Incomplete excision!
June 15th, 2010It’s not perfect. In fact it is FAIL, this expulsion of the foetal police state. Two articles demonstrating some of the limited progress, bearing in mind that the sinister, racist, apartheid style ID Cards are still… on the cards. It’s a catalogue of FAIL, with each measure leaving just enough cancer behind so that it can return one day to kill the body.
Face-to-face passport interviews catch only eight fraudsters
A multi-million pound scheme to tackle passport fraud has been branded a failure after it was revealed that only eight people have been caught as a result of the project.
Since 2007, first-time applicants for passports have been required to attend face-to-face interviews with officials from the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) in an attempt to spot fraudsters.
Out of half a million people interviewed so far, just eight have been refused passports on the basis of the evidence obtained, according to official figures.
Although 4,000 fraud investigations have been triggered as a result of the interviews, not one has led to a prosecution or conviction.
Yet the government has admitted that on its own estimate, 4,400 fraudulent applicants per year are still managing to slip through the net and obtain passports.
Phil Booth, of campaign group NO2ID, said: “This expensive project was an attempt to introduce a network by stealth for the national identity card scheme. These figures show it has failed to have any significantly effect on passport fraud.”
The system of face-to-face interviews cost £93 million to set up, with £30 million a year running costs on top. It has helped push the price of a standard passport up from £28 in 2001 to £77.50 today.
Mr Booth added: “Now the ID card scheme has been binned and we have seen off, for the time being at least, proposals to fingerprint for passports, will this network be closed and will the cost of a passport be cut by this Government?”
Under the new system, applicants for passports aged 16 or over, who have never held a UK passport before, must first pass a background check and are then told to arrange an interview at one of 69 offices across the country.
[…]
While the interviews appear to have make little impact on levels of fraud, traditional paper checks continue to detect thousands of bogus applicants a year.
In 2006/7, 6,100 applicants were identified as fraudulent by the existing safeguards and prevented from obtaining British passports.
In the same year, according to an official government estimate, 9,700 slipped through the net and obtained passports to which they were not entitled.
By 2008/9, the most recent year for which data are available, the number identified as fraudulent and stopped through paper checks had risen to 9,200, while the number estimated to have slipped through the net had fallen to 4,400.
[…]
Remember, this is 9,700 out of an undisclosed number of passports that are issued or renewed every year. Without the number of passports that are issued correctly, this number is meaningless. If the total number of passports renewed or issued for the first time is 9,701 then the problem is huge. If the number of passports renewed or issued for the first time is 1,000,000 then the problem is very small, and the vast majority should not be penalised. Also, if this 9,700 number is correct, it shows that the state is able to detect these passports and intercept them in order to make a count, rendering the number of carriers of bad passports at any one time very small indeed compared to the tens of millions of people who are British passport holders.
Like the pathetic and paranoia, vendor snake oil fuelled US VISIT system, this absurd face to face interview system is a total waste of time.
The vast majority of passports are correctly issued. Even the ones that are correctly issued can be misused at will by criminals and murderers, especially now that cloning them is meade simple by the RFID chip in each passport. That is why, by the way, you should hammer the chip page in your biometric passport if you are unfortunate enough to have one.
When it is proposed that a working system is altered to accommodate a problem caused by a statistically small number of cases, that is a good indication that the proposed changes are wrong and should be rejected.
See our other posts on this subject:
The Times on Biometric Passports: Do they FINALLY understand?
Fingerprints as ID – good, bad, ugly?
and one from 2005 etc etc.
And now, on to the insanely stupid ‘vetting and barring scheme’:
Ministers slammed the brakes last night on Labour’s controversial scheme to force millions of parents to undergo anti-paedophile and criminal records checks.
Home Secretary Theresa May pledged to change ‘fundamentally’ the deeply unpopular Vetting and Barring Scheme which was due to expand dramatically from next month – but she stopped short of scrapping it entirely.
The plans for new registrations from July 26 have been scrapped and Home Office officials are working out how the scheme will be scaled down.
Nine million adults were due to undergo intrusive checks by a new government agency, the Independent Safeguarding Authority.
But there was outrage after it emerged parents taking their children to Scouts or sports events could face fines of up to £5,000 if they failed to comply.
The scheme, which was designed to protect children and vulnerable adults, prompted major civil liberties concerns over its size and intrusion into private lives.
Last night Mrs May said checks on vulnerable groups should be ‘proportionate and sensible’.
She said: ‘The safety of children and vulnerable adults is of paramount importance to the new Government.
‘However it is also vital that we take a measured approach in these matters. We’ve listened to the criticisms and will respond with a scheme that has been fundamentally remodelled.
‘Vulnerable groups must be properly protected in a way that is proportionate and sensible.
‘This redrawing of the VBS will ensure this happens.’
Civil liberties groups welcomed the move, but urged Mrs May to abolish the scheme entirely.
Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, said: ‘A review is not a solution.
‘The vetting and barring scheme should be scrapped and the Independent Safeguarding Authority should go with it.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286639/Vetting-plans-parents-scaled-ministers.html
You cannot be a little bit pregnant. This scheme, like the foul ID Card and NIR must be entirely abolished forever. Absolutely appalling that they are even considering keeping it, especially when they have the perfect storm of pretexts for getting rid of it.
I had a chance to watch this again. What struck me about it was how it highlights the complete reversal of right and wrong, normal and abnormal that we are suffering today.
In the 1960’s its clear that the ideas of mistrust by default, preemptive war, attack as the best defence was the line that the purely evil, venal, greedy villain took, whilst peace, patience, negotiation, understanding, empathy for strangers (and in this case, VERY strange strangers) was the position of the absolute hero, the ideal and model human being, the normal, decent and true spirit of man.
This episode is startling, because it reminds anyone who watches is that the world really was a very different and better place even with all the unpleasant things that were happening at that time.
There is absolutely no reason why the better nature of human beings should not re assert itself in the 21st century. All decent people refuse to go along with the anti human Zero Trust Society, the economic slavery, the systematic silencing of anyone who does not go along with the group think.
It looks to me that thanks to the internet, it is now nearly impossible for a lie to have a long life. This means that means that all lies that are used to reshape the world now cannot do so, since reshaping the world with a lie takes time. If the truth is told all the time everywhere, then the end result must be more liberty and not less. This is why it is vitally important for people to retransmit the truth; it is more important than demonstrating, violence or any of the the 20th century ways of making things that are wrong, right.
And while we are talking about the truth, do take the time to watch all of the documentary ‘Free to Choose‘. The facts that make up the science of Economics are not a matters of opinion. It is up to you to make yourself familiar with the truth, to face it, embrace it and spread it.
For great justice!