Another little rant

[Muddypause]

200 posts it the whole goodlife crew

How many posts till we get to be Geraldine the goat?

[Andy Hamilton]

How many posts till we get to be Geraldine the goat?

Will have to think about the next one possibly 500 posts, geraldine could be an idea

[Muddypause]

Having grown up with one, I actually miss it. The ID card was so incredibly useful; no problems with proving your age when buying alcohol or when in a club at night...

I would love an ID card!

Thing is, what we are not talking about here is simply the means of proving your age in a pub, or even proving who you say you are to someone who has a legitimate cause to know.

The proposal for an ID card represents a sea change in the way that we are going to have to be accountable, in a way that we have never considered before in this country, and in a way that makes us all accountable to the authorities, rather than the other way around.

The implications for democracy and justice are worrying indeed.

[ina]

Stew, I still don't quite see how an ID card would make us more accountable to the authorities than we are already. All the information that would be on there is already recorded somewhere (ok, with the exception of an iris scan or finger print or whatever they decide on, which from my point of view is nothing more than a more tamper proof form of a photograph). If the authorities suspect you of anything illegal they'll find information they want, be it benefits scam, bank account, whether you've paid your tax, where you spend your holidays or whatever. (The ID card would probably not be able to give them that last information!) At least I don't think my democratic rights would be in any way infringed, they might actually be improved.

Look at the election fraud, for example: Here, it is now perfectly possible to pick up somebody's forms for voting by mail and send them off, or to go to the polling station and just show that card with your name on it and cast your vote. A friend of mine has already admitted that he once voted for somebody who couldn't be bothered. If you had to show not just that card, but also your ID card (as it is in Germany, and probably in other ountries that have one), fraud possibilities would be at least reduced. Even with casting your vote by mail it would be more difficult to cheat: Back in the late 70s, when I lived in England but was still registered in Germany, I couldn't get my forms unless I went to the council office (at home) myself to pick them up, with my ID, of course. If somebody else had to go (say for a housebound person), this person would have had to sign another form, authorising somebody by name, who could then only pick up the forms in person and producing their ID card. Sounds like red tape, but it does make fraud a lot less easy. I think this actually makes the election process more democratic.

(Sorry about harping on about Germany. It's the only country I really know apart from Britain.)

Ina

[Muddypause]

Hello Ina,

If, as you say, those that need to know can already access the information they need, why do we need this all-encompassing ID card? And I already object to much of this information gathering, too, in exactly the same way that I object to the information gathered by storecards and the like. Just because it already happens is no justification for unifying all the information into one place.

I find it intrusive and unnecessary in the same way that I like to live my home life behind closed doors and away from prying eyes. And I strongly resent the constantly implied assertion by many people that wanting to keep personal details to myself implies some sort of miscreance, and that if I've done nothing wrong I don't have any reason to object.

We are not the property of the government; we are not cattle to be tagged, numbered, recorded and filed just for being a person, just for existing. Maybe if you are a criminal then there is some justification for it, but most of us aren't. And it moves the onus away from a government that is accountable to us, to us being accountable to the government. The government is there to serve us. For the first time ever, you will have to account just simply for being alive - never mind whether you are suspected of wrongdoing - being unable to account for yourself will make you a wrongdoer.

ATM, we are not accountable except in certain specific aspects of what we do - tax, social security, international travel - that type of thing. There is no national file that I know of that records our visits to the doctor, or our children's school record or whether or not we choose to vote. There is no need for any one of these administrations to be recorded alongside any other details, with a single point of access.

I worry that, for decades we have been struggling to rid society of discrimiation, whereby minority groups attract the unwarranted and unjustifiable attention of the authorities, and others are debarred and prevented from access to parts of society. Now we are facing a situation where people can be discriminated against via their ID card - in secret, covertly. And it won't just be the obvious ethnic minorities - it will be people who have a record of some long distant mental health problem, or economic difficulty, or some minor misdemenour, or dangerous, politically subversive ideas like self sufficiency. It will be easy to monitor and record dissent individually, which is a concern, because a democracy gains validity by impatially allowing dissent.

I simply don't think that the introduction of a compulsory ID scheme of this nature is a respectful or democratic way for a civilised government to behave or to serve a population, and I object to it. To my mind, it is a bigger version of the nasty way that the TV licensing authority behaves.

Anyway, here's tonight's entertainment; have a look at this Flash animation(click on the poster to play). Whatever your views, it's hilarious.

[ina]

Nice one, Stew! (Does that have sound, too? Our computers don't do music.... But I can just imagine it.)

Well, I think we'd better agree to disagree - I have no problem with that. I can see your point(s), but they just don't seem that important to me personally. Anyway, I've long been carrying my passport with me at all times, to be able to identify myself if necessary - that does the job just as well. And if they really want to charge the population for the full cost of the ID card - then I'd be up against it, too!

Just chucked out another one of those threatening letters from the TV people unread. They'll probably be round again to peer through my windows (I have no curtains, and if they want to see the interior of a house that looks like a cross between an untidy potting shed and a carpentry workshop specialising in flat pack bookcases, with a few odd bits of knitting and mending and stacks of secondhand paperbacks thrown in, they are welcome to it... )

Ina

[Muddypause]

Nice one, Stew! (Does that have sound, too? Our computers don't do music.... But I can just imagine it.)

Oh, tragedy - you're missing the best part. Sung to the tune of 'The Very Model Of A Modern Major General' by Gilbert & Sulivan.

Well, I think we'd better agree to disagree

No problem with that.