ID cards are coming to America [Archive]

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Marksix

April 2nd, 2006, 10:44 AM

...just a friendly heads up; compulsory ID cards and their associated databases (the real sinister component) are coming to America.

Without this National ID, you won't...

* Drive your car
* Board a plane, train, or bus
* Enter any federal building
* Open a bank account
* Hold a job

In the UK the labour party sees government as more important than the freedom of the individual and means to railroad through a compulsory id card containing biometric and other data and multiple databases linked to it. Some senior police officers are calling for compulsory DNA data to be included. Their goal is a complete audit trail on individual's lives and therefore the possibility of further control over same.

At various stages the labour party has spouted spurious arguments supporting their case, one of which is to comply with Amercan government requests and legislation.

If you object like most of the UK do then tell everyone you know of this and join protest groups such as the one below.

The UK protest group is also given as our arguments are more advanced since its been coming here for longer.

http://www.nonationalid.com/

http://www.no2id.net/

What you can expect based on the British experience:-

The problems with "ID Cards"
Not just a card. The card is the least of it...

The proposed identity management system has multiple layers

The NIR (National Identity Register) — individual checking and numbering of the population — marking many personal details as "registrable facts" to be disclosed and constantly updated — collection and checking of biometrics (e.g. fingerprints) — the card itself — a widespread scanner network and secure (one hopes) infrastructure connecting it to the central database — provision for use across the private and public sectors — data-sharing between organisations on an unprecedented scale.

Massive accumulation of personal data

50 categories of registrable fact are set out in the Bill, though they could be added to. Effectively an index to all other official and quasi-official records, through cross-references and an audit trail of all checks on the Register, the NIR would be the key to a total life history of every individual, to be retained even after death.

Lifelong surveillance and the meta-database
Every registered individual will be under an obligation to notify any change in registrable facts. It is a clear aim of the system to require identity verification for many more civil transactions, the occasions to be stored in the audit trail. Information verified and indexed by numbers from the NIR would be easily cross-referenced in any database or set of databases. The "meta-database" of all the thousands of databases cross-referenced is much more powerful and much less secure than the NIR itself.

Overseas ID cards are not comparable
Many western countries that have ID cards do not have a shared register. Mostly ID cards have been limited in use, with strong legal privacy protections. In Germany centralisation is forbidden for historical reasons, and when cards are replaced, the records are not linked. Belgium has made use of modern encryption methods and local storage to protect privacy and prevent data-sharing, an approach opposite to the Home Office's. The UK scheme is closest to those of some Middle Eastern countries and of the People's Republic of China—though the latter has largely given up on biometrics.

The Government has not made a case. There is no evidence the system will produce the stated benefits. Less liberty does not imply greater security.

Terrorism
ID does not establish intention. Competent criminals and terrorists will be able to subvert the identity system. Random outrages by individuals can't be stopped. Ministers agree that ID cards will not prevent atrocities. A blank assertion that the department would find it helpful is not an argument that would be entertained for fundamental change in any other sphere of government but national security. Where is the evidence? Research suggests there is no link between the use of identity cards and the prevalence of terrorism, and in no instance has the presence of an identity card system been shown a significant deterrent to terrorist activity. Experts attest that ID unjustifiably presumed secure actually diminishes security.

Illegal immigration and working
People will still enter Britain using foreign documents—genuine or forged—and ID cards offer no more deterrent to people smugglers than passports and visas. Employers already face substantial penalties for failing to obtain proof of entitlement to work, yet there are only a handful of prosecutions a year.

Benefit fraud and abuse of public services
Identity is "only a tiny part of the problem in the benefit system." Figures for claims under false identity are estimated at £50 million (2.5%) of an (estimated) £2 billion per year in fraudulent claims.

"Identity fraud"
Both Australia and the USA have far worse problems of identity theft than Britain, precisely because of general reliance on a single reference source. Costs usually cited for of identity-related crime here include much fraud not susceptible to an ID system. Nominally "secure", trusted, ID is more useful to the fraudster. The Home Office has not explained how it will stop registration by identity thieves in the personae of innocent others. Coherent collection of all sensitive personal data by government, and its easy transmission between departments, will create vast new opportunities for data-theft.

Overcomplicated, unproven technology

Computer system
IT providers find that identity systems work best when limited in design. The Home Office scheme combines untested technologies on an unparalleled scale. Its many inchoate purposes create innumerable points for failure. The government record with computer projects is poor, and the ID system is likely to end up a broken mess.

Biometrics
Not all biometrics will work for all people. Plenty are missing digits, or eyes, or have physical conditions that render one or more biometrics unstable or hard to read. All systems have error. Deployment on a vast scale, with variably trained operators and variably maintained and calibrated equipment, will produce vast numbers of mismatches, leading to potentially gross inconvenience to millions.

Identity Cards will cost money that could be better spent

No ceiling
The Government has not ventured figures for the cost to the country as whole of the identity management scheme. That makes evaluation difficult. Civil Service IT experience suggests current projections are likely to be seriously underestimated. Home Office figures are for internal costs only, and have risen sharply—where they are not utterly obscure. Industry estimates suggest that public and private sector compliance costs could easily be double whatever is spent centrally.

Opportunity costs
The Government has not even tried to show that national ID management will be more cost-effective than less spectacular alternative, targeted, solutions to the same problems (whether tried and tested or novel). We are to trust to luck that it is.

Taxpayer pain
Even at current Home Office estimates, the additional tax burden of setting up the scheme will be of the order of £200 per person. The direct cost to individuals (of a combined passport and ID card package) is quoted as £93. The impact on other departmental and local authority budgets is unknown. The scope and impact of arbitrary penalties would make speed cameras trivial by comparison.

Unchecked executive powers

Broad delegated power

The Home Office seeks wide discretion over the future shape of the scheme. There are more than 30 types of regulatory power for future Secretaries of State that would change the functions and content of the system ad lib. The scope, application and possible extension are extra-parliamentary decisions, even if nominally subject to approval.

Presumption of accuracy

Data entered onto the National Identity Register (NIR) is arbitrarily presumed to be accurate, and the Home Secretary made a judge of accuracy of information provided to him. Meanwhile, the Home Office gets the power to enter information without informing the individual. But theres no duty to ensure that such data is accurate, or criterion of accuracy. Personal identity is implicitly made wholly subject to state control.

Compulsion by stealth

Even during the so-called "voluntary phase", the Home Secretary can add any person to the Register without their consent, and categories of individuals might be compelled selectively to register using powers under any future legislation. Anyone newly applying for a passport or other "designated document", or renewing an existing one, will automatically have to be interviewed and submit all required details. This is less a phased introduction than a clandestine one. There is to be no choice. And the minimum of notice to the public about the change in the handling of their registrable information.

Limited oversight

As proposed, the National Identity Scheme Commissioner would have very limited powers and is excluded from considering a number of key issues. He does not even report directly to Parliament. The reliance on administrative penalties means severe punishments may be inflicted without judicial process. The onus is on the individual to seek relief from the courts, at a civil standard of proof. Those who most require the protection of a fair trial are the least likely to be able to resort to legal action.

Individuals managed by executive order

Without reference to the courts or any appeals process, the Home Secretary may cancel or require surrender of an identity card, without a right of appeal, at any time. Given that the object of the scheme is that an ID card will be eventually required to exercise any ordinary civil function, this amounts to granting the Home Secretary the power of civic life and death.

The National Identity Register creates specific new threats to individuals

Discrimination—no guarantees

There have been vapid "assurances" made to some minority groups. That underlines the potential for threat. The system offers a ready-made police-state tool for a future government less trustworthy than the current one. A Home Secretary could create classifications of individuals to be registered as he sees fit, introducing onerous duties backed by severe penalties for fractions of the population. Religious or ethnic affiliation, for example, could be added to the Register by regulation—or be inferred by cross-referencing other information using a National Identity Register Number or associated data.

"Papers, please"

ID cards in practice would provide a pretext for those in authority—public or private—to question individuals who stand out for reasons of personal appearance or demeanour. This is likely to exacerbate divisions in society. The Chairman of the Bar Council has asked, "is there not a great risk that those who feel at the margins of society—the somewhat disaffected—will be driven into the arms of extremists?"

Third party abuse

The requirement that all those registered notify all changes in details risks creating the means of tracking and persecution through improper use of the database. A variety of persons have good reason to conceal their identity and whereabouts; for example: those fleeing domestic abuse; victims of "honour" crimes; witnesses in criminal cases; those at risk of kidnapping; undercover investigators; refugees from oppressive regimes overseas; those pursued by the press; those who may be terrorist targets. The seizure of ID cards (like benefit-books and passports now) will become a means for extortion by gangsters.

Lost identity, becoming an un-person

By making ordinary life dependent on the reliability of a complex administrative system, the scheme makes myriad small errors potentially catastrophic. There's no hint from the government how it will deal with inevitably large numbers of mis-identifications and errors, or deliberate attacks on or corruption of what would become a critical piece of national infrastructure. A failure in any part of the system at a check might deny a person access to his or her rights or property or to public services, with no immediate solution or redress—"license to live" withdrawn.

czsz

April 2nd, 2006, 04:17 PM

I don't think German or Spanish society is likely to fall back into totalitarianism soon just because they employ national ID cards.

On the other hand, legal precedents have been set in which citizens can be taken custody and held on no charge if they pose what one or a few individuals deem a risk to national security.

What's the real problem? The cards or mentalities and policies which would lead to their abuse?

Marksix

April 3rd, 2006, 06:19 AM

What's the real problem? The cards or mentalities and policies which would lead to their abuse?

...deffinately the latter. It wasn't IBM's punch card and relational database that killed millions in WW2 it was the business like efficiency it the facists to implement their doctrine.

Ask yourself why a political party wants such a system?

...having said that, it should be remembered that it was only 1981 that there was an attempted military coup in Spain and 15 years since Germany incorporated the Stasi into it's intelligence structure. In my own country, the "mother of parliaments" there was a military coup planned in 1973-76 with a "junta" to be put in place of the elected government.

ablarc

April 3rd, 2006, 07:58 AM

In my own country, the "mother of parliamnets" there was a military coup planned in 1973 with a "junta" to be put in place of the elected government.
Wha...?

BrooklynRider

April 3rd, 2006, 12:00 PM

National ID cards are nefarious indeed. Although they are initially touted as a way to protect one against identity theft, they ultimately lead to the government monitoring your every move, from travel to shopping habits, from medical histories to political affiliations. There is nothing innocent about them and there is nothing remotely helpful to Americans by employing them. Of course, they will be embedded with RFIDs to track your every movement as well. I think cell phones and credit cards that aren't already employing RFID technology soon will.

National ID cards are VERY bad. But, the Bush administration's policy of opening up the southern border to create a huge flow of illegal immigrants into the country would create the perfect scenario for introducing such cards. You might see a rush to embrace them if they would "do something about the illegal immigrant problem."

Problem+Reaction=Solution

They know the solution they want. They create the problem to get the reaction and miraculously they havethe answer.

Read the PNAC manifesto and see the results of 9/11 - it's all too much to be touted as coincidental. With the 9/11 attack, the neocons were able to completely fullfil their agenda.

Ninjahedge

April 3rd, 2006, 12:16 PM

Read the PNAC manifesto and see the results of 9/11 - it's all too much to be touted as coincidental. With the 9/11 attack, the neocons were able to completely fullfil their agenda.

Oh I SEE!!!!

You are one of THEM arent you?!?!!!

Well, WE won't stand for any of that from YOU. WE will make sure OUR way of life is made mandatory for all the God-Loving people of this country!!!!

YOU and YOUR KIND can follow whatever THEY say, but not in OUR country!!!!

;)

Marksix

April 3rd, 2006, 05:21 PM

Wha...?

yes shocking isn't it? in true British fashion it has been swept under the carpet to protect the "establishment" who were behind it. These things are never publicised here in Britian, i.e. three out four sisters of Duke of Edinburgh (the husband of the Queen) were members of the Nazi party.

Former PM Harold Wilson is on tape saying that he knew of at least two coups planned in the 1960's besides this 1970's coup. We have no true freedom of information act here so the real events remain covered up but I've clipped an article from a UK newspaper which pretty much tells the tale. It is claimed that an army exercise occupying Heathrow Airport (the first move by all military coups is to occupy the airport! lol), which was not ordered or authorised by any government official was a dry run for the coup. News pictures of that "exercise" were re-shown on tv recently. Remember the prevailing climate in 1973 when the plot originated; in the UK almost all industry permanently on strike, a currency crisis, the 3 day week, the oil shock, power cuts, the start of middle east terrorism, the cold war at its height, the CIA coup d'tat in Chile....

WHO WAS PLOTTING AN ARMY COUP TO GET RID OF HAROLD WILSON?
16 March 2006
30 years on, PAUL ROUTLEDGE says it's time to name bigwigs who planned to overthrow an elected PM

IT was an announcement that shocked the nation. Thirty years ago today, Harold Wilson told Britain that he was stepping down as Prime Minster with three years still left to run.

No adequate reason was given for his decision and speculation and rumour spread like wildfire.

But somewhere in a safe, deep in the heart of Whitehall, lies a damning and very secret report that may yet reveal the great unsolved secret of the Harold Wilson years - did the security services plot a coup against the Labour Prime Minister?

And just how close did the tanks come to Number Ten?

Wilson firmly believed that he was the target of a dirty tricks campaign run by officers and ex-officers of MI5, MI6 and even the British army to bring down his government.

"A couple of thousand men in the Horse Guards Parade could do a lot of trouble before troops came - if they came," Wilson confided to his political secretary Marcia Williams.

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Now new evidence has come to light that confirms Harold Wilson's worst anxieties. And that top secret Whitehall report on the spooks' plot could soon be forced into the open. When Jim Callaghan took over from Wilson as Prime Minister he ordered Lord Hunt, a former Cabinet Secretary, to investigate the alleged MI5 plot. The Hunt Report, kept under wraps for three decades, is believed to name names.

The smear campaign against Wilson began in the late 1940's when, as President of the Board of Trade, he negotiated vital food deals with Soviet Russia.

As a minister in Attlee's postwar government, as a backbench MP, as Labour leader after Hugh Gaitskell and as Prime Minister four times in the 1960's and 1970's, Wilson was the target of elements in the security services seeking his downfall.

In the view of hard-right MI5 mavericks like "Spycatcher" Peter Wright, who later confessed his role in the plot, Socialists were the same as Communists - intent on delivering the UK to the Kremlin.

Wright confessed: "We discussed how to get rid of him." Brian Crozier, another ex-spook, admits that "top members" of the Army were involved in the takeover talks.

Former arms minister Lord Chalfont agrees that a coup would have involved "very senior people." To bolster their sordid case for ousting a democratically-elected government, MI6 invented a Russian lover for Wilson, and passed a "compromising" photograph of the pair in Moscow to MI5 - who fed it straight to the media. It was also claimed that Wilson had taken bribes, and supplied classified information to Soviet "moles". A Soviet defector fingered the Prime Minister as a KGB agent, and claimed there was a Communist cell in Downing Street.

None of these preposterous stories were true, but they were also handed on to the CIA, whose leading operative James Jesus Angleton used them to discredit the Labour leader within the American administration. Wilson was thus suspected of playing into the hands of Communism when he began withdrawing British troops from Suez, even though it was in the nation's best economic interests.

The conspirators reached a lunatic height in 1967, when the Queen's uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was sounded out as the possible leader of a military coup.

He was reluctant to get involved, but that didn't stop the plotters trying again in the 1970's, after Wilson had been returned to power in the general election called by Tory premier Ted Heath in the teeth of a national pit strike.

By then General Sir Walter Walker even prepared a speech for the Queen to read when a Mountbatten-led national government seized power.

The campaign against Wilson did not end in the early 1970's. It continued through his second and third governments.

Wilson called the then heads of MI5 and MI6 to account, and set in train the events that culminated in the Hunt Report. This investigation implicated Peter Wright and his friends, and George Kennedy Young, one-time head of MI6.

Now historian Stephen Dorril, co-author of Smear! Wilson And The Secret State, has asked Downing Street to produce the report.

Having just written a short biography of Harold Wilson myself for a new series on Prime Ministers of the Twentieth Century, I am convinced that the Labour leader's suspicions about subversive spooks were both genuine and justifiable.

I do not believe that their treachery was the sole cause of his thunderbolt resignation. Wilson had told his wife, his closest political friends and the Queen that he intended to resign around his 60th birthday - which fell on March 11, 1976.

He was exhausted by years of running the country and holding the warring Labour party together - and Alzheimer's disease was setting in.

But I also believe that the spooks' subversive campaign waged against his leadership contributed powerfully to his weary frame of mind.

...and just to prived some context and some relevence to American readers, Lord Mountbatten (his former name Battenberg, the future King of England's mentor) has some form on military coups, even costing American lives:-

"...South Vietnam had been placed under British control at the Potsdam, conference of July 1945. The British commander, Lord Mountbatten, sent over 20,000 troops of the 20th Indian division under General Douglas Gracey to occupy Saigon. The first soldiers arrived on 6 September and increased to full strength over the following weeks. The Committee of the South attempted to open negotiations, but was ignored. As Gracey later boasted, 'I was welcomed on arrival by the Vietminh. I promptly kicked them out.' Instead he set about driving the nationalists off the streets, banning meetings and demonstrations, closing down the Vietnamese press, prohibiting Vietnamese from carrying weapons and restoring Japanese curfew regulations. On 23 September, with his connivance and under his protection, French troops staged a coup. They seized public buildings, including the town hall, and made widespread arrests."

Mountbatten whilst viceroy of India also engineered independent Kashmir to cede to India which directly led to recent nuclear stand-off between Pakistan and India. These are not people we can trust, either in their judgement or their integrity.

So I think I am justified in my concerns about being complled to apply for citizenship in my own country, having my biometric data taken against my will and being enrolled an government databases. You never can tell who MIGHT be in power one day....

He knew his enemies would never cease their dirty tricks while he was in Number 10, and they would stop at nothing. It is perfectly possible - indeed, probable - that by standing down he averted the coup against democracy that he so feared.

With his wily genius gone, Labour stumbled on to defeat in 1979, and the conspirators got through the ballot box what they had plotted to gain by treachery - a right-wing Tory government.

Wilson's successors in Downing Street owe it to the nation to publish the Hunt Report in full.

Only then can the ghosts of 30 years ago be laid to rest.

I'm certain his fears of subversive spooks are justifiable

nick-taylor

April 3rd, 2006, 08:28 PM

Fabrizio

April 3rd, 2006, 08:42 PM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4789060.stm

Marksix

April 4th, 2006, 06:52 AM

I was curious as to why you hadn't actually posted your source - only turns out that its from the Mirror. You could at least post a non-tabloid account of events rather than post something that I wouldn't even consider once to wipe my arse with. No wonder you have problems understanding such issues if you read that pile of doggy doos!

Hi again Nick - I always enjoy your well balanced and witty reposts but is it really necessary to resort to personal insults in place of considered debate?. Thanks to FABRIZIO for putting up that link to the BBC giving another source. However, the problem with the Nick-Taylors of this world is that the BBC is itself run by a bunch of anti-establishment left wing subversives so I doubt it would count as balance in his world.

For me what was chilling about those days was hearing the contemporaneous tape (al'a Nixon) recordings of Harold Wilson in conversation about those events. It's clear that he and those around him expected a coup could happen at any time.

What was profoundly shocking to any democrat; senior members of the armed forces, the aristocracy, business, the media, Cold War Warriors, professional anti-Communists, the British security services and the CIA went about dirty work that could have resulted in a military coup. When troops and tanks suddenly appear at Heathrow airport, when private armies are being openly talked about and the support of the Royal Family is being canvassed, we are not far from the abyss. And there was a contemporary precedent; Gough Whitlam in Australia was deposed by the UK government.

When I put up that article I simply chose it at random from the many articles available and also because I was too lazy to write my own account. The Daily Mirror was once a great left wing newspaper and the biggest UK newspaper but sadly those days are long gone. As it happens, Harold Wilson's agent was Joe Haines a distingushed and long serving Daily Mirror jounalist.

I don't know if the British Government were building flying saucers but I hope they were; if only to put the likes of you in and send them to the heavens. Did you hear the one about the Queens Surveyor of Portraits once accused of being a top soviet agent? Imagine, a personl aquaintence of the Queen, a top accademic working at the very heart of the establishment, a person with free reign around all the royal palaces at the very top of society being accused by left wing anti-establishment figures like me of being a spy. Totally preposterous.

As it happens, Anthony Blunt (Sir Anthony Blunt, my apologies) was unearthed by MI5 as the 5th man in the Philby, Burgess & McClean spy ring in 1964 but protected by the establishment until journalists found the truth in the face of official denials in 1979! His spy ring passed on secrets about strategic battle plans, nuclear weapons, the west's likely reaction to a soviet invasion of Hungary and many more that directly led to the deaths of many people. Just one example of how the very unlikely did in fact, happen...

My point was to illustrate the potential dangers of surrendering individual freedoms to the state and trustung that the state will always be benevolent and act in our best interests. History teaches us that this simply is not the case; the plot against Harold Wilson is simply the most recent example of this. That we know about at least. The refusal of the government to publish the Hunt Report suggests that the establishment would still like those events to remain under the carpet were they were swept.

I don't believe a coup would have happened in the UK in the 1970's but I do believe and in fact know that powerful elements of the British establishment planned at least one. These people and others like them are still around and it is vital to be vigilant, hence my strong objections to ID cards and the database state.

As to the American ID card legislation, I beleive the same arguments apply if not more so. I don't think anyone can seriously deny the CIA's well documented role in coup d'tat's in i.e. latin America, attempts to subvert Italy in the 1970's and if such powerful government agencies hold democracy in such contempt would they think much more than twice before sweeping away democracy in their own country if they had sufficient motivation, real or imagined? It is a depressing fact that reactionary and undemocratic forces exist in all countries despite appearances to the contrary. At the time of the Wilson plot, the head of the CIA was one George H.W. Bush.

The point about ID cards and the database state is that it provides such a powerful mechanism for control by the state over the individual.

I hope that these arguments will gain a wider currency in America.

(MI5's official response to the allegations of a plot against Harold Wilson:- http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page439.html)

nick-taylor

April 4th, 2006, 11:29 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4789060.stmMarksix should take lessons from you!

Marksix - Its not called insulting - its called being highly critical of your source. The Mirror is a waste of space and it beggars belief that you can somehow stand by it as something credible to affirm your point. If someone used the Mirror as a source even at A-Level they'd laugh!

For those New Yorkers not familiar with the Daily Mirror, its a tabloid paper and this is the frontpage of todays edition....images speak louder that words....

http://images.icnetwork.co.uk/upl/m2/apr2006/4/2/0001522F-16DB-1432-B4090C01AC1BF814.jpg

Quite simply there are tons of media outlets that you could have referred to but I suspect you chose the Mirror either because you're a regular reader or due to its highly tabloid orientated journalism that you believe would reach out to others on this forum.

Why do you assume that I have something against the BBC? One of the worst things you can do in life is assume something that you don't actually have any evidence to support - but thats how the tabloid newspapers do and it trully reflects in your sourcing and rationale.

I actually love the BBC!BBC News is my homepage and I read it anytime that I have internet access. BBC Radio 1 is the only radio station I listen to, while the BBC TV channels probably count 80% of all my total tv viewing. You couldn't be more further from the truth. Although the BBC is probably by far the most balanced news producer on the planet, its not always balanced simply because its controlled and operated by humans who will always have bias towards certain subjects. My preferred news programme though is Channel 4 News - the only trully intellectual news programme around.

I find it horrific that you can claim 'lazyness' to explain why you chose the Mirror. The Mirror is a tabloid - doesn't matter what political backing it is - its not balanced, its crude beyond all belief that it actually fabricates stories just like The Sun! All tabloids are rubbish - people should be allowed to read them, but many problems in society are due to the tabloids - they have massive political weight.

Many people are accused of something or have clear records but the still have to be checked - it happens to hundreds of thousands each year, be it with teachers or those wanting to work with the security services or those in precarious situations. By giving credibility to tabloids which are key people responsible for invasion of privacy and making false stories you are contradicting yourself.

By looking across time we haven't regressed - its been the opposite. That doesn't mean that we lay back and take it for granted - but giving credibility to tabloids who are only interested in money no matter the truth of the story.

The worrying thing is not the state controlling our lives, but individuals controlling the state and our lives and its because you don't understand this, that you'll never understand politics.

Fabrizio

April 4th, 2006, 12:40 PM

"The worrying thing is not the state controlling our lives, but individuals controlling the state and our lives..."

uh.... could you maybe draw a diagram ?

Marksix

April 4th, 2006, 04:29 PM

"The worrying thing is not the state controlling our lives, but individuals controlling the state and our lives..."

uh.... could you maybe draw a diagram ?

lol - quite so.

I do understand a little about politics N-T; my history teacher and brother's best friend was PPS to Harold Wilson and went on to take his seat in Parliament when he resigned; my mate is a campaign manager for the Democratic Party on the west coast and has been involved in the last three US campaigns and I myself am actively involved in the Mayor for Liverpool (www.amayorforliverpool.org) campaign - politics as an extreme sport! One of my ancestors was Lord Mayor of Liverpool in the 1930's and 1940's and a contemporary of the legendary Bessie Braddock - (now there was a real politician!). A distant cousin was Lieutenant Governor General of Manitoba. My uncle, a union organisor in Toronto was the responsible for the first ever delisting of a (corrupt) union in that country and was invited to be a leader of the United Auto Workers Union in that country.

You are quite correct in that I could have chosen the same story from many media outlets and sadly all journalism is tabloid these days (Wall St. Journal excepted!). In point of fact the BBC report is pretty much identical to that newspapers', I guess you must have missed it whilst listening to Chris Moyles's "car park catch phrase" on radio 1. As I said, I chose it at random - could have been the Guardian, The Times, The Daily Mail, The BBC whatever...I don't buy newpapers any more but its very big of you to say that "people" be allowed to read them. I'm sure they are grateful to you. I read the electronic editions online when I can be bothered to.

The posting was not about that "plot", any newspaper or believe it or not, you either Nick-Taylor. It was to make people aware that ID cards and their associated databases are being seriously contemplated by the US Government and hopefully visitors to this forum will consider the implications of this and debate it seriously. Please limit your comments if you can, to ones that add to that debate. We in the UK are having to deal with it now. We have a head start on people in America in what they can expect, what the arguments are and point out some of the dangers we in the UK have perceived.

One of the great things about the internet is this kind of forum in which international barriers mean nothing and we have have the same ability governments do to communicate. ID cards? They can be introduced by stealth so as I said - heads up guys!

(Nick-Taylor - try not too listen to too much Chris Moyles...heh heh)

Fabrizio

April 4th, 2006, 06:16 PM

What is funny is that Nick thinks that he can get away with a statement like this: (note his usual strawman tactics...)

"Thing is - that was all speculation - nothing actually ever happened. I bet if you actually looked through the archives you'd probably find things like Britain seriously thinking of trying to build a UFO-like spaceplane....again just because people say it: it doesn't mean that it will happen. The way you word your posts is almost as if you believe it happened or is going to happen!"

Let´s pick this one apart:

"Thing is - that was all speculation - nothing actually ever happened."

Well golly... thanks for figuring that one out for us. OF COURSE "nothing ever happened". Wilson is claiming that there was a "PLANNED" coup.

"I bet if you actually looked through the archives you'd probably find things like Britain seriously thinking of trying to build a UFO-like spaceplane....again just because people say it: it doesn't mean that it will happen."

Wha? Read that again: ".....just because people say it: it doesn't mean that it will happen."

Geeeeeeez: there is a DIFFERENCE between "planning" and actually carring out the plan. Nick seems to be saying that even if such a coup was plotted..... all is ok ....because it never did happen.

He ( I think justly) critizes your source (the mirror) but then completely glosses over basically THE SAME info being offered in an article from the BBC.

Your original statement was:

"In my own country, the "mother of parliaments" there was a military coup planned in 1973-76 with a "junta" to be put in place of the elected government."

The BBC article states:

"Harold Wilson's belief that he was the victim of a secret service plot to discredit him is well documented."

Perhap this was all just "speculation" as Nick claims.... but the fact that some credible people are taking Wilson´s claims seriously (not simply brushing it off as nutty ravings) is of concern when considering National ID Cards.... no matter what the country.

nick-taylor

April 5th, 2006, 07:21 AM

uh.... could you maybe draw a diagram ?Well how more clear can it get - the state and us being controlled by an oligarchy! Thats a more dangerous threat than the state controlling us (although that is a credible threat) which is a minority, ie absolute power.

Marksix - So you haven't actually been educated in politics but believe that somehow you have some divine wisdom because you know people who are or were involved in politics? I so happen to have actually studied for several years Government & Politics and one of the aspects of my degree is geo-politics.

All journalism tabloid and in what context: all of the UK or the world? Have you not picked up a broadsheet recently like the FT, Independent, Observer, or weekly papers like The Economist, etc..? Also I so happen to have a copy of the WSJ Europe Edition with me albeit it is the March 13th edition and news is not something of its strong point. Personally I'm subscribed to the FT and The Economist.

I might listen to Radio 1.....it doesn't mean that I listen to it 24/7.

No you couldn't source another newspaper because it would provide another view which wouldn't agree with your political views.

If this thread was about ID Cards then why did you not only bring up the issue of Wilson, but then go on to produce an article? Why should I limit my views on a matter that you originally brought up? Afraid that I've actually put forward a case that discredits you (once again)?

If ID Cards were being introduced by stealth we wouldn't know about them...but we do don't we, hence why there are people protesting against them!

Fabrizio - I actually never said that it would be okay if there was a planned coup - only that it didnt come to place because it didn't have the serious backing. Several skyscrapers have been proposed over the years in London over 400m - all have turned out to be visions. Just because people think, it doesn't necessarily mean its a credible threat, and there are far more important problems in our lives that need our attention.

Its not about the information - its about how the information is presented that is important.

Fabrizio

April 5th, 2006, 08:25 AM

"Just because people think, it doesn't necessarily mean its a credible threat, and there are far more important problems in our lives that need our attention."

(oh boy...)

These are the steps: 1. "thinking about it" 2. "planning it" 3. "Carring it out".

It seems that Wilson was worried that they were on step 2.

ablarc

April 5th, 2006, 08:39 AM

nick-taylor

April 5th, 2006, 12:29 PM

Nick, you're not convincing on this issue. What point are you actually trying to make?

That there was no planning for a coup? That there might have been, but it's OK because nothing came of it? That it's OK to plan coups if you disagree with the government?

How would having any kind of degree give you greater authority on these questions?I'm not convinced that it would realistically happen.

Its one thing to plan something that will come to fruit, its something else to plan for something that might never happen because everything needs support. The only way to realistically look at these things is objectively, ie that it had all the chance of happening or it had no chance at all. From the evdence we have, it was closer to the latter and this has proen to be true. I'd bet that in countries like the UK, US, France, etc...there are people planning each day on how they would like to take control of the country.

Ninjahedge

April 5th, 2006, 01:14 PM

Nick, if you and a group of your friends laid out plans for the assasination of the president, it would not matter if you went through with it or noe, the Feds, if they found out, would be knocking on your door.

Worse yet, if it turned out your plans were feasable and within your means to impliment, you would probably be "detained". So the point here is that even when you plan something, if it is this serious, the reaction will be on a similar scale.

nick-taylor

April 5th, 2006, 02:32 PM

Ninjahedge

April 5th, 2006, 03:34 PM

Murder is different from a coup which could be done without lifting a finger to harm anyone. Coups don't last though without significant support and by all accounts this didn't seem to be the account.

You are starting to split hairs here Nick. I was just pointing out where they were coming from. It is not worth going into the difference between the two. the conversation would be more productive if you all started siting the differences between Chunky and Smooth... ;)

lofter1

April 5th, 2006, 05:16 PM

... if it turned out your plans were feasable and within your means to impliment, you would probably be "detained". In this day and age -- and in certain circles -- you simply have to voice / post a thought / desire about deposing a leader to get you on a "watch" list -- or worse.

Marksix

April 6th, 2006, 06:30 AM

I'm goin nutz here - the point of my posting was to let people know that ID cards and the database state is being considered by American lawmakers. I've put up the arguments agains in my original post at the start of this thread. Keep an eye on it over the coming years, it profoundly affects you!

Nick-Taylor – I’m sorry but I just find it impossible to engage in meaningful debate with you so I’ll take the very apt counsel of my girl friend who says "don’t argue with stupid people; they drag you down to their level and then beat you with their greater experience"

Marksix

April 6th, 2006, 06:49 AM

In this day and age -- and in certain circles -- you simply have to voice / post a thought / desire about deposing a leader to get you on a "watch" list -- or worse.

Lofter - how paranoid can you get? Just for thinking a thought can get you arrested? Or even listening to a certain record? Surely not. Read on.....

'Playing The Clash made me a terror suspect'
by ANNE CAMPBELL,

Metro 08:06am 5th April 2006

A mobile phone salesman was hauled off a plane and questioned for three hours as a terror suspect - because he listened to songs by The Clash and Led Zeppelin.

Harraj Mann, 24, played the punk anthem London Calling and classic rock track Immigrant Song in a taxi before a flight to London.

The lyrics to both tracks made the driver fear his passenger was a terrorist.

The words of the Clash track begin: "London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down." And Led Zep's Immigrant Song goes: "The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands, to fight the horde, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!"

Mr Mann, of Hartlepool, Teesside, had boarded the plane at Durham Tees Valley Airport when the flight to Heathrow was stopped and he was arrested by police.

He said he was told he was being questioned under the Terrorism Act and his choice of music had aroused suspicions.

Mr Mann said yesterday: 'The taxi had one of those tape deck things that plugs into your digital music player.

"I played Procol Harum's Whiter Shade Of Pale first, which the taxi man liked. I figured he liked the classics so put on a bit of Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song - which he didn't like. Then, since I was going to London, I played the song by The Clash and finished up with Nowhere Man by The Beatles."

Mr Mann said he was 'frog-marched off the plane in front of everyone, had my bags searched and was asked 'every question you can think of'.

He added: "It turned out the taxi driver alerted someone when I arrived at the airport and had spoken about my music. He didn't like Led Zep or The Clash but there was no need to tell the police."

Durham Police said the action was taken 'as a result of information received' and the flight was stopped before take-off.

source: Daily Mail (right wing, reactionary British Tabloid of the middle classes - lol)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=382039&in_page_id=1770

i just had to add this from the readers response page of the Daily Mail - so funny! lol

You better watch out, you better not sigh.
Better not shout, I'm telling you why:
Thought Police are coming to town!

They're making a list, and checking it twice;
They're gonna find out who's naughty and nice.
Thought Police are coming to town!

They know what you are thinking,
They know what tunes you play,
They know if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!

Oh! You better watch out, you better not sigh.
Better not shout, I'm telling you why:
Thought Police coming to town!

- Anon , Malvern, Pennsylvania

nick-taylor

April 6th, 2006, 07:55 AM

Marksix - You find it impossible? Anyone who actually knew anything would have no problem in castrating an opponents argument. The fact that you now call me stupid because you can't actually debate at my level is presumably a hint of irony - maybe that was a hint also from your girlfriend! The fact that you take tabloid articles as a reference time and time again indicates more your socio-economic situation and your level of intelligence and comprehension. What worries me though is how none of the other forumers here seem to actually care about the source because everyone should always be objective of sources, its almost like giving the National Enquirer credibility for being a serious source!

Again you quote a tabloid newspaper! What next - using comment articles and blogs as serious objective articles! Its not like there aren't any alternative sources that you couldn't rely upon, because there are dozens.

Also how is your article illustrating a police state or anything like it? By all accounts the police were responding to what they believed was a credible threat. Yes it was inconvenient, but if the police didn't take all possible threats - real or not, then we'd end up with a police force that would be less active making them more susceptible to corruption and increase the chances of real threats passing without intervention. Yet again though this is tabloid journalism at work: make a story ut of nothing to sell papers and make money.

In a utopian society we wouldn't need to have these sort of searches from tip-offs because everybody would be happy - but we don't and we have to make the balance between security and freedom - both CAN work in tandem, but none can be allowed to dominate the other because that is when we enter a loop of trouble.

Fabrizio

April 6th, 2006, 10:10 AM

Nick: I could understand the guy getting arrested for playing Celine Dion ...but c´mon...the Clash and Led Zeppilin? No wonder why Britons are leaving.

lofter1

April 6th, 2006, 10:48 AM

Just because they really are out to get you doesn't mean you aren't paranoid.

Steven Brust

nick-taylor

April 6th, 2006, 11:36 AM

Nick: I could understand the guy getting arrested for playing Celine Dion ...but c´mon...the Clash and Led Zeppilin? No wonder why Britons are leaving.I've explained this to you already, over a third weren't Brits to start with, ie they were foreign students or individuals working in the UK on short-term work placements. The majority of those that were Brits and leaving are elderly and seeking a retirement home. That figure of yours also included those going on gap years between studies and those going on short-term work placements. Another thing to point out is that even though more Brits are leaving, more Brits are returning home. In contrast, Britain is absorbing more people than it is loosing and these people are fertile, educated, hard working and healthy. The result is the population and economy is growing.

ZippyTheChimp

April 6th, 2006, 12:02 PM

Never respond seriously to a joke.

Fabrizio

April 6th, 2006, 12:03 PM

I rest my case.

Ninjahedge

April 6th, 2006, 12:23 PM

Never respond seriously to a joke.

Are you kidding?

ablarc

April 6th, 2006, 12:32 PM

Britain: give it a few more years, Nick, and it sounds like you'll be living in heaven on earth.

Perhaps already there?

nick-taylor

April 6th, 2006, 07:20 PM

Britain: give it a few more years, Nick, and it sounds like you'll be living in heaven on earth.

Perhaps already there?No country will ever be perfect and every society constantly needs to adapt to changing circumstances, wiht that said I'd say that Britain's situation is pretty good in relation to many other countries.

ZippyTheChimp

April 6th, 2006, 08:27 PM

Never respond seriously to a joke.

Are you kidding?

No...I'm serious.

Fabrizio

April 7th, 2006, 03:54 AM

nick-taylor

April 7th, 2006, 04:17 AM

Fabrizio - Like I explained in post #28 - more people are coming in though and those that are leaving aren't telling all the story (ie a large chunk not being Brits - were foreign students and including gap year students, etc).

Ninjahedge

April 7th, 2006, 10:48 AM

No...I'm serious.

Surely you must be joking.

It's an entirely different kind of ID, alltogether.

Marksix

April 7th, 2006, 11:07 AM

"No country will ever be perfect and every society constantly needs to adapt to changing circumstances, wiht that said I'd say that Britain's situation is pretty good in relation to many other countries."

Well if that´s so, could you explain for us why so many people are leaving?

...or want to leave?

83 percent of Britons want to leave the UK

http://www.emigratenz.org/bye-bye-blighty.html

http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.asp?section=research&id=1322

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=IG1811643A&news_headline=three _in_four_brits_want_to_emigrate

ablarc

April 8th, 2006, 10:46 AM

Wow! Those articles are eye-openers. England's like a revolving door: foreigners in, Brits out. Fascinating.

Fabrizio

April 8th, 2006, 11:01 AM

I wonder if their ID cards will be valid in other countries.

ablarc

April 8th, 2006, 03:55 PM

I wonder if their ID cards will be valid in other countries.
Only if they're encoded with the right DNA samples.

nicksinif

April 9th, 2006, 06:29 AM

ID's are nonsence. we should not be required to carry id's.

Swede

April 10th, 2006, 12:55 PM

I wonder if their ID cards will be valid in other countries.
Swedish ID cards are - valid in all Nordic countries (part of the freedom of movement we've had for decades). And the new EU-adapted ones planned will make passports unescesary(sp?) throught Schengen./skipped most of the thread...

Swede

April 10th, 2006, 01:00 PM

Marksix

April 11th, 2006, 08:12 AM

Swedish ID cards are - valid in all Nordic countries (part of the freedom of movement we've had for decades). And the new EU-adapted ones planned will make passports unescesary(sp?) throught Schengen./skipped most of the thread...

Do your Swedish ID cards also have compulsory biometric data which you are forced (literally) to give, do they contain RFID tags which can be read covertly and are they also linked to mulitple government databases which are the REAL power behind such cards?

Do Swedish ID cards require £60 billion spent on the largest IT project ever attempted, anywhere in the world?

Does the Swedish Government use ID cards as a stealth tax? i.e. each time your ID card is checked does your Government charge?

see:-
www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2153744/firms-pay-id-card-checks

On a previous thread about the congestion charge in London, some people here thought it would be a good idea for Manhattan; I cautioned against this and put it in the context of ID cards and the database state for which I was ridiculed in some quaters. However, already ID cards and their databases are being considered in support of congestion schemes in the UK. In a clear case of "mission creep" the home office is examining how drivers can be identified using this tech.

A Home Office spokesman said the national identity register being introduced to back up planned ID cards would help with roadside number plate recognition. (Observer newspaper)

The UK opted out of the Schengen agreement due to its innate anti-European and traditional zenophobia. 21 out of 25 EU member states have ID cards although not all are compulsory. It is notable that those European countries with compulsory ID card schemes actually adopted them during periods of dictatorship.

For anyone in America who thinks they have nothing to fear from government imposing ID cards and the database state and that your government has your interests at heart consider this article :-

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70619-0.html

Sadly, this already happens here in the UK but this quote from AT&T is particularly chilling:- "AT&T follows all laws following requests for assistance from government authorities."

Marksix

April 11th, 2006, 08:24 AM

I wonder if their ID cards will be valid in other countries.

There has been no explicit ruling by the Council of the EU which would require the UK to bring in this national ID card scheme. However, the future requirements of the continuing process of legislative conformism with the EU is probably our government's main reason for introducing compulsory biometric ID cards and the National Identity Register database. The NIR database will give Blair the IT infrastructure he would need to sign the UK up to Phase II of the Schengen Information System, this will contain more data categories, cf. person and object categories than the current implementation of SIS.

Below is a quote from a Home Office document on ID cards and it uses the fact that most EU member states have them and that the EU/ICAO/US want some biometric data for passports, (although nothing like as much as our scheme will collect), to make it seem inevitable that we must also adopt them sooner or later:

Quote:
2.Why introduce ID cards?

The Government's decision to proceed with the introduction of a national identity cards scheme is based in part on the fact that we will have to introduce more secure personal identifiers (biometrics) into our passports and other existing documents in line with international requirements. Right across the world there is a drive to increase document security with biometrics. If our citizens are to continue to enjoy the benefits of international travel, as increasing numbers of them are doing we cannot be left behind. It is worth remembering that 21 of the 25 EU Member States (all apart from the UK, Ireland, Denmark and Latvia) have identity cards. end quote

In the past, the Council of the EU expressed a desire to standardise ID cards across Europe, and they also want to have mandatory fingerprinting for all EU citizens. The future French electronic ID card will include two biometrics and Sweden has just started issuing biometric ID cards. In order to make Britain part of the coming EU super-state the government must bring us into line with European norms. However, unlike most European countries, Britain has a proud record of respecting a law-abiding individual's liberty, (at least until recently).

In a more sinister move, the UK Council Presidency set up an "ad-hoc group of experts" which has drawn up a set of "Conclusions" to be adopted at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 1-2 December. "Conclusions" are "soft-law", non-binding, and not subject to any national or European parliamentary scrutiny. Thus working on an "intergovernmental basis" it will be agreed that face and fingerprint biometric will be taken and incorporated in a radio frequency chip, and that the standards agreed for EU passports will "apply without modification". "Minimum standards" say that applicants have to "appear in person" and their identity verified against "existing databases". Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments: "This is no way to bring in such a far-reaching policy, one which will affect millions of people. It is particularly objectionable that the Council are using a '"proper" EC committee to draw up the text of these Conclusions, without being accountable under the normal rules for these committees and exceeding the committee's powers as set out in legislation. This method of decision-making (soft-law) is becoming all to common, it was also used to develop the technical requirements (scope and function) for VIS and SIS II. By-passing national and European parliamentary scrutiny, let alone civil society, has no place in a democracy"

Governments in Europe are cleary working (conspiring?) between themselves to apply tech as a means of control over the citizenry. Given that the American government is seeing this happen is talking about an ID card (and the database state) for US citizens it can safely be assumed that they too are conspiring with the EU to comform to each others standards (at least thats how they will explain it to you).

Europe is different to Great Britain; we never conformed to the principle that the individual is subservient to the state as much of Europe did. This principle was passed on to to America but if it can be eroded here in the UK by a political party it can in America too. Be aware of these plans and their true implications.

Ninjahedge

April 11th, 2006, 10:42 AM

Bottom line, we need to have some sort of world council that actually has some power.

The only reason we have these cards and passports and such is because we have those stupid painted lines all over the land that were placed to identify who was in charge of the land between them.

Add "credit" into it and you get what we have now.

(PS, and by World Council, I do not mean something that one country such as the US forces on all others. More of a call for the PEOPLE of the different countries to stop acting like frigging dogs (marking your territory) and let the borders signify nothing more than where we can find you, not who you are and what you represent.)

nick-taylor

April 11th, 2006, 08:37 PM

Marksix: Is that by any chance a quote from here: http://www.murky.org/archives/2004/11/id_cards_a_repl_1.html

ie a letter in correspondence to a query about ID Cards (interestingly though if we were anywhere close to a police state; there would have been no response other than to arrest the person: which hasn't happened). Your 'additional' comments to the letter completely fly in the face of the analysis of the letter by the person who received it: ie not to act in a wacked out state.

NB: Britain has become more 'free', not less free. That holds more weight than a single voice.

Sometimes I'm unsure about you - whether you're really a right-wing crackpot posing as a libertarian to discredit the liberal pathway or just crazy. Another thing I've learnt though is that you can be a liberal, socialist or conservative and still be a bad person and destroy liberty, security and society.

Fabrizio

April 12th, 2006, 05:03 AM

Marksix

April 12th, 2006, 05:42 AM

Ninjahedge

April 12th, 2006, 10:21 AM

Why do I feel the need for a Macintosh?

nick-taylor

April 12th, 2006, 04:50 PM

"Britain has become more 'free', not less free."

Oh c´mon. Nick....this is just NOT true.

You must be about the O N L Y person in the entire world who feels this way. After the advances in technology of the last 10 years and the advent of 9/11 and the subsequent "war on terrorism", ALL of us are less free.

All of us. It´s not opinion, it´s fact.

Reading your posts is like hearing maybe a character from "Brave New World" or "1984".... a soothing voice over a factory loudspeaker spouting government propaganda:

"Britain has become more 'free', not less free."How is your opinion fact - not only do you not live here but you seem to be taking the word of one person (who actively goes against his own sources wishes) as gospel truth? To add to that - when did the UK become the world? Every country is in a different situation and its rather bizarre to assume that because a situation happens in Italy or the US, that it automatically applies to the UK.

Terrorism existed long before 9/11. Britain's cities and stations having to restrict bin placements and the City of London's Ring of Steel didn't crop up out of nowhere.

Also while technology has indeed developed new spying techniques; there has also been an increase in independence - forums, blogs, etc... it goes both ways and only a fool would accept that its only gone one way. I value freedoms but I value security and we need to have a balance - neither one dominant.

Lord Acton....

Marksix

April 15th, 2006, 06:26 AM

Just to re-iterate; ID cards are the physical manifestation of a policy by which political parties mean to take control and ownership over your very identity. Your biometric data and most probably your DNA will be taken and held on central databases accessed by government and corporations. They will provide an audit trail of your existance. In the UK you will be made to do this. The US government is plannig this for you too.

As always - George Orwell foretold much of the philosophies and dangers behind certain types of government and the mechanics sustaining it. When government owns your identity and not you, they own you:-

"People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annhilated: vaporized was the usual word."

G. Orwell "1984"

http://www.nonationalid.com/

http://www.no2id.net/

Swede

April 17th, 2006, 08:49 AM

Do your Swedish ID cards also have compulsory biometric data which you are forced (literally) to give, do they contain RFID tags which can be read covertly and are they also linked to mulitple government databases which are the REAL power behind such cards?

Do Swedish ID cards require £60 billion spent on the largest IT project ever attempted, anywhere in the world?

Does the Swedish Government use ID cards as a stealth tax? i.e. each time your ID card is checked does your Government charge?
No, no, no, no and no. It's basically just a fancy bit of plastic. Oh, and our goverment can't crossreference databases however they please, this is where our laws protecting privacy n' such kick in.

Ninjahedge

April 17th, 2006, 10:09 AM

Swede, that is also where laws such as teh Patriot Act back-kick every other law and basically evaporate our freedoms in a classic "Us vs. Them" situation.

The main problem guys is that the commercial world has already done this to us. WITH OUR COOPERATION! As soon as we went into a "credit" financial era, we gave up our anonymity.

Even buying things with $$ does not stop them from asking for your name and number.

Marksix

April 18th, 2006, 06:06 AM

No, no, no, no and no. It's basically just a fancy bit of plastic. Oh, and our goverment can't crossreference databases however they please, this is where our laws protecting privacy n' such kick in.

...Swede - look what's happening to your Dutch neighbours:-

Going Dutch? Where's your ID?
78,917 fines have been handed out in the Netherlands over the past 15 months for failure to show ID, the research centre MDI reports. Although various forms of ID have existed in Holland for decades, showing them only became compulsory on 1 January 2005 - something that the Dutch had long been assured would never happen. Adjusted for population size, the Dutch figure is the equivalent of about 284,000 fines in the UK. Half of those fined have refused to pay and are being taken to court. The backlog of cases is continuing to build.

Take care that the supposedly liberal Dutch experience doesn't cross a couple of borders to your country.

Marksix

April 18th, 2006, 06:27 AM

Swede, that is also where laws such as teh Patriot Act back-kick every other law and basically evaporate our freedoms in a classic "Us vs. Them" situation.

Your point goes straight to the main tennet of my argument. In reading this board and a few others from around the world I detect a general trend amongst governments everywhere in which a central clique assume they have some kind of divine wisdom to impose their beliefs and theories on the rest of us and hold anyone in utter contempt who dares to dissagree with them.

As I have said previously, ID cards are the physical manifestation of a potential sinister power grab amongst governments over the freedom of the individual. The databases underlying them give the administraters incredible power over the individual which may not be immediately apparent. Commercial databases, as Ninjahedge points out gives some insight into how pervasive they already are in our lives but at least their motivation is one of profit only and to a certain extent are voluntary.

Ninjahedge's point about the patriot act being used as a device or law to supercede all others has its equivalent here in the UK. The legislative and regulatory reform bill, now entering its final stages, will let ministers alter laws by order, rather than having to argue their case in parliament. Is it just coincidence that this law has almost identical consequences on UK citizens as the Patriot Act does? I detect a trend in political philosophies here amongst these self proclaimed "Freedom Loving Countries" and it is sinister and the ID cards and database state are but one aspect to it.

In the 1930s E.M. Forster wrote: “We are menaced by something much more insidious [than Fascism or Communism] – by what I might call ‘Fabio-Fascism’, by the dictator-spirit working quietly away behind the façade of constitutional forms….Fabio-Fascism is what I am afraid of, for it is the traditional method by which liberty has been attacked in England”. Talk of dictatorships is always alarmist but when freedoms our individual are being eroded drip by drip at what point do you realise that you are actually living under a dictatorship? While the Blair & Bush cabal is proscriptive but probably basically benign, the same may not be true of its successor governments in twenty, or even ten, years’ time. As Forster said, “As soon as people have power they go crooked and sometimes dotty as well, because the possession of power lifts them into a region where normal honesty never pays.”

Much has been said here for and against my view that the UK one of the worlds most surveilled country with few freedoms of the privacy of the individual, no constitution and no checks & balances and that our American friends should take note because if it can happen here it can happen to you too. A few people were surprised to learn about attempted coups by the establsihment here in the UK in the 1970's but it's not so strange when you look at the histories of other ex-empires. Degeneration into dictatorship and/ or civil war is the last stage in the decline of any Empire, with conflict between those who want to keep up the appearance of being a grand imperial power (that's why we've still got Trident Nukes, and why we're in Iraq and Afghanistan). As the historian Norman Stone rightly said twenty years ago, Britain is "...the last of the Ancièn Régimes" - and to more and more people, it's beginning to show.

Here is a thoughtful article from the Guardian giving some insight into the current state of politics here in the UK which I believe may have parrallels in the US too. Its well worth reading:-

Blair's inner circle and its ferocious grab for power

From forcing through ID cards to the erosion of parliamentary scrutiny, a determined clique is hijacking our democracy

Jenni Russell
Thursday April 6, 2006
The Guardian

In January the commissioner of the Metropolitan police got into enormous trouble for saying that he couldn't see why the Soham murders had become such a big story. Like every other journalist, I marvelled at his inability to see what makes a story run. But now, as I follow the news, I have developed a blind spot of my own. Piece by piece, month by month, Tony Blair's administration is removing the safeguards that protect all of us from the whims of a government and the intrusions of a powerful state. It is engaged in a ferocious power-grab. Yet this story has not seized the imagination of the media or the public. In our failure to respond, the government must be reading a tacit acceptance that it can do what it chooses, because we either don't notice or don't care.

Article continues
The government is briskly and fundamentally reshaping the relationship of the individual to the state, of the Lords to the Commons, and of MPs to ministers. The ID cards bill will allow the authorities unprecedented surveillance of our lives, and the power to curtail our ordinary activities by withdrawing that card. The legislative and regulatory reform bill, now entering its final stages, will let ministers alter laws by order, rather than having to argue their case in parliament. Then this weekend brought another shocking government proposal to increase its own power and weaken the restraints upon it. Lord Falconer made clear that the government intends to drastically curtail the powers of the Lords. The current convention is that peers cannot block any legislation contained in a party's manifesto. In future peers will have to pass any legislation that the government deems important, whether it was in the manifesto or not. They will effectively be neutered.

It appears that these changes cannot be stopped. Last week the Lords gave up their battle to stop the imposition of an identity-card register. They had pointed out that they were under no obligation to pass the bill, as the Labour manifesto promised the scheme would be voluntary, but what was proposed was essentially compulsory. The government's retaliation for their principled stand was swift, and should alarm all of us. These events reveal that our parliamentary system is already too feeble to stop a determined executive imposing its will.

How improbable this scenario seemed when Blair won the election 10 months ago. His majority was slashed. He won only 36% of the vote. Both he and Brown stressed the need to listen more carefully to an electorate that clearly wanted a smaller government majority. Many of us took that to mean this would be a more careful, consensual government, aware that its mandate was limited. But the opposite has happened.

Our political system is based on the assumption that there are always checks and balances to prevent unbalanced legislation becoming law. This has to be so, because as electors our participation in the whole process is so very limited. We cannot distinguish between the elements we like and dislike in a party's manifesto. We have to trust that any proposals that make us uneasy will be open to change as civil servants, public and parliament consider them.

Every element of that process is now being enfeebled. Civil servants, ministers and MPs are all increasingly dependent on pleasing the executive if they wish to progress in their careers. In the Commons, only those who don't care about their political futures dare to rebel. The committees that scrutinise legislation cannot act independently as they all have in-built government majorities, with their members hand-picked. For instance, the new committee scrutinising the contentious education bill has been stuffed by the government so that not one of the 52 Labour MPs who voted against the bill is represented on it. And now the Lords is threatened too.

This administration is taking the art of dismissing objections - from MPs, peers or public - to new heights. At the committee stage of the legislative and regulatory reform bill, MPs were assured that the act would not be used for highly controversial measures. They asked for such reassurance to be written into the bill, and for a long list of crucial acts to be excluded from its remit. The minister refused, saying he would recognise a controversial measure when he saw one.

In the ID cards debates in the Lords, Baroness Scotland attempted to bully the peers into submission by maintaining that when the manifesto promised that ID cards would be "a voluntary scheme to be rolled out alongside the renewal of passports" that quite clearly meant ID cards would be compulsory for anyone wanting to travel abroad. As for the public, the London School of Economics was viciously attacked by the home secretary when it published a lengthy and deeply researched report on the implications of ID cards. The LSE's most recent report notes that, despite three years of notional consultation, the Home Office has not been willing to listen to any critical views. The legislation is going through practically unchanged.

This behaviour is alarmingly arrogant. The prime minister's circle believe they have a right to push through any measures without hindrance, because they have a monopoly on wisdom. Their contempt for everyone else's motives and opinions is evident. Eighteen months ago a cabinet minister sneered at me when I asked whether he was worried that the public-service ethos was evaporating. It doesn't exist, he said; all these people care about is dosh.

This demonising and misreading of others fuels the self-belief of the inner circle, who see themselves as valiantly trying to do the right thing in a hostile universe. A leading Blairite was recently at dinner with a friend, and found himself being challenged over the government's activities. Eventually, frustrated by the criticism, he leant forward and said: "What you don't seem to understand is that we are good people!"

That injured comment is revealing. Even if it were undeniably true, it could not justify the hijacking of our democracy by a small, determined group. Good people can do bad things. What's more, bad people can follow them. Assurances of virtue are irrelevant. What matters is where power lies and how it is controlled. That stale phrase, an elective dictatorship, is now a real danger.

The perverse fact is that we are being asked to place great trust in a government that makes a point of distrusting everyone outside its inner circle. If we don't share their assumption that they alone know what is best for the rest of us, we had better start protesting now. Last year Blair promised to listen to us. As he dismantles our defences, what he is hearing is something close to silence.

jenni.russell@blueyonder.co.uk

Marksix

April 25th, 2006, 10:26 AM

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/25042006/344/most-britons-support-bnp-policies.html

...and this is just why ID cards and the database state is so dangerous. It is unlikely that the British National Party (a facist party) would form a government here in the UK but the two mainstream parties regularly adopt popularist doctrines of other parties and present them as their own. Even race hate policies.

In the 1930's the German National Socialist Party employed IBM's Hollerith D-11 card sorting machines to sytematically catalogue its' (and subsequently the conquered countries) populations and sort them by race, religion, skin colour, ethnicity, political affiliations etc. etc. etc. We know where it led.

The sophistication of modern database technolgy far surpasses that of the 1930's. The UK government has, as a major plank of its policy the introduction of ID cards and the database state. Just imagine what a state could do IF their intentions were not benign, IF they followed popularist doctrines as highlighted by this poll.

The US Government is looking to introduce ID cards and their databases too.

Of course, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear....

BrooklynRider

April 26th, 2006, 11:43 AM

Marksix

April 28th, 2006, 06:11 AM

And data collection on individuals allows the government to move forward with a eugenics movement - exactly as Hitler had planned. The horror of the slaughter of innocent people in death camps is Nazism's primary legacy, but if you set that aside in a column of of its own, there is not much difference between the Hitler power grab and policies and those of Bush. Bush is doing it much more incrementally, but it still spells "fascism" in the end.

"Either your with us or your against us." In which case dissenting views, such as this, are construed as seditious and traitorous. This country is predominantly made up of sheople, who are pleased as punch as long as you convince them to chew their cud quietly.

Winston Churchill spoke of the need "to proclaim, in fearless tones, the great principles of freedom and the rights of man ... Magna Carta, habeas corpus, trial by jury and the common law". These principles were, said Churchill, "the title deeds of freedom ... Here is the message of the British and American people to mankind. Let us preach what we practice: let us practice what we preach."

re. the NAZI party and their ID & state database scheme, I highly reccomend Edwin Blacks book "IBM and The Holocaust". Here is the authors site where you can find a precee of the book http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/excerpts.php

It may be a cliche but we really should heed the lessons from history or we are doomed to repeat history. The holocaust would still have happened without IBM make no mistake but the excert from Edwin's book kinda shows how similar the 1930's were to the present day. ID cards and the database state is NOT a trivial issue.

"IBM was self-gripped by a special amoral corporate mantra: if it can be done, it should be done. To the blind technocrat, the means were more important than the ends. The destruction of the Jewish people became even less important because the invigorating nature of IBM's technical achievement was only heightened by the fantastical profits to be made at a time when bread lines stretched across the world."

Marksix

April 28th, 2006, 06:19 AM

Labour U-turn over ID card medical details
Isabel Oakeshott, Deputy Political Editor
IDENTITY cards are to carry medical details, despite repeated government assurances that concerns about privacy meant it would not happen.

Asked if HIV-Aids victims would be encouraged to disclose their status, he said: “We are not considering that at this stage.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2147744,00.html

Marksix

April 28th, 2006, 06:32 AM

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33925&dcn=e_gvet

told you its coming to America - this is how it begins.

Marksix

April 28th, 2006, 06:38 AM

"A REGISTER of children's details similar to that to be kept under the government's controversial ID card scheme has been recommended by officials."

.....scarier and scarier

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=589352006

Marksix

April 28th, 2006, 06:46 AM

...is it a worldwide conspiracy amongst Governments to impose ID cards and the database state? What plans dose the US government have?

It looks like an ID Card. It smells like an ID Card. Heck, it even spooks you like an ID Card. But, as Australia's carbon copy Commonwealth Prime Minister says, "it ain't no ID card".

The "homeland security" strategy in Australia appears to be slowly, slowly catchee monkey. Or rather, dupee monkey with platitudes, then nab 'im with a surveillance net.

Having declared that ID cards would not be imposed on Australians, Prime Minister John Howard announced a biometric "access card" in its place. Australians will be denied access to health and social services from 2010 unless they have one of these cards.

In avoiding calling the Aussie ID card an ID Card, Howard has been able to give the impression that he has "struck a balance" between state security and personal privacy, by changing only his rhetoric.

Opponents are calling it an "ID Card by stealth" and there are many more reasons why Howard's plan looks every bit like that of his UK counterpart.

For a start, the compulsory nature of the card is being shrouded in outrageous doublespeak.

"It will not be compulsory to have the card," the Australian newspapers quoted Howard saying today. But, "It will be necessary for everybody who needs a card to apply for one."

Like Britain's card, which is optional for anyone who doesn't carry a passport, the Aussie card is optional for anyone who doesn't get ill.

Again, like Britain's card, it will be biometric, but not too biometric at first. As in Britain, the limited biometrics are presented as a sop to borderline civil libertarians. Don't worry, says Howard, the card's chip will only hold your digital photograph, not your fingerprints. They fail to mention how unreliable biometric technology is. They couldn't get anything more sophisticated working in the jittery timescale they want to do it all in.

The important thing for the authorities is once they've handed the cards out and got the supporting infrastructure and databases in place, adding new biometrics will require only an upgrade.

Australia's biometric non-ID card will be used to replace 17 existing health and social service cards. It will also be backed up by the thing that makes an ID card an ID card - a massive database, shared across government departments.

It's almost being sold like an ID card. As it's not being called an ID card anymore, it can't be sold to punters as a panacea for terrorism. It's only being sold as a panacea for petty social ills. It will stop fraud and benefits cheats, and no doubt eradicate inequality of wealth and opportunity as well.

http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=95289

Marksix

May 16th, 2006, 04:16 PM

This is a very interesting company. They have designed a RFID chip that can be imbedded into the body. About the size of a grain of rice, the device is typically implanted above the triceps area of an individual’s right arm. It responds to a remote reader which can correlate the user to information stored on a database for identity verification and is being marketed to medical institutions.

The US government is looking at similar tech to be incorporated in compulsory ID cards to be carried by all US citizens, looking at the UK's example in particular.

I'm not a religous person and some on here even call me paranoid but religous leaders in the US have come out strongly against this tech speculating that it might be the fulfillment of a prophecy from Christianity, where each person is marked for an identification, by an evil government. This is one of the most famous passages of The Book of Revelation, a section of the Bible thought by some to be prophecies of the end times.

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man's number. The number is six-hundred and sixty-six."

According to a recent ABC News article, some of the people being implanted with this chip do, in fact get it in their right hand. Spooky or what? lol lol.

Marksix

June 23rd, 2006, 06:04 AM

if this is implimented, expect mandatory ID cards to be the next logical step....

'No-work list' predicted
Employee verification system would affect all workers, privacy experts say
By Lisa Friedman, Staff Writer

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WASHINGTON - Remember the Department of Homeland Security's "no-fly'' lists that erratically flagged 3-year-old children and dozens of men named David Nelson as terrorists seeking to board commercial airplanes?

Well, now privacy experts are warning America to prepare for the "no-work'' list.

As Congress debates immigration reform, experts say a little-discussed aspect of the bill, mandatory employee eligibility verification, is likely to have a colossal impact on the lives of every person in the U.S. labor market -- citizen and foreigner alike.

"Everyone who wants to work will feel this provision,'' said Tim Sparapani, legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "People are just beginning to understand the implications of it, and they're big.''

The need for a nationwide system through which employers can verify whether potential workers are citizens or legal residents has been the one element of the pending immigration reform upon which Republicans and Democrats have largely agreed.

But privacy advocates say the rush to mandate widespread eligibility checks is being done with little understanding of the technical snafus that could wrongly put thousands of people out of work each year while leading to rampant discrimination.

And, they warn, the government may also begin to compile new and vast stores of knowledge on every employable man, woman and child.

Department of Homeland Security officials and advocates of the employer verification system say privacy activists are fanning overblown fears.

No personal information is stored or tracked, they maintain, and the program is devised to protect employees from being left jobless while waiting for a green light from the system.

Currently that system is called the Basic Pilot Program, and it is voluntary. About 6,000 participating employers use it annually to electronically check workers' I-9 forms against Social Security and visa info.

Should the system go national, it will have to accommodate a U.S. work force of about 144 million people.

About 57 million people, according to the Department of Labor, take new jobs each year, 13.4 million in Western states alone.

Mark Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said most Americans wrongly think they will be exempt from verification.

"Generally speaking, people who aren't in the immigrant community assume it won't affect them. But for the system to work, it has to encompass the entire American work force,'' he said.

The bills, he said, "put the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security in the middle of every employment decision in the United States.''

Under the Senate bill, employers would be required to use the system to check every new employee, while the House requires employers to check current workers as well as prospective ones.

"This is many orders of magnitude greater than what currently exists,'' Sparapani said. "As a computer network problem, that's a massive undertaking.''

Chris Bentley, spokesman for the U.S. Department Citizenship and Immigration, which oversees the program, said he is confident the Basic Pilot Program could rapidly expand if required.

"Absolutely,'' he said.

Bentley noted that the system is not a database that needs to be created, but rather an interface that can access information from the Social Security Administration and USCIS records.

Ramping up the system, then, would require money and resources to accommodate the heavy influx of new users.

Currently, when employers enter a workers' Social Security or visa number along with other identifiers such as birth date, the system either confirms an employee's eligibility or issues what is called a "tentative non-confirmation.''

Employers are required to notify workers, who then have 10 days to contest

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it.

During that time, employers are prohibited from firing, suspending or docking pay. Bentley also noted that employees must already be hired and working before the verification can be done, so that employees are not waiting on the wheels of bureaucracy to turn in order to feed their families.

"No one is in a holding pattern here,'' he said.

But reality does not always conform to law.

According to the UCSIS's own 2002 study, employers do use the pilot system to screen applicants. And when they receive a tentative non-confirmation, "job applicants are unlikely to be notified,'' the study found.

Moreover, 67 percent of employees who contested a non-confirmation reported being suspended, docked pay or having their job training delayed while they sorted out their records.

A 2004 agency report found that erroneous non-confirmations for foreign born workers was "unacceptably high'' and "higher than desirable'' for U.S.-born workers.

The errors, it found, are largely the result of data entry mistakes and accuracy problems with either the Social Security or USCIS databases.

"This creates burdens for employees and employers, increased verification costs for the government and led to unintentional discrimination against foreign-born persons,'' the study found.

These days the USCIS pegs the overall error rate as low as 1.4 percent.

But extrapolated to 54 million workers in a mandatory national system, and that could result in more than 750,000 people each year wrongly told they aren't eligible to work.

Sparapani likened it to DHS's no-fly list, which led to dozens of men named David Nelson being detained at airports because one man named David Nelson apparently was listed as a potential terrorist.

"I've called this system the ‘no-work list,''' Sparapani said.

"Pick your common surname. It's a nightmare for the system. And imagine not being able to work and provide for your family,'' he said.

While the Senate bill provides employees with broader ability to contest and appeal their finding, the House version does not.

But accuracy could have its dangers as well.

The more information the government collects in the name of preserving accuracy and preventing identity fraud, the more information the government has on all of us, experts point out.

"It's the government creating another system of identification'' Rotenberg said.

While DHS officials maintained that no employment data is tracked or stored, Rotenberg and others predicted it someday would be. And without privacy restrictions on how the information is used, they warned, numerous agencies could potentially tap into the data at any time.

Ultimately, though, immigration experts said the employer verification program, even with its faults, is the best way to block illegal immigration.

"There are legitimate concerns in terms of privacy and the rights of individuals to access and correct their records,'' said Deborah Meyers, a senior policy expert at the Migration Policy Institute.

But, she said, "ultimately, from an immigration perspective, only an employer verification system has the potential to reduce illegal immigration to the United States, because ultimately it's the job magnet that draws illegals to the U.S.

"The deterrent has to be the inability to get a job,'' she said.

Marksix

July 21st, 2006, 06:07 AM

As I hoped, it looks like you Americans are waking up to what is happening here in the UK (and elsewhere) about the sinister aspect of ID cards and what they represent. The UK "establishment" are extremely sensitive to criticism of this type from the US so please keep it up :)

a long article in Vanity Fair:- http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/060619roco03?print=true

Marksix

October 10th, 2006, 06:44 AM

Apropos nothing and everything in particular; last week myself and about 15 others (it was a workday and raining!) handed out leaflets to people entering the passport office in Liverpool, now renamed “Identity & Passport Service” to take into account its’ new role as part of the national identity register and identity card scheme. Last week the first part of the I.D. card legislation kicked in, hence our presence giving out leaflets informing people applying for new passports of their rights and new obligations under the scheme.

Both us and the people entering the building were outnumbered five to one by a heavy and intimidating police presence (see pic). Two police officers were tasked with filming us on hand held video cams (their own faces half obscured by balaclavas – their identity but not ours to be kept secret apparently) and when I approached and asked one of them why she filming me and what would be done with the video she was collecting was told to “f**k off”. This being the usual and expected repost from our finest I persisted but was then threatened with arrest by two other officers in close proximity. Not wanting to spend the day in a cell, have my DNA forcibly taken (10% of all Liverpool residents, twice the national average now appear on the police DNA database) I did as told.

The purpose of my demonstrating? I don’t want to be forced to carry an Identity Card. I believe my identity belongs to me and not to a political party.

This is just a small, not very important but very tangible snapshot of the erosion of civil liberties happening around the “free, democracy loving western nations”. It begins…..

"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear"

nick-taylor

October 10th, 2006, 12:14 PM

I'm suprised you didn't talk about the fact that there is a growing acceptance that people would rather have an inplant that they pay with (ie go to pay and instead of the chip an pin at the moment, you'd hover your hand/arm over a sensor). Combine it with transport, ID and you wouldn't need a wallet any more!

Why do you think Liverpool has higher rates - a simple fact that there is more crime in Liverpool, although I think Glasgow will be worse off. I personally have nothing wrong with collecting DNA, as it goes both ways. In the past, you could go to jail because a witness could mistake you for someone else, these days DNA could be used to vindicate your position and clear your name. It can also be used to put the right people in jail (eg Damiola case) instead of relying upon witnesses which are far less reliable.

Afterall, what is the argument against a DNA database? There is the possibility of it being used for bad means - but what could be done with your DNA? The samples are mearly for comparison, not vats of the stuff and if you wanted to stitch someone up, a corrupt informant or someone else would easily back up this point. Fact is - DNA has reduced the number of innocent people sent to trial, it has allowed for the re-opening of cold cases and the arrest and imprisonment of people who thought that they had got away with a crime decades previously, only to be caught due to samples recovered from the scene oh so long ago.

Denying DNA collection would mean the success rate of cold cases would be very low and that far more dangerous people would be still walking on our streets.

The problem with individuals like yourself however is that while you concentrate on the curbs elsewhere or the amalgamation of data that is mostly already available in various forms which I should add increases the chance of corrupt influences gaining control over the data. You totally neglect the fact of devolution, the rights given to homosexuals, the liberalisation of the economy and most important of all: transparency - the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is amongst the most important peice of legislation for freedoms in the UK in the last few years, if not decades. Without such legislature you wouldn't be able to criticise because you wouldn't even have the facts to do so with! I personally love the FoIA as its one of the pinnacles of the current government and outstrips any problems like the Iraq War or even far tougher ID Cards simply because it allows everyone to know every little bit of information that should be reasonably available (but doesn't compromise) - be it your neighbours, companies, government departments or local authorities - everyone has to open their books and its been the greatest thing to happen to this country but note how none will actually mention it - afterall, whats the point of trying to demonise a government if you mention the greatest peice of transparency legislation in living memory! :D

Marksix

December 27th, 2006, 10:55 AM

Americans Back IDs, Extra Checks on Planes
December 25, 2006

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/14213

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Adults in the United States support two measures aimed at curbing terrorism, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 57 per cent of respondents believe all citizens should carry a national identity card, and 57 per cent are in favour of extra checks on passengers who appear to be of Middle-Eastern descent.

Support for other measures is much lower. 34 per cent of respondents would allow the U.S. government to monitor personal telephone calls and e-mails—and 22 per cent would consent to having their own conversations and messages reviewed. In addition, 42 per cent of respondents would allow the U.S. government to monitor credit card purchases—and 26 per cent would consent to having their own transactions assessed.

Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked and crashed four airplanes in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. In July 2004, the federal commission that investigated the events of 9/11 concluded that "none of the measures adopted by the U.S. government from 1998 to 2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the al-Qaeda plot" and pointed out government failures of "imagination, policy, capabilities, and management."

In December 2004, the U.S. Senate approved an overhaul of government intelligence operations after an 89-2 vote. The bill calls for national driver’s licence and birth certificate standards. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the new regulations amount to "the foundation for a de facto national ID card."

Earlier this month, Democratic Hawaii senator Daniel Akaka expressed concerns about the Real ID Act—which would let the Homeland Security Department establish requirements for state licenses and identification cards—saying, "If the new state databases are compromised, they’ll provide one-stop access to virtually all information necessary to commit identity theft."

Polling Data

Would you favour or oppose the following measures to curb terrorism:

Favour

Oppose

Requiring that all citizens carry a national
identity card at all times to show to a police
officer on request

57%

39%

Allowing airport personnel to do extra
checks on passengers who appear to be of
Middle-Eastern descent

57%

38%

Allowing the U.S. government to monitor
personal telephone calls and e-mails

34%

61%

Allowing the U.S. government to monitor
your personal telephone calls and e-mails

22%

75%

Allowing the U.S. government to monitor
credit card purchases

42%

53%

Allowing the U.S. government to monitor
your credit card purchases

26%

71%

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 1,502 American adults, conducted from Dec. 6 to Dec. 10, 2006. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

lofter1

December 27th, 2006, 12:01 PM

The last two responses regarding monitoring of credit card purchases are very telling ...

"Sure ... check up on someone else, just not me"

Ninjahedge

January 3rd, 2007, 01:38 PM

No no no!!!!

"I have got nothing to hide! Just don't look!"

Marksix

January 24th, 2007, 06:26 AM

http://www.officer.com/interactive/2007/01/22/real-id/

Damned If You Do ...

Tim Dees
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

There has been a lot of talk lately about the impending implementation of the REAL ID Act, which is to go into full effect on May 11, 2008. REAL ID imposes requirements on the states with regard to the data that must be included on a state-issued identification card, and the format that it assumes. For most of us, these “state-issued identification cards” are our driver’s licenses, which have become the standard for individual identification. Opponents of REAL ID maintain that we will have a de facto national identity card, and that tattooing barcodes on our forearms is only a short goose-step away. Personally, I think REAL ID is a wonderful idea, and only wish Congress had taken it a bit further.

...

The requirement that I wish Congress had included is a biometric identifier—a thumbprint, iris scan, or some other “key” that positively linked an identity record with the person it belonged to. The detractors of REAL ID that are the farthest out there maintain that such an identifier is the modern-day equivalent to The Number of the Beast and a portent of Armageddon, but I see it as a way to keep other people out of my bank account. I’d even go for having an RFID chip implanted in my hand or arm, if I thought it would do any good.

Why am I so anxious to give away these secrets and make it easy for the government to track my travels and activities? For one, it’s pretty easy to do that anyway. Anyone who can get access to my American Express account is going to see when and where I eat out and buy groceries and gas, how much I am paying for phone and cable TV, whom I’m paying it to, and other details of my life that would make it possible to construct a reasonably accurate profile. Maybe someone already has. I don’t care. I’d only hope they had something better to do with their time.

...

Third, it would be much harder for someone else to pretend to be me. You could make a copy of my identity documents, but you wouldn’t have my thumbprint, or my iris pattern, or my RFID chip. All I would have to do is tell the people with whom I did business, “Don’t assume that anyone claiming to be me without this biometric really is me,” and they’re out in the cold.

MikeW

January 24th, 2007, 03:50 PM

I agree. We should have a biometrically keyed ID card.

There may be situations where it is legitimate to withhold your identity. There is never a situation where it's legitimate to falsify your identity.

Marksix

January 29th, 2007, 05:46 AM

Marksix

November 20th, 2007, 03:01 PM

Just to show you what can go wrong and as a warning to our American cousins and why they should resist compulsory Identity Cards read this:-

The British Government today admitted in the House of Commons it has committed the biggest ever data security breach when it announced, two weeks after the event that a civil servant downloaded onto two CD’s the personal data of 25 million British citizens and sent them unregistered by courier to another department 200 miles away. The discs were the “lost in the post”.

Amongst the data files were:

The names of 25 million individuals

Their date of birth

Their National Insurance Number

Their address

Full details of their earnings

Their telephone number

Their full bank account details including

Address of bank

Bank account number

Sort code number

Names of every single child in the country

Address of every single child in the country

Complete details on the parents of every single child in the country

In short, the British Government has lost all the personal data necessary for the identity theft of 25 million UK citizens. Police are said to be looking for the two discs.

One of the specious reasons the government give for compulsory ID cards is that it will "prevent our citizens from identity theft"....

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear....

Ninjahedge

November 20th, 2007, 05:00 PM

It will protect them from "Identity Theft", just not "Identity Loss".

Capn_Birdseye

January 13th, 2008, 02:21 PM

Secure ID plan? Love to see it!

My American friends, if you do nothing else in your life resist at all costs and in all ways you can the imposition of ID cards!!!

We do not belong to the state, slavery has been abolished, don't give in to Big Brother!!

JCMAN320

January 13th, 2008, 04:40 PM

This is just for the gov't to keep there thumbs on us and keep tabs on us and what we do. Absolutely rediculous!!

Ninjahedge

January 17th, 2008, 12:05 PM

Even if it doesn't, they should not keep changing thnigs.

They should wait until the next renewal period of your license and do it then. If you can produce a notarized copy of your birth certificate or something else matching the renewal name/ID then what is the point of wasting your time going through DMV just so you acn prove you are who you are.

Making the drivers license the national ID is NOT a good idea.

Neither is paranoia, but it worked for some people.

Capn_Birdseye

February 27th, 2008, 01:05 PM

ID databases, ID cards, where's the problem many say - "if you've got nothing to hide etc etc"

It was revealed in Britain yesterday that 550,000 criminal database records are wrong, they've been filed under the names of innocent people!

The Government's database contains more than 4 million records, so we're talking about a high percentage that are incorrect which could place an innocent person in an alarming and difficult situation.

The Home Office minister, Meg Hillier, said the Home Office was working hard to remove the errors from the database and that some (?) progress, had been made over the last few months.
Oh that's alright then! :)

Alonzo-ny

February 27th, 2008, 02:14 PM

Is there an article for what you have just said capn?

Capn_Birdseye

February 27th, 2008, 02:35 PM

Alonzo, it was in today's Daily Mail bottom of page 17 - unfortunately it doesn't seem to appear on their online edition.

Marksix

March 6th, 2008, 09:43 AM

The British government today announced their policy on ID cards. Non EU nationals (this is YOU) coming to the UK will be required to enroll on the UK National Identity Register from next year and carry AT ALL TIMES the biometric ID card you will be issued with. You will be required to present your ID card to almost any government official from a litter warden upwards upon demand.

It's not clear on the mechanics but in the UK there are interogation centres around the country being set up where people can be "enrolled" and made to provide up to 63 items of data. You will then be photographed, fingerprinted, possibly have your DNA taken and put onto databases to which you will be prohibited from accessing yourself.

2008 - Compulsory for non-EU nationals

...told you it was coming for Americans.

PS - it will also cost you $150 minimum...

MikeW

March 7th, 2008, 11:25 AM

^
This will do wonders for tourism in the Uk. Probably better to go to Amsterdam anyway :D

Marksix

March 12th, 2008, 06:35 PM

...not in the conventional sense but close enough.

Name and Document form: Special Identification Tags with family number. Persons of all ages were required to hang the special Tag from the lapel of their outer clothing; Year established: 1942; Status: discontinued in 1945-46. Categories and groups : A total of 110,000 Persons of Japanese ancestry in the Washington, Oregon, California and Southern Arizona, including 80,000 US citizens, were held in internment camps or centers in 13 states under Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This population was held in confinement until October to December of 1945, with some held until October 30, 1946. A total of 127,000 persons of Japanese ancestry were living in the US in 1942. Comments: With encouragement from the United States, persons of Japanese ancestry were also interned in Canada, Mexico and Peru, some of them transferred to the United States for the duration of World War II. In 1983 a government commission concluded that internment was not justified by military necessity but resulted from decisions based upon racial prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.

Interestingly, this was also an early example of rendition by the US government. I raise this issue only to urge people to remain vigilant. The UK government often cites justification for authoratarian laws here as "the US is doing it/requires it/we are simply fitting in with the US...

Actually there was an "ID Card" that preceeded this one. They were called "Free Passes", Freedom papers and Deeds of manumission. Free persons of African descent, former slaves of all ages and sexes in the United States were required under various state laws to register, have a white guardian who could vouch for them and to carry passes in public at all times. Blacks held a "quasi-free" status, being made to pay taxes but being forbidden from voting, serving on juries, carrying firearms without a license, and restricted from practicing many trades. Passes were sometimes confiscated and the bearers reenslaved.

Some of that seems a little too familiar. If you don't have an ID card here in the UK you can be prohibited from certain trades, travelling (internal borders) possibly even an education.

MikeW

March 14th, 2008, 12:25 PM

Marksix

March 17th, 2008, 06:34 AM

Jeez, this whole thread reeks of paranoia. If we weren't all carrying IDs, and had to present them for various purposes anyway, bitching about some sort of national id MIGHT make sense.

But as of now, we have the worst of both worlds. We do have to carry IDs (try getting on a plane, opening a checking account, etc, without one). BUT, those IDs don't guarantee that the holder is who they say they are. So someone can easily rip off someone elses identity, and/or, do something/get somewhere they aren't supposed to. So really the people the current system helps is criminals and terrorists.

Mike - ID cards have NOTHING whatsoever to do with proving someones identity. The cards are simply the physical manifestation of the underlying database which underpins the system - this is where the real power lies. The ID card in the UK context are part of the National Identity Register. It's (the NIR) philosophy is to make you accountable to the state and not the other way around, it is a political & social control tool.

As to your last point you are correct in more ways than you realise; ID can be forged but putting everyones data in one place simply facilitates the ability of those with intent (crooks/terrorists/espionage) to steal identity but on a truly massive scale. Once you hae access to the system you have EVERYONES identity!

I thought I and others had made these points plain...

MikeW

March 17th, 2008, 12:01 PM

Mike - ID cards have NOTHING whatsoever to do with proving someones identity.

This is incorrect, if the system is implemented correctly. A well encrypted biometrically keyed ID system would be completely forgeproof, at least from the point where the biometric scans are taken and encrypted into the system.

The cards are simply the physical manifestation of the underlying database which underpins the system - this is where the real power lies. The ID card in the UK context are part of the National Identity Register. It's (the NIR) philosophy is to make you accountable to the state and not the other way around, it is a political & social control tool.

In a democracy, the key is to make sure the rules are set fairly. The key point is that there is no valid reason for someone to be able to pretend they are someone they are not. I have never heard of any valid reason for allowing this, especially in any context where legal ID needs to be presented.

If there are situations where anonymity needs to be protected, than that needs to be directly and explictly decided. But in situation where identity legitimately needs to be known, it should be absolute.

As to your last point you are correct in more ways than you realise; ID can be forged but putting everyones data in one place simply facilitates the ability of those with intent (crooks/terrorists/espionage) to steal identity but on a truly massive scale. Once you hae access to the system you have EVERYONES identity!

No, it worse to have a bunch of identity stores and generating authorities (think state DMVs, who do this now), with no standards and varying degrees of protection, where any ID generated by any of them are considered valid.

I thought I and others had made these points plain...

Just because you say so, doesn't make it true.