Sunday 9 April 2006

Don't trust these liars

The Scottish Executive attempted to play up its civil liberties credentials by being somewhat cooler on ID cards than its English political allies:
However, earlier this year MSPs voted against them and the Scottish Executive said they would not be used in devolved areas like health and education. (May 2005)
It now turns out that we were conned:
Campaign group NO2ID claimed the project went far beyond Westminster plans for an identity register and cards. Spokesman Phil Booth said: “This appears to go much further than the UK National Identity Register. There would be far more detailed information collected in one place and available to the state at the touch of a button.

“It appears that Scots are first in the firing line for lifelong surveillance and an end to life as a private citizen.” (April 2006)

A Green MSP asks:
“Who can predict what purposes ministers may think of for it in the future?"
Good question. But why should we believe any answers?

Exhibit A:

Last night, the Executive at first denied there was any project as outlined in the Segis document. A spokesman said: “There are no plans to use citizen entitlement cards in this way.”
Exhibit B:
Later, however, a spokeswoman admitted: “The Scottish Executive officials developing the Geographic Information strategy are in discussion with the Customer First programme. The development and discussions are at an early stage and there is a lot of work to be done, but we are fully committed to delivering a joined-up solution.”

1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comment made on previous template:

Anon A Moss
Anybody who thinks the Scottish Executive are keen on upholding civil liberties really is living in cloud cuckoo land, like any statist regime they believe in a strong state-weak people model of government. I find the use of the word 'citizen' particularly chilling, authoritarians always cloak themselves in 'we are doing it for the people' rhetoric. But if it cannot be stopped in England, it has little chance of being stopped in Scotland. We Scots are a timid and law abiding people, and the Executive will not find it difficult to bring in ID cards via the backdoor.

11 April 2006, 20:21:50 GMT+01:00