ID Cards: The Fight Goes On


So the Lords have caved in and passed the Identity Cards Bill.  It wasn't unexpected, unfortunately our current constitutional arrangements leave the upper house ultimately powerless to block bad laws like this.  David Davis has promised to scrap the Act if he becomes Home Secretary, but I've got no confidence in a Conservative Party led by David Cameron.  For now, it's up to the citzenry to do what we can to resist this law and evade its consequences as much as possible.  Once the act comes into effect, anyone applying for a passport will be added onto the National Identity Register, whether they want an ID card or not - my advice is to renew your passport now, if you can, so you can at least stay off the register for the next ten years.  If it's practical, you might even want to think about getting a passport from another country.  If you end up having to carry an ID card, make it as awkward as possible for any copper or other official who wants to see it - wrap it in loads of sticky tape, to make it unreadable, or get really creative and stick it between to metal sheets soldered together (as long as you don't actually damage the card, I don't see how they can touch you).  Grow a beard and moustache for the day when you have your mugshot taken, then shave them off again immediately after.  Scowl at the camera.  Make yourself look as sinister as possible - if the State wants to treat you like a criminal, you might as well look like one.


Just as important, make sure any politician who asks for your vote knows how you feel.  Don't vote for anyone unless they say clearly that they will vote to repeal this act.  If none of the candidates in your area will make such an undertaking, either stand yourself (on a civil liberties ticket) or spoil the ballot paper with some appropriate slogan.  Whatever you do, don't surrender to the statists.


Here's some more from the latest NO2ID email bulletin:


Urgent Action for Local Elections in May


The Bill has passed - now the real fight begins.


One of our key tasks is to make the ID scheme politically unsupportable BY ANYONE. We have to make running on a platform that supports (in fact, that does not actively oppose) compulsory registration, a National Identity Register and ID cards political suicide for any party or politician going into any sort of election.


Starting NOW.


This is a long term goal, but one that is absolutely achievable in stages. We are already winning hearts and minds - a 30% shift in public opinion to date - and will continue to do so.


The Government knows that it has to win people over, too - it can't simply bully its way to its goal, like it did in parliament. But it'll be hampered by the scheme's costs spiralling out of control (with the attendant blast of bad publicity every 6 months), the technology failing (predictably or spectacularly), having to background-check and fingerprint perfectly law-abiding citizens, screwing up 1 in 10 (or more) people's details, issuing a card that is basically no use for anything much but scraping ice off your windscreen until 2013 (except maybe 'travel within Europe' - but then you're getting the thing alongside a proper passport...), etc., etc., etc. PLUS all the stuff we're going to do!


In May, there are local elections.


We ask that, before the elections, every NO2ID supporter and ID opponent in the country asks every single one of their potential representatives their position on ID cards, and makes it clear to them (especially those who defend the ID scheme) that they will NEVER vote for a supporter of compulsory registration or ID cards. This is not (yet) a 'decapitation' strategy, nor are we proposing tactical voting in May - but if enough people do this, the aspiring political class will begin to sit up and take notice.


How many letters, e-mails or meetings will this take? We cannot say. But if you get no response, send another letter - always keep copies - and start writing to your local paper, too: "This candidate refuses to engage with the genuine concerns of a potential constituent, how fit for office can (s)he be?". Turn up at hustings and wave copies of your unanswered letters. At some point you'll get a response - and the longer it takes, the worse the candidate looks. If you do get an interesting response, e.g. vehement opposition to the scheme by a Labour candidate, do let us know [send an e-mail to ffice@no2id.net">office@no2id.net].


None of this is hard to do. It just requires that enough of us get organised and DO it.


Please start this weekend - find out who your candidates will be. Get their addresses. Write the first letter, construct a questionnaire, see if any of them will respond to e-mail (but don't rely exclusively on it). And follow through.


In the next five weeks you could sow the seeds of defeat for the ID scheme in your area, but you'll never know unless you try.


Phil Booth
National Coordinator, NO2ID


<snip>


What just happened?
ffice:smarttags" />Ping pong ends after record breaking 6 bats
On Wednesday the Identity Cards Bill was passed by parliament. The endgame began on Monday the House of Lords voted by 219 to 191 to amend the ID cards bill and duly sent it back to the Commons for a 5th time. At issue was the nature of voluntary ID registration for passport applicants. Lord Armstrong proposed an opt-out clause, whereby with a passport application/renewal an ID card and National Identity Register entry would be made unless the applicant specifically requested to opt-out. On Tuesday afternoon this amendment was rejected by MPs and the bill returned to the House of Lords once again. On Tuesday evening Lord Armstrong offered up another amendment that was dubbed "a compromise" and which the government indicated they would accept. The so called "compromise" was that up until 1st January 2010 passport applicants can opt out of receiving an ID card - but they will be compulsorily registered on the National Identity Register. Those of us that know what is wrong with the government's scheme know that it is the database behind the cards that is the issue, not the plastic card itself. The Lords however seemed to miss this crucial point and voted to accept Lord Armstrong's amendment by 287 to 60.


The bill then returned to the Commons for a sixth and final time last night, when MPs voted by 301 to 84 to accept peers' amendments. A shocking 250 MPs abstained. The Home Secretary revealed that even if passport applicants opt not to have a plastic ID card they will still have to pay the full price of a combined passport and ID card. He also revealed that passport holders entered onto the National Identity Register would be subject to the database's audit trail, the building blocks of total surveillance.


A few MPs did speak against this abysmal piece of legislation.


Nick Clegg MP said: "The introduction of identity cards will usher in one of the most far-reaching changes in British public life in recent times. [...] It will revolutionise the capacity of the state to monitor the movements and behaviour of each and every one of us. It erodes privacy, and in extremis it will curtail freedom".


Bill Cash MP said: "The Bill should be excoriated and put in the dustbin. I shall not support it under any circumstances whatsoever."


Simon Hughes MP said: "If the Home Secretary thinks this is the end of the matter, he is wrong. Many of us have made it absolutely clear that we will do everything in our power, personally and on behalf of other people, never to have identity cards or to be on a national identity register. I encourage everybody listening and watching to renew their passports now so that they will not have to be subject to the ID card regime for the next 10 years. I hope that many will do so."


Richard Sheperd MP said: "One day, this Government will experience the wrath and indignation of a country that understands that this is not a small social measure; it is in fact a declaration by Government that the centralised state is more important and greater than the sum of every individual free citizen of the country that we were sent to represent."


Stuart Hosie MP said: "When the scale of the opposition to carrying an ID card or to being included on a central biometric database rises to the scale of the opposition we saw to the poll tax, I fear that the entire edifice will collapse."


(Final note from Citizen Stuart: I hope that the entire edifice will collapse, and the sooner the better.)


 
3.4.06 06:46


Handy advice from the Labour Party - Vote LIbDem!

I'd been vaguely aware that there are local elections coming up, but I didn't know the date until a glossy A3 size leaflet from the Labour Party popped through my door today - apparently it's 4th May.  I don't normally bother reading junk mail, but in this case I decided to put my gloves on and have a read of it, just out of curiosity - besides, it's always best to get as much information before an election, in order to decide which anti-Labour candidate to vote for.  Very sportingly, Labour have given three good reasons to vote for the LibDems in their leaflet:


1)  It seems Menzies Campbell has called for the privatisation of Royal Mail.  Good idea, and take away its monopoly, while you're at it.


2)  The leaflet also says the LibDems wanat to legalise the sale of all drugs, including Heroin.  Another common sense idea, it'll free up police resources to deal with actual crime.  I don't approve of drug abuse, and I don't like junkies, but if some loser wants to poison himself and thereby help to reduce the surplus population, it's no skin off my nose.


3)  Best of all: "Manchester Lib-Dems OPPOSE Controls on Air Guns" (quoting the leaflet verbatum).  It just gets better and better, doesn't it?


I have to admit that I wasn't too impressed when the LibDems elected Ming "the Meritless" Campbell, as he always struck me as just another statist blockhead, but with policies like that, maybe they are slowly turning themselves back into a liberal party.  I must pay careful attention to their election propaganda.  That's not to say that I'm not willing to consider voting for the Conservatives or UKIP, if they can offer even better policies - promising to repeal the 1997 Firearms Acts and the Identity Cards Act would be a good start.  Also a definite commitment to cut taxes would be very welcome.  It's not difficult to buy my vote - the main thing I want from any government is to leave me alone.
3.4.06 20:16


1961 and 1981 - Two Space Firsts.

If you're a space fan, 12 April is going to be one of those dates that'll stick in your memory, being the date of two separate notable achievements in manned space travel, seperated by exactly twenty years:


1961 - This is the date when Vostok 1 was launched, carrying Yuri Gagarin into orbit and making him the first man in space.  The design of the Vostok capsule was crude by modern standards, basically a giant cannon ball with a life support system, launched atop a modified ICBM.  Reaching an apogee of 315 km, Gagarin's capsule completed less than one full orbit before firing its retro-rocket and re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, but it was enough to establish the record.  Once it was established that Gagarin had achieved orbit, Radio Moscow announced the flight publically and telemetry from the capsule was picked up by Western receivers.  There was a problem during re-entry, the service module was supposed to seperate cleanly from the re-entry capsule, but it remained attached by a length of cable, causing the capsule to gyrate wildly until the cable burnt through and the capsule stabilised.  Once the capsule reached the correct hight, Gagarin ejected (as planned) and parachuted to Earth, becoming an instant worldwide celebrity.  I've always dreamed of going into space, but I don't think I'd have liked to have been the first.  Space travel was just starting, there were too many things that could have gone wrong with that mission.  No-one even knew for sure whether the human body could survive an hour and a half of weightlessness.  Gagarin could have easily come back from space stone dead and in no position to enjoy being a hero.  I don't have any vodka in, but I'm raising a can of Budweiser in toast to a brave man.


Flash forward to 1981, and let's have another toast to John Young and Bob Crippen between them veterans of the Gemini, MOL and Apollo programmes, and now Commander and Pilot of STS1, the first flight of the Space Shuttle - also the first flight of a manned, re-usable, orbital spacecraft and the first time a manned orbital spacecraft was ever launched manned on its first flight.  Gagarin's flight was a bit before my time, but I remember STS1 pretty well.  The fact that it was launched twenty years to the day after Vostok 1 was just a coincidence, they were originally going to launch a couple of days before, but (of course) there were technical issues - not exactly unusual with space launches, especially when you're dealing with such a complex machine as the Shuttle.  This was the first manned American space mission for six years, since the Apollo Soyuz Test Project in 1975, making the second half of the Seventies a pretty bleak time for space fans.  STS1 made it seem like things were starting to move again - certainly the launch of Columbia was spectacular enough, just watching it on the telly - I wish I'd been there to see it in person (although I was lucky enough to see Columbia in flight twice during the Nineties, landing in 1994 and taking off 1999, so I can't complain).  This was a test flight of less than three days duration.  There was some drama during the flight when it was found that some of the thermal protection tiles on the OMS pods had come loose, but fortunately the sections of the heat shield which were subjected to the highest thermal loads were OK, and Columbia made a safe re-entry and landing at Edwards Air Force Base.  Strange to think that that was 25 years ago.  The Space Shuttle never lived up to the promise of cheaper space travel (too many design compromises) but it's certainly the most capable manned spacecraft that has ever flown so far.


So, 45 years ago today, the first one-man capsule orbited the Earth.  20 years later, the first manned re-usable orbital spaceplane flew.  I wonder what's next?
12.4.06 23:59


The Database State: Destroying your security and making you pay for it.

One of the more obnoxious features of the new Identity Cards Act is that we're all going to end up on a central government database, as well as being forced to carry those obnoxious little cards around with us.  The statists claim that this will make us all more secure in some way, but here's a story from the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, concerning the controversial (and expensive) Canadian national firearms database which suggests the opposite.  Note that the present British government's policy is to set up a national firearms register for this country too.  Do you feel re-assured?


The full article is re-produced below:


Is the gun registry an easy target for computer hackers?
"It took some $15 million to develop and I broke it in about 30
minutes." -
Former CFC webmaster


John Hicks, an Orillia-area computer consultant, has never owned a gun.
However, during his three-year tenure as the webmaster for the Canadian
Firearms Centre, he was shocked to discover that anyone with a home
computer could have easily accessed names, addresses and detailed shopping lists
(including make, model and serial number) of literally millions of registered guns belonging to millions of unsuspecting licensed firearms owners.


"During my tenure as the CFC webmaster I duly informed management that the website that interfaced to the firearms registry was flawed. It took some $15 million to develop and I broke it inside of about 30 minutes," said Mr Hicks who contacted the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters after
hearing about our organization's outrage over a map showing gun owners in Ontario that was posted on the Toronto Star's website.


"I have to say that a map of such information isn't quite as useful as what I know for a fact was available for years from the C.F.C. website.  Someone out there may very well have your address," said Mr. Hicks.


In a special interview with the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (www.ofah.org), Mr. Hicks explained that, until recently, the Canadian Firearms Centre's online service for firearms registration used a very risky "two-stage authorization process." In other words, it only took a simple process of elimination to find vulnerable user accounts and fool the system into thinking that the computer hacker was the actual licensed gun owner.


"Basically, a 16-year-old could have broken into that system in a heartbeat.  So, would it surprise me if it was used for malicious purposes before they (CFC) got around to fixing it? Sadly, no," said Mr. Hicks.  Mr. Hicks said he repeatedly warned CFC management to properly protect gun owners'
personal information before he filed an official complaint with the Privacy Commissioner.


"The privacy commissioner actually responded that should anyone complain that they were targeted due to information gleaned from the CFRS database that they would investigate further," said Mr Hicks.


Mr. Hicks continues to check the system to see how the much needed security upgrades are coming along. While Mr. Hicks feels that the CFC has seemed to have completely revamped the login functions, he said, "they haven't made it more difficult, rather just a longer process to effectively break the system."


O.F.A.H. Executive Director Mike Reader said, "The information that Mr Hicks has provided is shocking, but certainly not surprising to O.F.A.H. members who have always warned that, in the wrong hands, a database detailing the whereabouts of every legally-owned firearm in Canada is a
potential shopping list for criminals."


"If we consider what Mr. Hicks has disclosed about the CFC's haphazard approach to privacy protection, and we consider the recent burglary trend that has targeted gun owners, it only reinforces our predictions that a $2billion program designed to keep Canadians safe is doing the exact
opposite," said Mr. Reader.


The O.F.A.H. has brought this matter to the attention of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.


 
23.4.06 11:24