Thursday 2 July 2009

NO2ID: Victory Reports Premature

For those of you who aren't members of NO2ID but loathe the concept of these invidious instruments of State surveillance as much as I do, the latest newsletter of that peerless campaign group should be of some interest. Reports that ID cards have been killed-off are inaccurate. The government's assault on British liberty continues unabated.
+ IMPORTANT NEWS +

** The ID scheme has NOT been shelved, cancelled, or even significantly changed **

Once more government spin has triumphed and much of the media has got it
wrong. The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson has not made any significant changes to the scheme. Compulsion by stealth is still the order of the day, just as it always was. Someone joining the ID scheme 'voluntarily' will still be placing control of their identity in t
he hands of the IPS for life.

The Home Office line remains the same. No compulsion (as the Home Office
defines it) was going to be applied until almost everyone had 'volunteered' and then it was only a matter of rounding up a minority of resisters and marginalised people.

The Home Office's idea of "voluntary" is not the same as yours and mine.
Since 2004 the scheme was (and it still is) to proceed by "designating" one-by-one under the Identity Cards Act 2006 other documents issued by official bodies -- in the first place passports.

Once a document h
as been designated, you won't be able to apply for one without also applying to be entered, for life, on the national identity register. If you don't agree to be registered it won't be that you are refused (say) a passport; you'd have voluntarily decided not to apply. There's no compulsion to have a passport. It is useful for travelling. But you aren't compelled to travel.

Or (say) to drive. Or to work as a security guard. Or with children. Or in healthcare. To get parole from prison. To practice as a lawyer. ... Any official licence, registration certificate or permit can be designated, and -- in the home office's skewed logic -- handing control of your identity to the Home Office's Identity and Passport Service will still be entirely voluntary.

That they were due for a confrontation with the airside worker's unions
over designating new passes at Manchester and City Airports is an illustration of just how voluntary "voluntary" really is. But the fact they have now ducked that fight for political convenience suggests saying no does work - if you say it loudly enough.

---
It is still not too late for MPs to derail the scheme by repudiating the regulations due to be debated next week and detailed in the last newsletter. Only one of those statutory instruments has been dropped.

If
you have not done so already, please contact your MP: http://www.writetothem.com (NO2ID's lobbying guide, written for us by the former assistant of a very distinguished retired minister, is brusque but absolutely to the point: http://www.no2id.net/downloads/print/NO2ID-HowtoLobby.pdf )

Peers will also have a vote on this; so if you happen to know one (or be
one), then it would be a good idea to alert friends in the Lords now that the matter is soon to come up.
The fight to halt the accelerating erosion of our rights to privacy and democratic freedoms by our government of corrupt, utterly dishonest, quasi-Soviet Statists is very much alive.

Click on the widget to join: NO2ID - Stop ID cards and the database state

6 comments:

  1. You mean I did all that photoshopping for nothing? On my post ID cards scrapped in yet another government U-turn.

    Damn the lying toads. Oh well at least I got a review off the BBC out of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lol. I love all your amazing photoshopping, Ollie. Your efforts are 100% brilliant. Labour U-turns are there for all to see, in no small part thanks to you.

    It's just that this particular one apparently is not quite all it seemed to be.

    But ID cards' days are now numbered, that much, at least, must now be certain. You'll be able to dig out that awesome ID card mash-up again soon enough - at least that's what I believe, for what it's worth ;)

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  3. Haha, I was tempted to say I won't let the truth get in the way of a good story, but then I would be no better than this Gov't so I will check it out and retract if needed. I love your considered posts I have been tempted to be a bit more serious but can't help myself.

    Loved it when Peter Hitchins referenced Gordon Brown and tweedledum and tweedledumber tonight on QT.

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  4. That was good from Hitchens, wasn't it? Harperson just seemed hopelessly caught-up in her own, elaborate web of deceit.

    Incidentally, the underlying message of your blog is deadly serious: that we are run by a bunch of corrupt, self-interested, hypocritical liars and doctrinaires.

    You make that bitter pill easier to swallow. That's what decent satire's all about.

    I simply don't know how to do that so I just offer overwritten, outraged rants or pompous moralising. Hence my dodgy stats, lol. But hey, it gets me through ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Keep 'em coming, both of you (Cromwell & denverthen).

    Have been keeping an eye on this ID scam and glad others are too - can't let the bastards get away with any nonsense.

    Will be watching QT now as I missed it last night.

    ReplyDelete

Any thoughts?