an attack on Iran – the US talk has shifted from recent events to a so called 20 year history of nuclear activity (the ‘ we’ve tried for yars and this is our last resort excuse’).

Quite why a government with the backing of 20% of the population (max) feels it needs to pursue policies that it obviously knows the country does no want is beyond me, especially when most people want to just get on with their lives and do something useful rather than need to be bothered with whatever treachery and piracy the government is up to.

*They* obviously want a fight. But I still can’t understand why they want to go to such lengths to do it.

Talking of riots and such, the French riots are being somewhat underreported by UK press don’t you think?

Pan, tilt, zoom

Each day, as you go about your life, it’s likely you’ll make a guest appearance on at least 300 different CCTV screens. Britain now has more security cameras than any other country, yet their impact on crime rates is negligible, while our fear of crime is still rising.

[…]  ‘This is one of the reasons CCTV grew so strongly here as against in other European countries,’ says Norris. ‘It was centrally funded.’ The other reason was a complete lack of regulation. In places like Germany or Scandinavia a right to privacy is written into the constitution. Here, the only legislation that affected CCTV was a relaxation of the planning laws. […]

The operation has led to 100 arrests

The use of metal detectors to catch people carrying knives is to be extended by British Transport Police across the UK, the BBC has learned.Operation Shield was launched in London two months ago to target those carrying knives on the Tube network and trains.

Police with stop-and-search powers and sniffer dogs use mobile airport-style scanners to check passengers.

Since it began, almost 10,000 people have been scanned, 100 have been arrested and 68 knives seized.

The initiative is already up and running in Liverpool. It is due to start in Birmingham this month and in north-east England in May, and will eventually be used UK-wide.

[…]

You must take notice.

Unless you are locked in your own home, with the curtains drawn, expect no privacy.

Unless you subjugate yourself to any minion in a uniform, to any mechanical invasion, expect no freedom.

Unless you fight against this evil, expect no sympathy.