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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—–

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

The first images are in from the MRO, and they are absolutely stunning…and HUGE.

JPL are going to have a hell of a time distributing these files; each of the full res TIF files are 190megs, and the JPEGs are 91megs.

They really should build a site that serves these files by torrent only…and come to think of it, its quite a feat to get such long files back from mars is it not? Either way, this is quite an exiting mission; when the orbiter gets into a less eliptical orbit, the resoultion will be ten times higher.

This is what life is about.
This is what money should be spent on.
This is mankind at his best.

+++++++ UPDATE August 30th 2010 +++++++

Being from the generation weaned on space exploration without questions asked, I used to get very exited about NASA and all of its feats. Now of course, its clear to see that NASA is the completely wrong way to go about space exploration, as its very foundation is a slave society based on coercion and theft.

If private enterprise were free to flourish without the yoke of the state around everyone’s neck, who knows how far we would have gone by now. In every other field of human technological endeavour, private enterprise far exceeds the state in capabilities and price. Had space exploration been done on a purely private basis, in a completely free society without a state, we would have bases on Mars and not be simply looking at it with probes.

After this post was written and thanks to Ron Paul and Lew Rockwell, I was finally able to bring together all of my ideas about Liberty (which I have held since I was very young, thanks to  my parents and a ‘Social Studies’ teacher who I now believe must have been some type of Libertarian or Anarchist) around the time of Ron Paul’s second run for the US presidency.

I discovered something wonderful; all the things I knew were true, Libertarians hold as true. Many of the things I felt were true but could not express were confirmed as true and spelled out very clearly by Libertarians; and by ‘Libertarians’ I mean specifically Murray N. Rothbard.

I cherish things that are true; this is why I have always loved science and maths. Libertarianism is true, clear, free of contradictions, ‘cop outs’, means justifying the ends, necessary evils, excuses and fallacies. Accepting its truth means that you must give up your blind love of organizations like NASA and its achievements, but in exchange you get the truth… and that is worth the price.

Alex Jones provides another belly laugh:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to read the Virginia manual in full.

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

and more seriously, there is this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sickening and vile behaviour.

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

Iron Duke fights duel over Catholics

Saturday March 28, 1829
The Guardian

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

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

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

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

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

‘Youre always so happy, how the hell…

You’re like a dumb dumb patriot

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

Let me benefit from your right?

Dont you know the only way to change things

Is to shoot men who arrange things

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

It’s always raining over the border
there’s been a plane crash out there
in the wheatfields
they’re picking up the pieces
we could go and look
and stare

But they always seem to know
exactly what they’re talking about
now they’ve got you in a corner
you’ve got no room to move
you’ve got no room for doubt
that’s exactly what they’re talking about
now they’re got you in a corner
no room to move
no room for doubt

From Magizine’s ‘Secondhand Daylight‘.

A record whose atmosphere fits perfectly with this very odd, tightrope time that we are living in; prescient, fantastic, chilling work but somehow filled with hopeless beauty at its very heart.

Something is certainly up, both here and in the usa, where the Charlie Sheen event is causing a wildfire of alam clocks, waking up the slumbering sheeple in a totally unexpected way. David Letterman is becoming more overt and vicious in his attacks on Murder Inc; everyone has had enough it seems and its about fucking time.

I keep saying that anything is possible, and any future is possible. All it takes is the collective redirection of all the people , or at least, enough of the people on this planet to steer the mass towards a future that is not dystopian. Futurists got the future wrong before, there is no reason to believe that they will not be wrong now. There is no reason why the world should end up in a prison planet scenario, a THX-1138 hive society. We have to make the future. This means staying straight and true, never opting for convenience for illusory gains, like the giving up of liberty for security. What seems insurmountable today, will tomorrow be an incomprehensible past. Soviet Communism. The Berlin Wall. Every empire that ever existed. All of these seemingly ‘there forever’ things all dissapeared and we now wonder how on earth they ever were in the first place.

The bogus ‘War on Terror’. The Bush Regime (Murder Inc). ID cards. Pervasive CCTV. All of these things will cease to exist; it is only a question of when, and wether or not we will reap the benefit. There is no reason why for example, in a CCTV crystal nacht, all cameras in the UK  could not be taken down and destroyed. Is that more incomprehensible or unimaginable than the Berlin Wall falling at the heads of many hammers?

Because I say it can happen, it CAN happen.

‘Labour isn’t wicked – but it’s doing just what the Nazis did’

That is the headline of an article in The Telegraph an asonishing headline and attack, and a part of the fallout from the anonymous email that is breaking the hypnotic spell that the wholley owned subsidiary of Murder Inc. has spread over this great nation.

Once again, these are pretty strong words…surprisingly strong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rant Over.

—

Edited to add ‘badly painted’ picture:

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.

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

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

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

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

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

—-

And ‘their’ I stopped.

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

Technorati Tags: stakeholder, tax credits, ID cards

According to CardTechnology Magazine, parts of southern Taiwan are trying out a contactless digital money card, branded by MasterCard, for bus passengers. Apparently, the card cannot be validated fast enough for subway use. The cards are also being used for purchases at stores.

The Taiwanese trial is one of many that are going on around the world. The Feb 2006 print issue of CardTechnology magazine asks the question “Will Banks and Transit Create A Common Contactless Card?” on the front cover. There is a move all over the world to force citizens to give up hard currency and printed identification in favour of digital forms. Besides making our lives more costly, there are many people concerned with the negative repercussions on our lives.

These types of cards are part of a wave of digital identification measures that make it easier to identify someone anywhere in the world. The Observer Guardian has a strongly cautionary article regarding the possible erosion of civil liberties due to national identity types of cards, and the scare tactics that the UK government is using in media campaigns urging people to get a card.

These cards, originally intended to be voluntary, seem to have become mandatory, or so the article suggests. Without it, the UK government suggests, you can’t do this or this or that. Apparently, you will not be able to get a job, drug prescriptions, or even an Internet account without it. In short, you need it.

Consider how difficult it would be for travellers new to a country to get around, purchase stuff, get medical attention, etc, without somehow being part of the process. Gone are the days when you could just get on a plane and visit somewhere. Now, if you’re not part of a tour package, you have to worry about having the right identification and even the right transit cards, etc.

If you’re coming from a country that no longer uses print passports, what happens when you go to another country? Can they use your digital passport? Do they still expect a print passport, or do they have a digital system as well – one that’s incompatible with your digital passport?

Anyone who can access your digital identity card(s), in any country, can find out a lot about you. As human beings, we are flawed, and in our youth, we may make mistakes on our path to wisdom. Some of these mistakes might be recorded for eternity, available to far more people than you’re comfortable with having access.

This and many other social issues need to be sorted out before citizens should accept such drastic changes to the way we live our lives. […]

An excellent and insightful piece snarfed from here.

It is clear that anyone with even the slightest amount of intelligence understands that all of this is a very bad idea. I have a feeling that it will be difficult for it to be pulled off, either in the short term (preferable) or the long term. Like the Soviet Union that all of this is based on, tyranny simply cannot survive. There will be an explosion of hate, or just as the Berlin wall fell, people will simply ignore the rules en masse, so that the system collapses completely. I just hope that it doesnt take seventy years like it did for the Russians. I think that it wont take that long, because the means to mass communicate to millions is in the hands of everyone.

…No this is not the new Home Office ID computer building. Spiegel Online have a nice virtual tour of Hitler’s Chancellery designed to intimidate his foreign visitors. The Führer would have loved to have got his hands on the sort of technology being proposed by theHome Office. In German the gradual erosion of civil liberties that happened in the Third Reich is known as Salami-Taktik, as in slices of salami. New Labour has got hold of the same idea. Tony Blair’s legacy will be a lot of bad legislation that little by little will push Britain towards the genteel fascism spoken of by George Orwell, the author of 1984. The proposed ID card database is a massive intrusion into our civil liberties by a government drowning in its own sleaze. The dream of total social control that already costs us 100,000 pounds every day and any illusion that this is going to be a voluntary scheme is a sick joke. And, to honour the memory of the Nürnberg Race Laws, Section 13 deals with the creepy “invalidity and surrender” of a person’s ID card, or the withdrawal of a person’s identity by the state. Without the card it will be impossible to function as a citizen in the UK. In spite of the cost the card will remain the property of the state. Die Untermenschen kommen wieder. […]

http://ceridwendevi.blogspot.com/2006/03/cyber-walkabout.html 

You see?

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.

I just got back from performing at the STRP Festival in Eindhoven; a new technology, music and arts event.

There were many superb performances. There were many fascinating installations and many sensor driven robots / things one of which was exceptional. Many runners ran on this one.

The staff were gracious and perfectly organized, the hospitality first class. The punters were of the highest intelligence and good taste.

The event took place in the former Phillips factory, Philips of course, being the inventors of the Compact Disc.

Many years ago, I wrote some essays on CD and digital audio which caused controversy and triggered accusations of ludditery against their noble author.

Now 14 years later, I perform a set of Fine Art Noise whose very nature is absolutely tied to and created from the specification of Compact Disc, in the very building that saw its initial development.

This was a great thrill for me; to enter this historic building, and to shock it from the inside with a mind destroying cascade of CD derived sound, in the place of CDs birth, the sound of the performance being a near echo of labor pangs that this factory felt as it unleahsed the idea and product that would totally change the way people consume music forever.

Another circle.

BBC in product placement shock
[….] ‘We would never knowingly insert the product of any company and try to pass it off as a news story’, said a source. ‘The BBC is an independent service for the British license payer. The only way a story like this could get onto our news site would be if there were internal corruption – someone taking massive backhanders.’ he continued. ‘Unless the story comes from Arslikhan PR, of course.’ […]

The Hyshot III was attached to the front of a conventional rocket

A new jet engine designed to fly at seven times the speed of sound appears to have been successfully tested.The scramjet engine, the Hyshot III, was launched at Woomera, 500km north of Adelaide in Australia, on the back of a two stage Terrier-Orion rocket.

Once 35km up, the Hyshot III fell back to Earth, reaching speeds analysts hope will have topped Mach 7.6 (9,000 km/h).

It is hoped the British designed Hyshot III will pave the way for ultra fast, intercontinental air travel.

An international team of researchers is presently analysing data from the experiment, to see if it was a full success.

The scientists had just six seconds to monitor its performance before the £1m engine crashed into the ground.

Rachel Owen, a researcher from UK defence firm QinetiQ, which designed the scramjet, said it looked like everything had gone according to plan.[…]

‘We’d hoped to get some coverage, but to be placed so highly on the BBC site is exactly what we needed, what with the recent share price slide. The BBC reports give us an air of respectability one just doesn’t get with the Queensland Daily Sheepskinner, for example. No disrespect, of course.’ […]

A teacher accused of hitting a child with a ruler, but never prosecuted, has won a legal battle to have her DNA sample and fingerprints destroyed.

Philippa Jones, from Birmingham, was arrested in June last year following allegations she hit a boy aged eight.

The High Court said her DNA sample, fingerprints and photograph should have been destroyed within 28 days.

She will also receive £250 damages from West Midlands Police for false imprisonment and assault.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

What the question now is: Have they been destroyed and who can verify that they have?

I’m under no illusions about the police will have, in all probability, retained this womans fingerprints and DNA on their database despite her ‘victory’ in the courts. In situations like this, who is independent of the Police and has the authority to actually check the PNC that this womans records have been destroyed?

Warning on Euro licences
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 22/03/2006)

A new Europe-wide driving licence could become “an identity card by the back door”, a British Euro-MP warned yesterday.

Transport ministers are expected to approve the single driving licence for 25 nations at talks next week.

The document, the size of a credit card and replacing 110 types of licence in use in the member states, will be phased in over 20 years between 2012 and 2032.

Britain is backing the move as a practical anti-fraud measure which will make it much easier to check valid licences across Europe.

But Ian Hudghton, a Scottish Euro-MP, called for safeguards to prevent the licence becoming, in effect, part of a Europe-wide identity card system.

He welcomed measures to make Europe’s roads safer, including a single driving licence to prevent drivers banned in one country obtaining a licence in another.

But he added: “If we are to have a Europe-wide driving licence scheme there must be safeguards. Otherwise it could herald a European ID card system by the back door.

“Many people would be unhappy about the prospect of a single EU identity card, just as they are unhappy about the prospect of identity cards being introduced by Tony Blair’s Government.

[…]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

So. They are trying to get an ID card throught the front door, AND the back door.

It’s positively pornographic.

Imagine the WASTE this will produce; it is a pure sign of what this is really all about; the contracts to produce and manage identiy systems across the western hemisphere.

There is absolutely no need for an EU driving licence, and of course, the next document they will want to produce is a unified EU Passport.

Why should there be an EU driving licence when passports from different countries are accepted without question? Because cars are a fantastic source of revenue; if they can consolidate the driving licences and all the car registrations in a new EU car registration structure, they will have a huge revenue resource. Any car in your country can be taxed and each member state will be able to fleece the driver as he crosses borders, whereas now, this cannot happen.

And finally, there is no need for any of this. All they need to do is to allow each authority access to the other authorities systems through a single interface. This would cost much less, whilst having the same effect of wiping out everyone’s jurisdictional insulation.

Snarfed from here.