Westcountryman

So is burglary, I still don't advocate ID cards. Did the internment policy and draconian measures do us any favours in Northern Ireland? No. You are also foolish if you think ID cards are going to stop Terrorism. The guys who flew into the WTC carried perfectly legitimate passports.

Not that kind of soft-left liberal. I believe in individual freedom.

I am for the rights of the free man. Innocent until proven guilty etc, not suspected criminal until guilty. If you're actually convicted of a crime then it's a whole different ball game.

I have been the victim of many a crime. I still don't advocate ID cards. The guy who was splashed on the front of The Sun after 7/7 with the headline "Tell Tony He's Right" also still opposes them.

Any databases my details are on are there by choice, by voluntary association. The government intends to take my details by force, see the difference?

Did ID cards in Spain stop the Madrid bombings? No.

ID cards are hardly draconian, many other perfectly civilised countries have The Draconian aspect is the part where they force to have one. If it was voluntary then great, but since it's not, it's not so great. Any extension of detention without charge is an abomination to freedom. You don't consider 3 months inside with minimal rights to be grossly excessive?

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

libertylover

I see y'all have neoconservatives. You can keep him, we have enough in America.

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“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”.

Westcountryman

Some more details on why ID cards are a bad idea:

NO2ID:why not?

ID Cards: Labour's Bad IDea - Campaign - Conservative Party

Liberal Democrats : ID Cards

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Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam sub libertate quietam - "This hand of mine, which is hostile to tyrants, seeks by the sword quiet peace under liberty."

BonnieDundee

We also hate America!

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"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

BonnieDundee

It is not as unwanted as tyranny in my opinion.


You are for the rights of the state against the individual.


Well clearly that would actually be you.



Orwell was still a passionate socialist when he wrote 1984.



We must fight all attacks on liberty, no matter how small.

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"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

The Bear

From my experience of large databases the probability of a national ID relational database ever functioning as is being proposed, much less as is being postulated for the future, is zero.

Really zero. It simply can’t be done. It’s beyond the whit of man.

Bits of it will work, but at a huge financial and human resource cost. Based on even the napkin estimates that have been circulating those costs are certainly not well understood by the people making cost estimates let alone the decisions.

Worse even than that, bits of it will be thought to work and with horrible consequences.

I understand big databases.

I understand them very well indeed.

One thing often overlooked is that data in itself is useless. It is only when data is used to extract or create information that the value kicks in, but the extraction of data, so called data mining, is a real pain.

Ask any major supermarket that has a loyalty card.

So all in all anything beyond a thing that provides a conclusive tie up between a person and the identity by which he is known that can rapidly establish his bona fides, his criminal record, if any, and his status within the country is simply a money pit that will never work.

Unfortunately we do need something however.

Since the period of uncontrolled immigration and the disastrous ideologically driven logically fatally flawed experiment in creating a “multicultural society” we now have a huge social problem in Britain.

Sadly the issue is no longer do we need some for of ID that must be carried round, that situation has been forced on us by the actions of the present government more than anything else, the issue is to ensure that what is to be implemented will be viable, practical, affordable, and of real use.

A good start in providing the security that we now so badly lack in Britain would be to distance ourselves from the ECHR, put a fast track low cost deportation process for illegal immigrants in place, and take some of our judges by the scruff of the neck to the nearest sewage farm and sling ‘em in.

From the judgements they’ve been coming out with recently concerning terrorists they should be made to wallow in what they’ve been coming out with.

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I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.

g hall

An attempt to answer Harbingers postings, difficult I know

ID cards The proposed ID cards and database are a waste of taxpayers money.
The Bear is right and anyone who has worked in relational database creation or management would agree with him.
The information on the db is only as good as what is put in by the inputters, we all know GIGO.
Then you have to retrieve it in some meaningful way that makes sense and I would imagine the relational and key structures would be "interesting"

The government IT track record is poor

Surveillance and tracking is labour intensive and difficult to manage

Intelligence is difficult it was bad enough with the paramilitaries in Ulster and they were the same colour and creed imagine trying to infiltrate the Muslim terrorists , the people you want to recruit are very likely the ones already in it planning to blow YOU up

A simple answer don't let em in and deport those already here , this works to a degree but what do you do about sympathisers ?
also bear in mind that a key ally in the Middle East is ruled by quite a fundamentalist sect and we brown nose them enough.

also define terrorist after all one mans terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

If you wish to live in a free society then a price is paid alternatives are a large gated community but that leaves you at the mercy of the rulers/owners and they can be just as bad if not worse

Pi55ing money away makes the government feel better because that means they are doing something the only thing is it does not solve the problem which is of the Wests own making

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"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

Roland

You are one poor miss guided lamb.

What are we afraid of ? Government is what we're afraid of. Civil liberties were hard fought for people have been persecuted, tortured and murdered to give us protection from government.

One of the greatest protections from government is the fact that if they start to get out of line we can change our ID we can hide who we our we the people are in a position to rebel. We our free people.

As for terrorism the 9/11 bombers, the 7/7 bombers and the Madrid bombers all had valid ID so please tell us how ID cards would have helped?

Civil liberties are removed one step at a time just chiseled away at slowly piece by piece until suddenly you realize they our no longer there.

What happens when the government accuses you of being a terrorist because you protested at something they do or read information which the government would rather people did not?

Personally given the choice between taking my chances with terrorists or risking living under the control and tyranny of government I will take my chances with the terrorists.

The Bear

Our unquestionable erosion of civil liberties is not down to the government alone, it’s down to the inevitable loss of civil liberties during time of war and make no mistake, the things that are taking place ARE war against us.

As for the fifth columnists having valid ID, it’s not having ID that is the thing that can help in preventing these people doing what they do, it’s the systems behind that provide the security.

Consider for a moment the number of times that the use of mobile phones has been an issue in the detection and prosecution of cases.

Not simply what is said to who but the very fact that a mobile phone once switched on identifies itself and the location that it is switched on at. You don’t even need to originate a call, simply turning the thing on is enough.

Sad to say we now need some form of enhanced security system in place.

Thank you, New Labour, you’ve screwed my country up big time.

John Major only screwed a cabinet minister.

Blair and his mix of arrogance, stupidity, and incompetence has screwed the lot of us.

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I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.

Rebirth

In the eyes of corrupt government, a freedom fighter is a terrorist.

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