NO2ID Update

For those of you who aren't yet part of the fight against the most chilling assault on our freedoms in the history of our country, here's the latest news. Please click on the link in the sidebar of this blog to find out where to join the struggle to stop the forces of socialism's relentless, all-out attack on our definitive liberties. This Labour government must be removed for so many reasons, but this one is the most urgent of them all.

++ NO2ID Supporters' Newsletter No. 131 - 10th September 2009 ++

*Contacting us:* Call or email the office - 020-7793-4005 or
(office@no2id.net). Please do not reply to this email. (The from address
is not a working email address)

+ MANCHESTER ALERT - DON'T BE A GUINEA PIG +
The Home Secretary's summer re-launch of ID cards targeted Manchester as
a "beacon area" for the roll-out of the first cards. Having backed down
from a fight with airport workers and pilots threatening industrial
action over compulsory ID registration, the Home Office is now trying to
solicit volunteers.
Of course, people don't always read the small print - so we need to
ensure that any 'volunteers' realise that registering for a card means
being tagged and tracked for the rest of their lives. And paying for the
privilege of being Whitehall's guinea pigs.

The fewer that sign up, the easier it should be to scrap the whole scheme.

NO2ID is launching a rolling campaign to alert and inform the people of
Manchester and - as the National Identity Scheme's net widens - the
North West, starting with a day of action on Saturday 10th October.
NO2ID groups and supporters from around the UK will be heading to
selected locations in Greater Manchester to hold street stalls, leaflet
and spread the word.

The following Saturday, 17th October, we shall be running more street
stalls in central Manchester and holding a public meeting at the Friends
Meeting House in Mount Street. Further activities and events will be
announced in due course.

If you or your organisation would like to get involved in either of
these events or the ongoing campaign, please contact
manchester@no2id.net. And if you would like to start your own local
group to help spread the word across the North West, please contact
local.groups@no2id.net.

*+ Making the case against the ID scheme +

*Many people tell us they would like to tackle that minority of friends.
neighbours and work colleagues who still think that 'ID cards' are a
pretty good idea, but need a little help feeling confident of their
ground to do so. NO2ID has plenty of stock of our 24 page practical
booklet on How to Win the argument against the ID scheme. If you would
like a free copy, either for yourself or to pass on to someone else,
then just write and ask to NO2ID, Box 412, 19/21 Crawford St, LONDON W1H
1PJ or email office@no2id.net. (Don't forget to tell us the postal
address to send it to.)

We did not vote for this. We don't have to let it happen to us.
We can stop it, but only if we're truly united.

NO2ID Update

++ NO2ID Supporters' Newsletter No. 127 - 16th July 2009 ++

*Contacting us:* Call or email the office - 020-7793-4005 or
(office@no2id.net). Please do not reply to this email. (The from address
is not a working email address)




+ GOOD NEWS , BAD NEWS +

The bad news is that the ID scheme is proceeding with plan A as if
nothing had happened, and government departments everywhere are pushing
forward with ever-madder schemes for database government. The
regulations for the basic structure of the National Identity Register
were forced through - it was not a formality though, so thanks to all
who wrote against them. Data-sharing has never been more fashionable in
Whitehall.

The good news is that slowly, slowly, campaigning is starting to make a
difference. There are very promising signs of understanding emerging
among some think tanks and on the Opposition front benches. Recently the
influential Centre for Policy Studies published a pamphlet called "It's
Ours: why we, not goverment, must own our data". And on Wednesday 15th
July Damian Green MP gave a speech there explicitly attacking
'Transformational Government' and the database state.

What NO2ID has been doing for the last 5 years is working. We need to
keep on educating the media, politicians and public, keep the pressure
up on the Government - and the Opposition if they become the government
- and stick to our principles. Respect for privacy could become the
orthodoxy. That's the good news.

The bad news is there is a long way to go before it is, and we all have
a responsibility to spread the word till then.

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 the 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 has 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.

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