The Future Is There. When Will It Arrive Here?
Reading the Identity Cards Bill, as it pinged between the House of Commons and the Lords last week, you may wonder about the type of campaign that will be used to persuade us to comply with the new ID card law.
~Henry Porter~
This is from a British newspaper, but it could soon be asked here.
This Administration has been trying to work this into the laws here, every since September 11, 2001. American’s have had the good sense to fight it. We don’t want Big Brother in our lives. Hopefully we have passed the point where we will just rollover and give them anything they want. Keep your privacy people! They, the Government and business, already have way too much information on us.
If you remember, Social Security numbers were not to be used for identification. We were promised that they would not be. Americans were too afraid of an National I. D. card and all the power that this would give someone. Could they control your banking, your purchases, your jobs? No one knew for sure, but we were afraid of it. Rightly so!
How many of you give that number out to anyone who asks? At the Doctor’s office, the Dentist’s office and others, it is routinely asked for. I always refuse. Many a time I have had to argue with the office personal. They state that they have to have it. I ask why. They first say that to receive treatment, for Government reporting, they have to have it. But, with further questioning, it usually turns out they want it for their files. I give them a copy of the Government regulation on the fact that it may not be used for identification. Most are shocked that they have given it out to so many places, without even thinking about it.
In this day we should all protect this number. It’s our life. A person with that number can do havoc to your life. We certainly do not need another I. D. Card, with more information to be out there, for the evil doers (Government or criminal…..sometimes that is the same) to use.
This ID project is even more sinister than we first thought
Labour’s manifesto said: ‘We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.’It turns out that there is nothing voluntary about it. If you renew your passport, you will be compelled to provide all the information the state requires for its sinister data base. The Home Secretary says that the decision to apply for, or renew, a passport is entirely a matter of individual choice; thus he maintains that the decision to commit those personal details to the data base is a matter of individual choice.
George Orwell would have been pleased to have invented that particular gem. Yet this is not fiction, but the reality of 2006, and we should understand that if the Home Secretary is prepared to mislead on the fundamental issue as to whether something is voluntary or compulsory, we cannot possibly trust his word on the larger issues of personal freedom and the eventual use of the ID card database.
The insidious erosion of our civil liberties will accelerate dramatically if the government wins the battle over identity cards
Henry Porter from The Observer {In Depth}
Keep a watchful eye for this coming to our shores. Fight it with all your might! Keep your secrets. Yes, we all have them. Doesn’t make us bad people. It’s called the Right to Privacy. To be left alone.
