Thursday 20 May 2004

The truth dawns

I've seen quite a few opinion polls showing a sizable majority favouring the introduction of identity surveillance cards. But all is not lost:
Some 61 per cent of people back the plan, but nearly 28 per cent say they feel so strongly opposed they would join street marches to protest, and six per cent claim they would be willing to go to jail rather than carry a compulsory card.

The YouGov poll, commissioned by Privacy International, a civil rights group, also reveals that 16 per cent of respondents say they would take part in "civil disobedience" against David Blunkett’s controversial cards.

This is a good sign:
Resistance to the card is highest among the young: 34 per cent of under-30s say they are "strongly opposed".
Perhaps IT-literate younger people have more understanding of the danger posed by a government-run computerised surveillance system. Older folk may think that nothing more threatening than those rather amateurish wartime identity cards is being proposed. Not so. This most authoritarian of governments wants to know everything about us, at all times and in the fullest detail. I also find it most offensive that private companies are willing to sell their country's birthright for a few million pounds.

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Neil (195.93.32.7)
Private companies obligation is to make profits rather than morally censure. That is usually a strength depending on whether the moral censures of government are to be trusted - but sometimes it isn't.

31 May 2004, 00:54:59 GMT+01:00
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Young Fogey (212.137.57.41)
Good stuff!

24 May 2004, 15:17:06 GMT+01:00
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David Farrer (62.49.21.253)
Young Fogey: 
 
Yes, I'll come out of the ghetto. There was an anti-ID card meeting in Glasgow last week that appeared to have been organised by socialists. Unfortunately I didn't hear about it in time otherwise I would have attended.

24 May 2004, 09:53:12 GMT+01:00
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Young Fogey (80.189.155.127)
Are you willing to leave your libertarian ghetto and work with others even (shock) Socialists to fight this one?

24 May 2004, 01:52:08 GMT+01:00
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name (80.189.169.88)
This is only the beginning for ID cards and the national citizen database in Soviet Britain. 
Step 2 - Build a national DNA database with the DNA profile on the card 
(and done on the cheap so the possibility of two people having the same DNA is quite high – you wait all new born babies DNA will soon be taken – easier) 
Step 3 – Built in Radio Frequency Identifier chips (RFID) probably using the cellular phone system to make sure the state knows where everyone is and more importantly who they are meeting with 
Step 4 – A bit further down the line. Why bother with a plastic card – messy / could get lost. Why not imbed the chips at birth.  
 
I sense the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Britain is reaching a climax 
- No families - state doesn’t trust them  
- State will own all the children and indoctrinate them as it sees fit – more complaint citizens 
- Everyone will be financially dependent on the state – promotes loyalty 
- Free enterprise strangled with red tape -or- drowned by taxes – hate the rich 
 
For more information on how to escape from the eternal nightmare of Soviet Britain (1984 style) read the Sovereign Individual. As all good Scouts know – Be prepared…

22 May 2004, 00:15:38 GMT+01:00
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Gawain (83.134.31.127)
Can Deloitte be regarded as British, no longer I feel.

21 May 2004, 09:49:26 GMT+01:00
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David Ellams (62.137.21.124, 195.9)
Blunkett's identity cards are contrary to common law, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights (1689). 
 
Blunkett has no authority to propose to overturn our constitution. What he really wants is each of us to give our moral sanction to our destruction at his hands. 
 
Well, I am a free man. I will give Blunkett just one piece of advice, which is, I will not take part in any state identity card scheme, nor will I pay any fine, nor will I go to prison. 
 
What Blunkett proposes is illegal, immoral, unnecessary and unjustified.

20 May 2004, 21:47:38 GMT+01:00