Voting TaKtiX

Ian Parker, a writer new to me, has an excellent story on the dangers of the database state that ends with:

In a free society, the rights and laws protect the individual from the government. In a dictatorship, the rights and laws protect the government from the people.

So very true. We’ve written at length here in the past about the dangers of the National Identity Register, but as Ian says:

I can hear Mr Blair protesting now that this is not what all these laws are for, but Mr Blair, please understand, THIS IS HOW THEY WILL BE APPLIED, if not in a dictatorial regime, certainly one in which it is very easy to hit all your targets when the laws are all on your side.

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Busy. Unable to comment on this delusional, totalitarian, and borderline racist crap about ID cards properly. Fortunately, Gareth and Tez Burke have done so already. Go read.

Donald’s on form:

STATEMENT: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
QUESTION: Do you have curtains?
STATEMENT: They’re to stop anyone perving over intimate moments with my wife.
QUESTION: You do know that as soon as they upload your STD records on that health database, the whole of Whitehall can see everyone you’ve fucked since freshers’ week?

Write To Them. Or chase down a Swiss grandad.

Damn stupid idiotic centralising authoritarian fools. Technology will solve all our problems. Especially if it’s a technology that we don’t really understand and will subcontract to a bunch of incompetents like Capita et al…

When I started writing at NLE, I wasn’t a member of any particular party; I was fairly disillusioned with the whole process of party politics generally and partizan sniping as a specific. Far too often, politics and politicians seemed to be about what you were opposed to, not what you were in favour of. The more I wrote, and read the thoughts and opinions of others, the more my views and opinions were refined.
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People may be interested to see NO2ID’s latest campaign against ID cards. They are asking all those opposed to the introduction of ID cards to Renew For Freedom by renewing their passports in May. Hopefully this will create a surge in the number of passport applications big enough to highlight the number of people who are against compulsory ID cards.

Or it might fall flat on it’s face, as I’m sure the government will claim support for ID cards if the number renewing isn’t particularly high…

Hopefully though, it will provide the catalyst for people who have said “I better renew my passport before then” to actually get around to doing it. Me included.

Hmm, I’d never heard of the site before, but Silicon.Com has an excellent series of articles on ID cards, the NIR, the potential commercial uses for the scheme, what will happen in the event of serious disturbance, etc.

In addition to this, John Pilger (a journalist I only sometimes agree with) has an excellent, if hyperbolic, article on the implications of ID, the NIR and the Leg/Reg Bill in this weeks New Statesman.

The dying of freedom in Britain is not news. The pirouettes of the Prime Minister and his political twin, the Chancellor, are news, though of minimal public interest. Looking back to the 1930s, when social democracies were distracted and powerful cliques imposed their totalitarian ways by stealth and silence, the warning is clear. The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill has already passed its second parliamentary reading without interest to most Labour MPs and court journalists; yet it is utterly totalitarian in scope.
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Those who fail to hear these steps on the road to dictatorship should look at the government’s plans for ID cards, described in its manifesto as “voluntary”. They will be compulsory and worse. An ID card will be different from a driving licence or passport. It will be connected to a database called the NIR (National Identity Register), where your personal details will be stored. These will include your fingerprints, a scan of your iris, your residence status and unlimited other details about your life. If you fail to keep an appointment to be photographed and fingerprinted, you can be fined up to £2,500.

Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy and every bank will have an NIR terminal where you can be asked to “prove who you are”. Each time you swipe the card, a record will be made at the NIR - so, for instance, the government will know every time you withdraw more than £99 from your bank account. Restaurants and off-licences will demand that the card be swiped so that they are indemnified from prosecution. Private business will have full access to the NIR. If you apply for a job, your card will have to be swiped. If you want a London Underground Oyster card, or a supermarket loyalty card, or a telephone line or a mobile phone or an internet account, your ID card will have to be swiped.

In other words, there will be a record of your movements, your phone calls and shopping habits, even the kind of medication you take.

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Like the constitution-hijacking bill now reaching its final stages, and the criminalising of peaceful protest, ID cards are designed to control the lives of ordinary citizens (as well as enrich the new Labour-favoured companies that will build the computer systems). A small, determined and profoundly undemocratic group is killing freedom in Britain.

The facts are correct. The conclusions? I’m not sure I even disagree with them either.

Bastards. I believe, given that the deputy to the sweaty baboon has answered in Parliament that we can renew at any time, that they’d have a hard job of changing the rules now. So the plan to renew next year proceeds apace.

I went to the pub this evening, met up with Chris and also the local No2ID organiser. Get involved. Even if it’s just to give up a morning leafletting instead of shopping. If you can’t see a local organiser? Any reason why you couldn’t get together with friends and become one? This needs to be a campaign on two fronts, one is civil disobediance; renew your passport early, don’t register, refuse to register, get fined, refuse to pay, get headlines and the rest.

The second is electoral. I repeat the earlier statement; at the next General Election, ask every candidate:

Will you vote to abolish the National Identity Register

If they don’t promise to do so, make sure they’re not elected.

Between now and then? Councils across the country have passed resolutions on the issue. Local elections are coming up in much of the country. Make it an issue. Some people (and I’m one of them) have a bit of a problem with national issues effecting local campaigns. But this really does affect everything.

Big picture? I repeat my call. At the next General election, we’ll need to ensure we have a strong tactical voting campaign against any candidates that refuse to repeal this Act. Other issues, such as Leg/Reg, etc also matter. But this one, to me, is the big one.

We have to get them out.

In the meantime?

Labour members!

There’s still much, much talk of a ‘coronation’. The Labour party has a strong tradition as a democratic party. I’ve voted Labour in the past FFS. Don’t let the give Brown a coronation; make sure there’s a leadership campaign, make NIR an issue.

We cannot (and will not) submit to a database state. To arms my friends, to arms.

The bill got passed. We are all to be numbered and categorised. I will not submit. So, we have some heroes, some villains, and some dodgy characters. Heroes (more…)

So, how long before I need to renew my passport then?

The Lord have caved in with a compromise that makes it worse, not better. You’ll still be stamped and categorised, they’ll still put your data on a centralised “secure” register, but you can have the sop of believing that you don’t need a card.

Central pledge required from all candidates at the next General Election:

I will vote to abolish the National Identity Register

If they don’t sign up to it, campaign against them. Regardless of party affiliation. I refuse to be ‘registered’.

Henry Porter at Comment is Free:

The failure to register will be punished by a maximum fine of £2,500. The failure to apply in a manner prescribed (whatever that means) to renew your ID, or to inform the national identity register of a change of your details, or to surrender the ID card, or to notify the register of an invalid card, will all incur a maximum fine of £1,000.

Read that through again. £2,500 fine if you forget to tell them you’ve changed your details?

£2,500 fine?

As someone who perpetually forgets to file paperwork, whose drivers licence is still the one I was first issued 13 years ago registered at my parents address (perfectly legally I add), this scares the shit out of me. Why do they need a £2,500 fine for what they’re selling as an ‘entitlement’ card?

• Nosemonkey:

The Lords have fallen for it. After a heroic, drawn-out defence they’ve been conned into believing it’s the cards, rather than the database that backs up the cards, that’s the problem.

• Bookdrunk on Burnham:

To describe any part of the ID card mess as ‘absolutely clear’ is either laughably delusional or grossly dishonest. The problem with Burnham is that it’s hard to decide which applies.

• And again:

More able to control access to my identity? What is this rubbish? How does an identity database protect my fingerprints, date of birth, iris pattern etc. etc. from being stolen? Doesn’t it store all of those things in one handy central place? How does this stop my credit card or name being used? Answer: it doesn’t and it won’t.

• Spyblog:

Most Conservatives abstained, but 24 of them including their Home Affairs front bench spokesmen David Davis, Edward Garnier and Patrick Mercer voted with the Labour Government. Only 8 Conservatives voted against the motion with the Liberal Democrats.

It seems that David Cameron’s NuTories cannot be trusted on civil liberties issues any more than Michael Howard’s Tories could be.

• Porter (again):

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

We have to get them out of office.

They’re a corrupt bunch of liars as well.

Via Samizdata and Tim, by way of the Torygraph, I get to The Register and then on to the Govts consultancy documents, about which El Reg says:

The Government is moving ahead with plans to establish a centralised national register of voters, together with central checking and verification of the data held on electoral registers.

So, we’re to get a compulsory ID system, linked to a National Identity Register, upon which the Electoral Register will be cross referenced to?

Great. As one who signed up to the first Refuse pledge (Refuse 2 is currently still open to signatories until the end of today), they now want to deny all of us who do not wish to be registered and categorised the right to vote as well? Wonderful. If you’re not in favour of ID cards, if they get them through, you won’t be able to vote against them either.

NB; unlike many, I was never completely opposed to some kind of ID scheme, as long as it wasn’t using huge biometrics and wasn’t linked to a national database. The National Identity Register is what scares me. Germany issues a passport and a card version of the ID page. Useful, and you can use it as a passport most of the time. But Tony Blair and Charles Clarke don’t want a simple bit of card that’s voluntary and possibly useful. They want to know who we are, where we live, what we look like and where we vote.

Let’s work together and get them out. After all, don’t you think Blair looks tired?