I am sorry I said totalitarianism, because we live in free democracy. I know this is true because according to McNulty:
"We are not knocking down doors at four in the morning with people booted and suited in riot gear. Most of the removals occur around half-five, half-six, seven in the morning."Phew, I am so fucking relieved!!! . I am so glad he cleared that one up, We live in free democracy because our detainees are carted off to be detained without trial, later in the morning than detainees in genuine fascist states. I feel safer already.
No that is not a joke, he REALLY said it. And with a straight face too.
And I thought that a government bending and enacting century old laws to suppress dissent, legitimate protest and creating all new laws to detain individuals without trial, place them indefinately under house arrest and criminalise people for their beliefs (support for legitimate and internationally recognised and UN authorised freedom fighters) was the preserve of totalitarian, police states or fascist states. Obviously not; for we have the 'time in the morning of removal test' :D WooHoo good us , we are STILL the good guys.
Speaking of ID cards, be aware of how much of a Ball Ache they will be to get one of these infernal Items? and YES THEY WILL BE COMPULSARY!!! Even under Current government plans, they aim to start the VOLUNTARY introduction in 2007 and have them become compulsary in 2013.
You will have to pay AT LEAST £30.00, but be sure that you are on benefits or a pension first and you do not want it to be a passport. If not the cost will be AT LEAST £97.00
Then be prepared to travel to a registration center to be fingerprinted (all fingers and thumbs) have both retinas scanned and have your photograph taken. All at your expense.
If you are a family of 5, that's over £700.oo for the day including travel and food. (If you live any distance from the registration office)
Once you have done that you can hand in your ID forms, properly filled in or face a fine.
The National Identity Register will contain the following information that has to be provided:
- Name
- Other previous names or aliases;
- Date and place of birth and, if the person has died, the date of death;
- Address
- Previous addresses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere;
- Times of residency at different places in the United Kingdom or elsewhere;
- Current residential status;
- Residential statuses previously held;
- Information about numbers allocated to the applicant for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate;
- Information about occasions on which recorded information in the Register has been provided to any person;
- Information recorded in the Register on request.
- Photograph
- Fingerprints
- “Other” biometrics (iris recognition);
- Signature
- Nationality;
- Entitlement to remain in the United Kingdom; and
- Where entitlement derives from a grant of leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, the terms and conditions of that leave.
- National Identity Registration Number;
- The number of any ID card that has been issued;
- National Insurance number;
- The number of any relevant immigration document;
- The number of any United Kingdom passport (within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971 (c. 77)) that has been issued; (If you have ever had a passport issued to you that has been lost or stolen and you do not have that passport's number any more, you are screwed)
- The number of any passport issued by or on behalf of the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or by or on behalf of an international organisation;
- The number of any document that can be used (in some or all circumstances) instead of a passport;
- The number of any identity card issued by the authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom;
- Any reference number allocated by the Secretary of State in connection with an application made for permission to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom;
- The number of any work permit (within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971);
- Any driver number connected to a driving licence;
- The number of any designated document which is held by the applicant that is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs; ???
- The date of expiry or period of validity of a document the number of which is recorded by virtue of this paragraph. ???
- The date of every application for registration; ???
- The date of every application for a modification of the contents of his entry; ???
- The date of every application confirming the contents of his entry (with or without changes); ???
- The reason for any omission from the information recorded in his entry;
- Particulars (in addition to its number) of every ID card issued;
- Whether each such card is in force and, if not, why not;
- Particulars of every person who has countersigned an application for an ID card or a designated document; ??? What particulars?
- Particulars of every notification given by the applicant for the purposes of regulations under section 13(1) (lost, stolen and damaged ID cards etc.);
- Particulars of every requirement by the Secretary of State for the individual to surrender an ID card issued to the applicant.
- The information provided in connection with every application to be entered in the Register, for a modification of the contents of entry in the Register or for the issue of an ID card;
- Information provided in connection with every application confirming entry in the Register (with or without change;
- Particulars of the steps taken, in connection with an application mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) or otherwise, for identifying the applicant or for verifying the information provided in connection with the application;
- Particulars of any other steps taken or information obtained (otherwise than in connection with an application mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b)) for ensuring that there is a complete, up-to-date and accurate entry about that individual in the Register;
- Particulars of every notification given by that individual for the purposes of section 12.
- A personal identification number to be used for facilitating the making of applications for information recorded in his entry, and for facilitating the provision of the information;
- A password or other code to be used for that purpose or particulars of a method of generating such a password or code;
- Questions and answers to be used for identifying a person seeking to make such an application or to apply for or to make a modification of that entry.
- Particulars of every occasion on which information contained in the individual’s entry has been provided to a person;
- Particulars of every person to whom such information has been provided on such an occasion;
- Other particulars, in relation to each such occasion, of the provision of the information.
Can you confidently provide all this info? or is this an administrative nightmare for you?
How will you provide the information for section (9) and (30) above? this could include and not be limited to:
Information about numbers allocated to you for identification purposes and about the documents to which they relate; (driving licence, passport, National insurance numbercard, birth certificate, marriage licence number, NHS Number, military ID cards, Bank account numbers, old bank account numbers, credit card accounts, telephone account number, Councils tax account number, store loyalty cards, club membership numbers, Insurance certificate numbers, vehicle registration documents, etc...(These numbers indentify you to these different organisations, do they not?))
At the time of writing the Government has tabled an ammendment to allow the home Secretary to be able to demand any other information including 'sensitive personal data' (eg medical records and criminal records and financial data) to be held in the National Identity Register.
The implication being that at any time, purely at the Home Secretary's (or any future Home Secretary) discretion, he or she can demand that any person, or group of people be forced to provide any data he/she demands. Failure to provide the information will result in criminal proceedings.
Are you worried yet?
But of course, it's not a big brother database and it's not totalitarianism, so nothing to worry about!Would the Government use your inability to provide specific information as a reason to prosecute you? Certainly. But how about this, would the government use this law on ID cards to persecute you?
Well, let's consider how the labour party have already used old laws in a manner in which they were never intended to be used:
From this article:
Had Mr Wolfgang (Walter Wolfgang - the 82-year-old ejected from the Labour conference for shouting "Nonsense!" during Jack Straw's speech) said "nonsense" twice during the foreign secretary's speech, the police could have charged him under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. Harassment, the act says, "must involve conduct on at least two occasions ... conduct includes speech". Parliament was told that its purpose was to protect women from stalkers, but the first people to be arrested were three peaceful protesters. Since then it has been used by the arms manufacturer EDO to keep demonstrators away from its factory gates, and by Kent police to arrest a woman who sent an executive at a drugs company two polite emails, begging him not to test his products on animals. In 2001 the peace campaigners Lindis Percy and Anni Rainbow were prosecuted for causing "harassment, alarm or distress" to American servicemen at the Menwith Hill military intelligence base in Yorkshire, by standing at the gate holding the Stars and Stripes and a placard reading "George W Bush? Oh dear!" In Hull a protester was arrested under the act for "staring at a building".AND
The police are also rediscovering the benefits of some of our more venerable instruments. On September 10, Keith Richardson, one of the six students convicted of aggravated trespass on Friday, had his stall in Lancaster city centre confiscated under the 1824 Vagrancy Act. "Every Person wandering abroad and endeavouring by the Exposure of Wounds and Deformities to obtain or gather Alms ... shall be deemed a Rogue and Vagabond... " The act was intended to prevent the veterans of the Napoleonic wars from begging, but the police decided that pictures of the wounds on this man's anti-vivisection leaflets put him on the wrong side of the law. In two recent cases, protesters have been arrested under the 1361 Justices of the Peace Act. So much for Mr Blair's 21st century methods.This blair Government want to defend FREEDOM (their freedom to intimidate, persecute and subjucate) and uphold their way of life. Blair's way of life being lying us into a war, murdering tens of thousands of innocent women, children and the elderly for his and his cronies personal gain and for to advance a fanatical fundementalistic religious war, launched by the most dangerous religious fundemantalist of all, GW Bush!!! As he said, GOD told him to!
Funny that whenever a normal criminal, that may have only killed one or a few people uses the 'GOD told me to' defence, he is either sectioned under the mental health act or the defence is thrown out and they are imprisoned normally,
But when tens of thousands are killed, it's just a good christian standing up fer merka in the woronterra!!!
But of course it's not totalitarianism, so nothing to worry about.
Where are the labour back benchers? Blair is an apoligist for an extremist rightwing religious fundementalist? I can understand the right wing Tory Liam Fox supporting Bush's illegal war of conquest, But a left of centre Blair? and by implication, the WHOLE Labour party that supports this bill.
What has the ID card got to do with Iraq?
Well, bear with me on this. The ID card, (as demonstrated by the above list of details to be stored and the addition to this list of any extra data the home secretary sees fit, like medical, criminal and financial data), shall be used to track everything you do.
Why do they need to track everybody? they claim it is because the world changed on September eleventh. and the rules of the game have changed since 7/7/05. SO we need to protect ourselves against dangerous people.
Yet they have used the anti terror laws against people who have (legitimately) protested against the government.
Walter Wolfgang - the 82-year-old ejected from the Labour conference for shouting "Nonsense!" during Jack Straw's speech was detained under the terrorism act, for critisicing the governement. that has set a precedent.
But Blairs lot only want to stop 07/07/05 from happening again?
ok looky here: ID cards wouldn't have stopped bombs, UK minister says
or here: London Bombings Mastermind is MI6 Asset
or here: Al-Qaeda cleric exposed as an MI5 double agent
So the governement will aim to track every body, all the time (including whilst you travel) and build a risk profile of every citizen. It will be used to track everything you do:
Neil Fisher, from QinetiQ - one of the companies developing the new technology, said the public would want to be able to prove their identity to show they were not a risk.He told the BBC's 10 O'Clock News: "You will want this to be part of your life."
"You will want, in what's fast becoming a digital society, to be able to authenticate your identity almost for any transaction that you do, be it going to the bank, going to the shops, going to the airport."
And you will need it to access all Government services too:
What happens if you order an antiwar book online?or attend antiwar rallies? or verbalise your dissent? if you are a critic of government policy, you are liaible (from established precedent) to be held under the terrorism act.
The ID card will make it easier for the govenment to track it's critics and build evidence of their terrorist tendencies so they can hold them indefinately or just detain them in the run up to elections, say the three months prior to an election so as to (a) create the fear of terrorism with many high profile detentions, and (b) prevent their critics from voting?
The unfortunate thing in all this is that it is in any way plausable. If we truly lived in a free democracy, NONE of this would be even remotely plausable.
But don't worry, Tony McNulty says we are free and under his freedom test, we clearly are.
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