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UK's Blair Dismisses Online Anti ID-Card Petition
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 20, 2007 03:29 AM
from the no-is-an-answer-too dept.
from the no-is-an-answer-too dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Prime Minister Tony Blair has responded personally via email to 28,000 online petitioners opposing the UK's planned identity card scheme, and has closed the online petition. The email reads: 'We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities — up to 50 at a time... ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.'"
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News: Protests Move From the Streets To YouTube 156 comments
weighn writes "One factor driving the move of political statements to YouTube, and away from old-style street protest, is that on the Internet the chances of being personally associated with a protest are lower. Mounting your political message online is also safer in countries where taking part in a protest can result in your death or injury at the hands of your country's army. We've seen how street protests and online polls alike are being shunted aside and ignored. What is the future for the common person who yearns to be heard?"
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Better link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better link (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Monkey Bush, Monkey Blair. They just don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like no one ever questioned if DNA registers could at least theoretically be useful.
This is not what the petition is about. It's about the fact that all registers can and will be mis-used "for the better".
And that's an awful lot of lets-be-afraid-of-terrorists mumbo-jumbo. I'd say, let's understand what makes terrorists do what they do. Let's analyze and talk about that. Perhaps is it linked with the gigantic abuse of poor people in poor countries led by todays imperialistic crusades.
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Re:Better link (Score:5, Informative)
The e-petition to "scrap the proposed introduction of ID cards" has now closed. The petition stated that "The introduction of ID cards will not prevent terrorism or crime, as is claimed. It will be yet another indirect tax on all law-abiding citizens of the UK". This is a response from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
The petition calling for the Government to abandon plans for a National ID Scheme attracted almost 28,000 signatures - one of the largest responses since this e-petition service was set up. So I thought I would reply personally to those who signed up, to explain why the Government believes National ID cards, and the National Identity Register needed to make them effective, will help make Britain a safer place.
The petition disputes the idea that ID cards will help reduce crime or terrorism. While I certainly accept that ID cards will not prevent all terrorist outrages or crime, I believe they will make an important contribution to making our borders more secure, countering fraud, and tackling international crime and terrorism. More importantly, this is also what our security services - who have the task of protecting this country - believe.
So I would like to explain why I think it would be foolish to ignore the opportunity to use biometrics such as fingerprints to secure our identities. I would also like to discuss some of the claims about costs - particularly the way the cost of an ID card is often inflated by including in estimates the cost of a biometric passport which, it seems certain, all those who want to travel abroad will soon need.
In contrast to these exaggerated figures, the real benefits for our country and its citizens from ID cards and the National Identity Register, which will contain less information on individuals than the data collected by the average store card, should be delivered for a cost of around £3 a year over its ten-year life.
But first, it's important to set out why we need to do more to secure our identities and how I believe ID cards will help. We live in a world in which people, money and information are more mobile than ever before. Terrorists and international criminal gangs increasingly exploit this to move undetected across borders and to disappear within countries. Terrorists routinely use multiple identities - up to 50 at a time. Indeed this is an essential part of the way they operate and is specifically taught at Al-Qaeda training camps. One in four criminals also uses a false identity. ID cards which contain biometric recognition details and which are linked to a National Identity Register will make this much more difficult.
Secure identities will also help us counter the fast-growing problem of identity fraud. This already costs £1.7 billion annually. There is no doubt that building yourself a new and false identity is all too easy at the moment. Forging an ID card and matching biometric record will be much harder.
I also believe that the National Identity Register will help police bring those guilty of serious crimes to justice. They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the register. Another benefit from biometric technology will be to improve the flow of information between countries on the identity of offenders.
The National Identity Register will also help improve protection for the vulnerable, enabling more effective and quicker checks on those seeking to work, for example, with children. It should make it much more difficult, as has happened tragically in the past, for people to slip through the net.
Proper identity management and ID cards also have an important role to play in preventing illegal immigration and illegal working. The effectiveness on the new biometric technology is, in fact, already being seen. In trials using this technology on visa applications at just nine overseas posts, our officials have already uncovered 1,400 pe
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Re:Better link (Score:5, Insightful)
Tony Blair is exceptionally intelligent man with absolute faith in his beliefs. He believes in the identity card system. He also believed that Afghanistan was now Taliban free and invading Iraq was a good idea to solve terrorism.
He seems to ignore the frequency with which the existing Police National Computer system is abused by both civillians and force members. He also seems to ignore the existing government success rate with major IT projects. Lastly he seems to ignore the problems with biometric ID card systems.
Absolute conviction in your own beliefs is extremely dangerous in a politician. It makes you blind to better counsel.
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Re:Better link (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Better link (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a "Have your say" board running on the BBC News web site a few days ago, after the Metropolitan Police were once again criticised over their bungled "anti-terror" raid on the home of some dark-skinned men with beards. The raid was based on bad intelligence, and one of the men was shot. And yet, on the BBC board, a chilling number of commenters essentially said "If a few people have to suffer for the greater good, that's a price we have to pay." I bet their views would have been different if their loved ones had been the ones being shot by the police, too.
The thing about all of this ID business is exactly what you said: what matters is not intentions, it is reality. In reality, the system will be abused. More subtle, but probably more damaging, is the fact that innocent mistakes will be made by those using the system. What will it take to get someone's benefits suspended, or for them to fail a background check and be denied a job, or for them to be arrested on suspicion of committing a crime five years ago? One tired operator mistyping the hundredth update they've done that day? One bad communications link where parts of the database get out of sync? One false positive or false negative on a statistically unreliable biometric test? If these things are possible, surely there must be an immediate, effective, easily accessible mechanism in place so that individuals can get the mistake Fixed Right Now(TM)? Strangely, I've never seen any mention of such a mechanism. Bizarrely, but based on personal experience, it is actually this "genuine mistake" problem that I fear most about the NIR and ID card scheme. (This is not to say that deliberate abuse, civil liberties, costs and so on are not also legitimate objections.)
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Re:Better link (Score:5, Interesting)
The art of repressive politics - overall - is keeping the level of abuse down to just under that point where the populace will turn on you. Both the UK and the USA have been riding ever closer to that line, yet artfully avoiding crossing it. Modern polling techniques added to modern disinformation techniques have produced a society that is passive in the face of massive levels of rights loss, coercion, and general interference; modern comforts leave citizens ever more unwilling to take the risk of sacrificing all for what to most of them is just an abstract.
As long as this balance in maintained, there are only two choices for the disaffected; push the rest of the populace over the line (which puts you in the same position as the government - the populace didn't want to go there in the first place so you are engaged in coercion) or act on your own if you can find an effective vector. This, of course, is extremely risky, as the natural corollary for the government's getting out of hand in the above-described ways is an increased level of activity against the disaffected.
Currently, the levers that crack open the door to dictatorship are labeled "terrorism" and "think of the children." These two factors, artfully applied, have demonstrated the power to make the UK and USA populations give up anything, put up with anything, pay anything, without upsetting anyone but the highest functioning individuals who have made rights and freedom their concern. And this is far too small a demographic to result in an effective counter reaction. Until or unless you can defuse the power of these two control vectors to manipulate the general population, and keep replacement and enhancement vectors from taking their place (oh god, we have to control carbon output) it is my opinion that the governments of both countries will continue to increase pressure on the populace in the areas of rights loss, coercion, and general interference. The benefits are power, as you noted, and financial gains for those who control the system. These are not elements that can be replaced for the power hungry; you can offer no substitute, you can only remove them, and that, of course, will provoke a severe reaction.
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Misused already (Score:5, Insightful)
Blair already plans to misuse the data. Suddenly he regards a measure that was meant only to stop terrorists and illegal immigration as a means to solve every open crime of the last 50 years!
Compared to Tony Blair, Big Brother was a piker.
Some guy has already submitted a petition to reopen the "scrap Id card" petition. [ReopenIDpetition]
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Re:Better link (Score:5, Insightful)
it is clear that if we want to travel abroad, we will soon have no choice but to have a biometric passport.
This is a red herring that is repeated with annoying frequency. ICAO requirements [icao.int] state that the only required biometric is a digitised photo, which new UK passports already contain [bbc.co.uk]. There's no need for fingerprints, retinal scans, etc.
Secure identities will also help us counter the fast-growing problem of identity fraud. This already costs £1.7 billion annually.
The majority of fraud reported as "identity fraud" is credit card fraud. ID cards will be no use at stopping this, unless you require people to show their ID when buying anything. In particular, the "£1.7 billion" figure is nonsense [spy.org.uk].
I also believe that the National Identity Register will help police bring those guilty of serious crimes to justice. They will be able, for example, to compare the fingerprints found at the scene of some 900,000 unsolved crimes against the information held on the register. Another benefit from biometric technology will be to improve the flow of information between countries on the identity of offenders.
Nice to know that the Government has already gone back on its assurance in 2005 [telegraph.co.uk] that the ID register wouldn't be used for "fishing expeditions" - also nice to know that our details will be shared with some unspecified other countries.
The additional cost of the ID cards is expected to be less than £30 or £3 a year for their 10-year lifespan.
Not according to an independent report [lse.ac.uk].
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We already have biometric passports in the UK - and that has already given a hefty increase in the price.
As for his whinging that the price of an ID c
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hopefully soon those who got a small amount of tax credits to buy their vote (whilst they lost more from other taxes/increases) will come to their senses and vote for another party at the next election.
Well let me decrypt that email for you.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slaves,
When your masters gives you something, you take it. I'm giving you a nice
new collar so you can't hide or run away. The global plantation has
grown to such a size we just have to have smart chains and collars.
Re:We asked for slavery (Score:4, Insightful)
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." If its not people forget about it, they ignore it and the threat is no longer real to them. People have always been more than willing to give up freedom for security, imaginary or temporary or even false. Most either don't see or don't care about the threat of doing so, the inevitable loss of security that they will suffer in the long term.
We are a blind, greedy and irrational species. Maybe after another dozen centuries of dictatorships, monarchies, torture and servitude we will again fight for true freedom.
Parent
Re:We asked for slavery (Score:4, Insightful)
Negative equity [wikipedia.org] trumps any conservative:liberal argument, especially in the UK which has one of the highest home owners per capita in the world. It's not "greedy" to want to be able to clothe your children AND keep your home. CF. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [wikipedia.org].
So long as Blair doesn't cock up the economy, he'll have pretty much a free hand to do what he likes. One of those two things will have to change before Labour are voted out; either Blair going away, or the economy failing. Blair has already said he's going to quit sometime this year.
Parent
Here's a sample (Score:5, Insightful)
28000? how about TWO MILLION? (Score:3, Insightful)
Downing Street to send Blair emails to 2 million road pricing protesters
Furious minister resists policy concessions
E-petitions site creator hails changing democracy
Will Woodward, Patrick Wintour and Dan Milmo
Wednesday February 14, 2007
The Guardian
Downing Street will respond to a surge of support for a petition on its website condemning its road pricing plans, which could reach 2m signatures by next week.
With Douglas Alexa
Re:Here's a sample (Score:4, Informative)
From David Davies (Shadow Home Secretary) to Sir Gus O'Donnell (head of the Civil Service):
'I am writing to you in relation to the Government's planned roll out of its national identity card scheme, commencing this year. You will be aware that there is a longstanding convention that one Parliament may not bind a subsequent Parliament.As you will also be aware, the Conservative Party has stated publicly that it is our intention to cancel the ID cards project immediately on our being elected to government. You are now formally on notice of our position and fully appraised of the contingent risks and associated liabilities arising from the national identity card scheme.'
Parent
The point of the petition (Score:5, Insightful)
Note the difference.
And another one... (Score:5, Interesting)
Last week I created a petition asking the government to actually pay notice to the petition service that *THEY* set up, and not just give it lip-service when it suits them... That petition request was rejected.
So much for democracy
Re:And another one... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a vote.
1.5 million out of roughly 60 million population have gone to the website, and made their views shown. More than enough *TO* put it to a vote if required.
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Re:Car Tracking Petition (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the whole idea of petitions is flawed.
Put bluntly, if I were PM I'd either shut down or ignore such petition sites and try and arrange a decent forum (slashcode based?) for online debate instead. The quality of insight into an issue (and peoples feelings) I derive from discussions on Slashdot is way higher than from reading a random bunch of petitions ... and when I check the facts behind peoples comments I generally find them to be accurate. At least, more accurate than a typical petition justification.
Parent
Tony Blair closes online petition? (Score:5, Informative)
There was a deadline for signatures and it has passed. Blair has responded to the petitioners after the petition was complete. That sounds more like he was pissed of with it and closed the petition. The fact that the prime minister personally closed the petition was the item in this story that pissed me off the most and that wasn't even true.
There's plenty we can moan at Blair for without making things up.
Incresingly difficult, yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
If terrorists justify everything... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Italy the communist BR have appeared in two occasions lately. Some years ago they killed two people, D'Antona and Biagi, the second one was working on a law on new type of flexible work contracts. Result, the Biagi bill gets passed with nobody daring to make a discussion. Same kind of laws in france wrecked the government caused unrest.
Ten days ago a police operation finds terrorists who were plotting against berlusconi et al. Media start talking about terrorism again and a national demonstration in Vicenza against the planned increase of american military presence in the nearby base, having a sizable percentage of leftists, becomes a terrorist threat.
People who started protesting because their city, Vicenza, is already too crowded first get commies using the occasion to burn flags, then they are looked upon the police as potential terrorists. Checkmate.
Closing the petition (Score:5, Informative)
So do we have any evidence. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly my sentiments. If terrorism is a problem, where are the terrorists? Where are the endless terrorist attacks and counter-terrorist busts? We got bombed once [wikipedia.org] , like a year and a half ago. America hasn't been attacked at all in half a decade. Is that supposed to constitute a persistent looming threat? Because I, for one, could not care less.
What are all those unidentified terrorists? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
False positive (Score:5, Insightful)
This won't work for two reasons :
So searching for matching biometric data won't detect terrorist keeping low profile and is at risk of harassing innocent people who had the bad luck to very much look alike some criminal idiot at the other side of the country whom they've never heard about.
ID cards proponents should stop pushing it as "the" miracle solution to terrorism, and only present it as what it is : a ID which is marginally more difficult to abuse compared to previous solution, and which will be handy (in countries lacking one before) as a quick solution for everyday usage when you need to show someone else your identity (like giving your age before entering in a night-club, before buying alcohol, while using a credit card, when going to the administration, etc.) A single standarised card is more convenient than having tens of different type of picture ID and seeing the one you handled refused because "Sorry, I don't know the ID. I can't determine if it wasn't tampered with. Do you have any other ID ?". But I'll never magically remove terrorism
Parent
Not that I think he's lieing persay (Score:4, Interesting)
He's just doing the kiddie lie thing of telling a half truth. Of course such a system may/will make what he said harder for terrorist and the other boogey men - I don't doubt that in the same way that I don't doubt that if it is hard for me to breathe in a room due to lack of air a terrorist would also find it hard to breathe. If those things become difficult for everyone who isn't 100% "simon-says" follower then the terrorists will not be exempt.
However, and I may just be misguided and paranoid, I find myself a lot more afraid of a large governments with massive databanks, financial caches, and military assets powered by men trained to be unquestioning soldiers (for better or worse) that some pissed off and somewhat oprressed (some might say cursed) terrorist.
So yah I see much more potential for bad than potential for good - from what I hear we as Earthlings have a greater chance of Aophis destroying us than terrorist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am one of those people who love to pose uncomfortable questions and defend unpopular ideas. I might be one of those people who suddenly spend hours checking into a flight overseas. At first it might be considered a coincidence but perhaps I'll rethink that when suddenly every routine traffic inspection takes, like, an hour until I
Inconceivable! (Score:5, Insightful)
This was expected (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing surprising about this move. The petitions were only allowed for the same reason that public enquiries are allowed. They create an illusion of consultation, but because they usually come to the attention of only a few particularly interested people any opposition to the government view can be safely ignored. What the government failed to consider with online petitions are that they can be easily filled in by people once they have been informed of their existence by the same medium - the internet. This is why government sources described the person who came up wih the idea as an idiot last week (I'm not joking).
In this particular case the comnpanies that stand to make a fortune from government contracts to bring in the ID card are the same companies providing directorships to former ministers, MPs and civil servants. The so called "revolving door". As the right dishonourable Tony Blair MP is soon to be out of a job he's more than likely to go the extra mile to keep these companies happy. He needs a job after leaving office, as his mortgage commitments are astronomical (again, I'm not joking).
This governent treats the public like its children (Score:5, Insightful)
Your job is to represent our views, not to decide what is best for your self and explain to us why you think it is right.
Honestly, I don't think you have the understanding of security issues to grasp why biometriecs are a very bad choice for personal security, nor do I think you have the imagination to forsee the abuses that could come of this. Combine these two things with your governments record on large scale IT projects and anyone can see that we are heading for disaster.
No2ID Saw This Coming (Score:5, Informative)
No2ID [no2id.net], the UK's leading campaign against the National Identity Card and the Database State, realised even before this petition was launched that the site exists only to encourage "fire and forget" activism from people. People signing up to No2ID are encouraged to subscribe to a fortnightly e-mail newsletter which keeps them up to date with the latest news on ID Cards in Government and across the country.
The No2ID campaign has encouraged a 30% swing in public opinion against Identity Cards, has encouraged councils and other organisations across the country to oppose the Government's plans, and formed a wide alliance of political parties and unions from all sides of the spectrum in opposition to this scheme. It's unlikely that the Tories would have come out against ID cards (albeit in a half-arsed way) without No2ID's influence.
If people want to make a difference, joining and supporting No2ID is the best way to do so. There are local groups nationwide, which can always benefit from more supporters.
Dear People of Great Britain, (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck you all.
We know best, and you know how to pay for it.
Sincerely,
HM Government.
Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
The Party is never wrong.
Big Blair is always watching you.
Join No2ID.org (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Downfall of Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If it had anything to do with welfare he would say that he needs it so he can make sure that if anyone doesn't deserve welfare (namely, everybody who either works and therefore doesn't need it and everybody who doesn't work and therefore is too lazy to live) he doesn't receive it.
Umm, isn't that exactly one of the proposed "benefits" of the ID card - that it will reduce benefits fraud?
what is he going to do, shooting all tourists?
Not all tourists, only Brazilians.
Re:Paranoia with national ID cards (Score:5, Insightful)
1) You don't currently have to have a passport and I believe you can travel in the EU without one.
2) You will be forced to have an ID card which you will need to pay for yourself and pay for its renewal every 10 years or so
3) A huge database will be created linked to the ID cards which will be accessible to every branch of government and even private companies such as banks etc. The government refuse to say what kind of information will be in this database but it will be extensive
4) ID cards cannot be shown to help in the fight against a) immigration, b) terrorism, c) crime, d) benefit fraud
5) All of this will be very very expensive, a nuisance to deal with and useless in most practical terms.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not about the card (Score:5, Insightful)
Concerns include:
1. Records might not be accurate.
2. People might commit crimes using other people's identities.
3. Records might be used to build criminal cases against people when the police have little evidence (see 1 and 2).
4. Records might be data-mined for "patterns of suspicious activity" to detect criminals. This might produce false positives.
5. People might end up having to prove their own innocence, rather than the onus being on the authorities to prove guilt.
In addition, any database specialist will be able to suggest concerns about the security of the system, especially as it will have a large number of users, throughout the civil service and private business.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I would also like to discuss some of the claims about costs - particularly the way the cost of an ID card is often inflated by including in estimates the cost of a biometric passport which, it seems certain, all those who want to travel abroad will soon need.
This is bollocks, first of all there is no requirement from any country in the world for the kind of biometric information they are proposing putting on these ID cards and it would be a lot easier to change the current passports to include what they actually need to include without building this whole ID scheme around it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Worse than that (Score:5, Insightful)
In US terms this is the pork barrel to end pork barrels, and a way to ensure a continued revenue stream to Blair Inc when he leaves office. Because I'm sure that:
He will be "advising" those companies for a fee
She, as a human rights lawyer, will be deriving fee income from (a) civil liberties groups challenging aspects of the scheme and (b) Government departments on the other side.
This is a wonderful earning opportunbity for the Blairs, and they will not let it go without a huge fight.
Parent
Re:Who asked me? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry, when did I vote on that? I don't recall ever being asked!
June 2001. The year Labour were returned to power. And again in May, 2006. We don't get to vote for single issues.
The little shit will go, or the people will remove him
As though Gordon Brown is particularly innocent? The people didn't remove Blair in 2006, and while Labour might loose the next election (which will probably not be until 2011), it's far from guaranteed. If they're not removed, then we'll have much the same as before. Worse, even if they are removed, the people most likely to replace them are exactly the same - they just wear different colour ties.
Not America
Then how come it's so often called "Americas War, that we were dragged into"? The government, that we elected, was not dragged - they wanted to go in. And we voted the wankers back in. It's as much our war as it's America's, whether we like it or not.
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