[vyper]

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=UMJUNCOHAB2JOCRBAEOCFEY?type=topNews&storyID=641663

[q]Members of parliament voted on Monday by 385 votes to 93 in favour of bringing back the cards, more than 50 years after wartime leader Winston Churchill abolished them.

Blair says the cards would help track terrorists, illegal immigration and organised crime, while critics say they pose a dangerous threat to civil liberties.[/q]

[Knight Templar]

ID Cards? Can't you just use a driver's license?

[Turnsky]

i wonder how long that will take untill that sorta thing filters down to he commonwealth countries.

[Fineus]

Oh joy.

Say, does anyone know how hard it is to get a green card.. or maybe to move to Spain?

[JR2000Z]

Glad I live in America.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Kalfireth
Oh joy.

Say, does anyone know how hard it is to get a green card.. or maybe to move to Spain?

Wait...doesn't pretty much everyone have a divers license and a health card anyways?  I have at least TWO forms of ID on me at all times.  Since I was a University student...I have three forms of ID.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by IceFire

Wait...doesn't pretty much everyone have a divers license and a health card anyways?  I have at least TWO forms of ID on me at all times.  Since I was a University student...I have three forms of ID.

Likewise. Waste of time and taxpayers money. After the whole gun registry debacle, I wouldnt be the least bit suprised if Martin started backing something similar. Any excuse to waste our money.

[Krackers87]

Heh, glad to know where not the only ones out of our minds (as a country i mean)

[Kosh]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
ID Cards? Can't you just use a driver's license?

Yeah, isn't a driver's license used as a form of ID?

[Knight Templar]

KT isn't sure why this is seen as overly oppresive either, other than a waste of money.

[NGTM-1R]

Waste of money, yes, otherwise, I don't see the problem...so it's another form of ID to carry. So what?

[Clave]

Exactly...

And not everyone has a driver's licence *shock horror* some people can't even afford a car...

My licence is a raggedy scrap of paper on fit for the trash.  I used it as id in the bank a couple of weeks back to authorise the transfer of £21,000 out of my account....

[Kosh]

1,000 to me I assume.....

[kasperl]

Well, no need to move to Holland, we're going to be forced to carry an ID at all times from January 1st 05. Mind, if you'd rather not carry your passport, you can get an ID card. At least, if you don't mind spending an entire ****ing day going through all the form this and form that. I even had to report my old card (expired 4 years ago) missing becuase the city administrator didn't list the damn thing as destroyed when they cut a hole in it.

Cumpolsory ID cards are quite odd, especially when you look at the reasons why. And don't get me started on biometrics, unless you have a central dbase to check against, it can't be hard to hack a chip.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
Waste of money, yes, otherwise, I don't see the problem...so it's another form of ID to carry. So what?

Well, no-one has actually said it's even legal under human rights legislation; the government says they've had legal advice which is 'compatible with EU human rights legislation', but they won't release that information.

Also, you'll need to have an Id card to apply for work (presumably to let the home office track you or something), so it'll be a mandatory cost.  Not to mention there's no concrete guarentee what this information is to be used for, or by who; and that the cost is still completely unknown (the cards / passports are to be used to finance a new biometric database of everyone in the country).

Or what the possible security use of these cards is anyways; it can't be against terrorists, because they pass as normal people anyways.  And it can't be against illegal immigrants, because they tend to work cash-in-hand on the black market (although maybe to stop them getting any treatment on the NHS).

Would you trust a goverment whose reaction to a 1st Jan Freedom of Information Act was to order all departments to destroy emails over 3 months old before then?

[Clave]

There are many issues to be resolved, but if they can make it secure then there should be some good things come of this...

If you don't break the law, then what are you afraid of?.....

[aldo_14]

1984

(or, of course, there's detention without trial or evidence against you under the Terrorism Act)

[Clave]

If they catch illegal benefit scroungers using this system, then I'll be a happy bunny.

The huge amount of tax I pay each month goes to supporting pond-scum who are fvcking the system over with my money, and I don't like that much....

1984 was fiction btw...  You can get rid of the government every 4 or 5 years, so if you really don't like ideas to reduce crime and fraud (maybe terrorism) then it's your choice as an over 18 to vote them out.

I'm not saying this is a perfect idea, just that it might do some good, that's all.

The dentention without trial is wrong.  Full stop.

[vyper]

[q]If you don't break the law, then what are you afraid of?.....[/q]

That's been said before almost every major civil rights folly in history.

Trust me, as I've said before my honours project is building a biometric security system (I'm only implementing it as a proposal for a corporate research facility or university areas with dangerous materials), and the kind of ways you can track people is scary. Skin print anyone? On the fly voice/lip-sync/facial geometry recognition?

This stuff has it's good uses, but it could also be very easily perverted into one of the most pervasive control systems in Britain's history.

[vyper]

[q]1984 was fiction btw...[/q]

But every aspect of it was based on real events in one way or another.  
Orwell was the Pilger/Chomsky of his day - and was leaving a warning.