INTRODUCTION:
Fellow defy-id campaigners in Liverpool have been out and about campaigning since early January and have regularly discussed this issue at open meetings for well over six months (meeting every Thursday 6pm at News From Nowhere, Bold Street, Liverpool). Time and time again our worst fears are shown not to be overblown paranoia, here's a story that proves that we constantly need to consider what are the repercussions of government ID card/database scheme, we've obviously got to continue to campaign against 'cornerstone legislation' that when in place will be the building block on which all other oppressive police state (control and containment of population) leglisation and laws will depend on.
Fellow defy-id campaigners in Liverpool have been out and about campaigning since early January and have regularly discussed this issue at open meetings for well over six months (meeting every Thursday 6pm at News From Nowhere, Bold Street, Liverpool). Time and time again our worst fears are shown not to be overblown paranoia, here's a story that proves that we constantly need to consider what are the repercussions of government ID card/database scheme, we've obviously got to continue to campaign against 'cornerstone legislation' that when in place will be the building block on which all other oppressive police state (control and containment of population) leglisation and laws will depend on.
Liverpool Defy-ID supporters have been campaigning since January and have recently targeted three MPs surgeries in June, Frank Field (Birkenhead) - Peter Kilfoyle (Walton) - Jane Kennedy (Wavertree) all three have stated to ourselves that they support the ID card scheme. The only known Liverpool MP known to public oppose ID cards/database scheme in Bob Wareing Liverpool West Derby's MP.
We've been gathering many signatures on defy-ID petition sheets and been linking ups with other campaign groups, Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Liverpool Friends of Palestine, Community Party of Britain (CPB) have been addressed at their monthly meetings, the national meeting of Trade Union Councils in Liverpool and the North West region of the Socialist Labour Party have both also debated the issue of ID cards/database. CND are also gathering petition signatures on their stalls and also giving out our leaflets as well.
With our constant dialogue with the public we're educating both the public and ourselves, getting fedback from people from other countries, for example Australia abandoned their
ID cards system after they had a national referendum on the issue and it was voted against, one of the reasons people got concerned was the so called 'function creep' in which government departments start to add more data and functions to the ID cards/database and it ends up becoming unmanagable, more controlling and the public get more concerned over the emcompassing nature of the identity
card/database system.
The following attached article is taken from today's Independent Newspaper, also on today's (Sunday 26th June) TV news programmes it's been stated that government's ID Card scheme is in disarray, however the government will still be having a vote on Tuesday for their increasingly detested ID Card/Database scheme.
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Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash
By Francis Elliott, Andy McSmith and Sophie Goodchild
26 June 2005
Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that ministers have opened talks with private firms to pass on personal details of UK citizens for an initial cost of £750 each.
Amid warnings today that the cost of a card for each adult in Britain is likely to double to £200, union leaders predicted that millions of public-sector workers could refuse to co-operate with the scheme, prompting claims that the ID scheme will become Labour's equivalent of the poll tax.
Unison is the latest and biggest trade union to come out against the controversial government plans. The Transport and General Workers' Union and the GMB have already urged backbenchers to vote against the Identity Cards Bill next week. Unison said that ID cards would be ineffective against terrorism and that its 1.3 million members working in healthcare may have the right to refuse to co-operate in enforcing their use.
Bob Marshall-Andrews, one of the Labour MPs opposing the Bill, has accused the Government of doing a "back of an envelope" calculation to reach its figure.
The opening of commercial talks contradicts a promise made when the Home Office launched a public consultation on ID cards in April last year, when officials pledged that "unlike electoral registers, the National Identity Register will not be open for any general access or inspection."
Public support for the scheme has been falling away in recent months amid gathering fears over costs. A report by the London School of Economics is to show that the card's cost to individuals will be around £200.
In addition, firms could be charged up to £750 for technology that would allow them instantly to verify customers' identity through iris scanning or finger-printing, according to official documents.
Whitehall insiders, who have already been passed a copy of the LSE report, say it also includes a warning by a former Nato security chief that the cards could be a "security disaster", are "too risky" to introduce, and could lead to a national meltdown in the event of a security breach of the
central database.
After 2008, a machine similar to credit card readers will be a common sight on the counters of banks and large retail stores. These new machines will potentially be able to read a customer's biometric details, such as fingerprints and facial measurements, to check that they tally with information on the customer's ID card.
The Identity Cards Bill has a rough passage ahead, with Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour rebels joining forces against it. Although government whips are confident of winning Tuesday's vote, rebels are predicting that they can kill the measure off later in the process, in a slow war of attrition, on the grounds of the costs involved and the risks of computer failure.
We've been gathering many signatures on defy-ID petition sheets and been linking ups with other campaign groups, Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Liverpool Friends of Palestine, Community Party of Britain (CPB) have been addressed at their monthly meetings, the national meeting of Trade Union Councils in Liverpool and the North West region of the Socialist Labour Party have both also debated the issue of ID cards/database. CND are also gathering petition signatures on their stalls and also giving out our leaflets as well.
With our constant dialogue with the public we're educating both the public and ourselves, getting fedback from people from other countries, for example Australia abandoned their
ID cards system after they had a national referendum on the issue and it was voted against, one of the reasons people got concerned was the so called 'function creep' in which government departments start to add more data and functions to the ID cards/database and it ends up becoming unmanagable, more controlling and the public get more concerned over the emcompassing nature of the identity
card/database system.
The following attached article is taken from today's Independent Newspaper, also on today's (Sunday 26th June) TV news programmes it's been stated that government's ID Card scheme is in disarray, however the government will still be having a vote on Tuesday for their increasingly detested ID Card/Database scheme.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ministers plan to sell your ID card details to raise cash
By Francis Elliott, Andy McSmith and Sophie Goodchild
26 June 2005
Personal details of all 44 million adults living in Britain could be sold to private companies as part of government attempts to arrest spiralling costs for the new national identity card scheme, set to get the go-ahead this week.
The Independent on Sunday can today reveal that ministers have opened talks with private firms to pass on personal details of UK citizens for an initial cost of £750 each.
Amid warnings today that the cost of a card for each adult in Britain is likely to double to £200, union leaders predicted that millions of public-sector workers could refuse to co-operate with the scheme, prompting claims that the ID scheme will become Labour's equivalent of the poll tax.
Unison is the latest and biggest trade union to come out against the controversial government plans. The Transport and General Workers' Union and the GMB have already urged backbenchers to vote against the Identity Cards Bill next week. Unison said that ID cards would be ineffective against terrorism and that its 1.3 million members working in healthcare may have the right to refuse to co-operate in enforcing their use.
Bob Marshall-Andrews, one of the Labour MPs opposing the Bill, has accused the Government of doing a "back of an envelope" calculation to reach its figure.
The opening of commercial talks contradicts a promise made when the Home Office launched a public consultation on ID cards in April last year, when officials pledged that "unlike electoral registers, the National Identity Register will not be open for any general access or inspection."
Public support for the scheme has been falling away in recent months amid gathering fears over costs. A report by the London School of Economics is to show that the card's cost to individuals will be around £200.
In addition, firms could be charged up to £750 for technology that would allow them instantly to verify customers' identity through iris scanning or finger-printing, according to official documents.
Whitehall insiders, who have already been passed a copy of the LSE report, say it also includes a warning by a former Nato security chief that the cards could be a "security disaster", are "too risky" to introduce, and could lead to a national meltdown in the event of a security breach of the
central database.
After 2008, a machine similar to credit card readers will be a common sight on the counters of banks and large retail stores. These new machines will potentially be able to read a customer's biometric details, such as fingerprints and facial measurements, to check that they tally with information on the customer's ID card.
The Identity Cards Bill has a rough passage ahead, with Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour rebels joining forces against it. Although government whips are confident of winning Tuesday's vote, rebels are predicting that they can kill the measure off later in the process, in a slow war of attrition, on the grounds of the costs involved and the risks of computer failure.
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