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Just your ID, ma’am White Rose notes that London’s police commissioner is calling for introduction of ID cards for all citizens as a means of combating terrorism and organised crime. The said commissioner is apparently opposed to any such “Big Brother” schemes but he needs “to have the ability to identify those people who are around doing their business lawfully and those other people who want to create mayhem and effectively destroy our way of life.”
And how exactly is that not Big Brother…?
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And are these ID cards going to have a line stating profession. We could then ask Terrorists and criminals to be truthful about their professional life and everything would be hunky dory.
They never explain by what mechanism an ID helps you identify the people around you. Stop people randomly and check their papers? Make ’em wear the things around their necks? What?
S. Weasel – They could brand a number on our foreheads.
How are they going to establish everyone’s identity well enough to issue them with an ID card?
(Apparently, somone who already has an (EU) identity card is not sufficiently identified thereby to have a bank account here–without further proof of a permanent local address, that is. Any hints how to negotiate this Catch-22 without taking the first resort of an actual criminal and forging “proof of address” would be gratefully accepted…)
As Jonathan L points out eliptically, an ID card is actually of no use whatsoever in policing, unless the police (1) can establish the one-to-one correspondence between a human individual and an ID card, and (2) can and do monitor a record of the behaviour associated with the ID card. It doesn’t answer those questions that are central to policing: Who committed offence X? Was action Y by Z criminal?
It only makes sense as a cattle-tag. It only makes sense if the police are agents of Big Brother.
Yeah, requiring people to have ID’s is the first step toward fascism. Just like driver’s licenses and passports.
There can’t be any good reason to have a national ID card. It isn’t like we have a legitimate interest in being able to ascertain someone’s identity. If the police want to know who someone is, they can ask.
“Sir, what is your name?”
“Mohamma…uhh…I mean, John Smith.”
“Very well, Mr. Smith. Have a nice day.”
Rolling eyes writes:
Yeah, requiring people to have ID’s is the first step toward fascism. Just like driver’s licenses and passports.
Although you can choose those. Or not.
There can’t be any good reason to have a national ID card. It isn’t like we have a legitimate interest in being able to ascertain someone’s identity. If the police want to know who someone is, they can ask.
“Sir, what is your name?”
“Mohamma…uhh…I mean, John Smith.”
“Very well, Mr. Smith. Have a nice day.”
An alternative scenario might be:
“Sir, what is your name?”
“Mohammad Hussain. Here is my (forged) ID card proving what fine upstanding citizen I am.”
“Very well, Mr. Smith. Have a nice day. Here, please allow me to help me with your Rocket Launcher/Semtex/Box cutters etc… as you obviously are using them for legitimate purposes as your ID card proves.”
Eamon
He insisted that new biometric technology, which allows personal details such as fingerprint or retina identification to be included, made mandatory ID cards “a must”.
He’s either been badly misquoted or he’s saying that mandatory ID cards are now essential because technology allows more precise measurement and more compact data storage. That’s just daft. It’s as silly as saying “Technology now exists to transmit television pictures in colour: this makes mandatory ID cards essential”
“What I am totally against is the business whereby we can trace and follow people who have a normal life. …”
Absolutely against tracing and following the innocent. Clear?
“…But we do need to have the ability to identify those people who are around doing their business lawfully. “
I wish he’d make his mind up. Now the ability to monitor the innocent is essential. How else to identify whether they are doing their business lawfully?
Dear Lord
I solemnly promise not mess around with tags unless a grown up is there to help me.
Eamon
Italic tags be gone (hopefully)
Curses. didn’t work. Don’t feel bad, Eamon.
Fixed?
Rolling Eyes wrote: “Yeah, requiring people to have ID’s is the first step toward fascism. Just like driver’s licenses and passports.”
Actually, it’s the first step after fascism has taken hold — as history bears out.
Licenses and passports are voluntarily obtained forms of identification targeted to a specific use. Do you think national ID cards will be voluntary? And if they won’t be, why not? Cui bono, RE?
Eamon envisions this scenario:
Mohammed with his fake ID, hears “Very well, Mr. Smith. Have a nice day. Here, please allow me to help me with your Rocket Launcher/Semtex/Box cutters etc… as you obviously are using them for legitimate purposes as your ID card proves.”
Eamon, please give me each and every step in your reasoning process that leads you to conclude: (i) that if a person carries an ID, fake or real; then (ii) that person will be permitted (or aided and abetted) in transporting “Rocket Launcher/Semtex/Box cutters etc.”
And remember, those are your words, not mine.
Eamon, also, for extra credit, please explain each and every step in your reasoning process that leads you to conclude that possessing an ID card will establish that the bearer is using the “Rocket Launcher/Semtex/Box cutters etc” for a legitimate purpose.
Once again, those are your words, not mine.
If you need help from someone a bit more lucid than you, Eamon, feel free.
Tim says, “Actually, it’s the first step after fascism has taken hold — as history bears out. Licenses and passports are voluntarily obtained forms of identification targeted to a specific use. Do you think national ID cards will be voluntary?”
Ummm….Timbo, I had to get birth certificates when the kids were born. Mandatory. I notice we’re not goose-stepping yet.
I have to provide my Social Security number to several federal agencies. Still not goose-stepping.
Tax ID number. Not goose-stepping.
Weak, Timbo. Flaccid, even.
Calm down Rolling Eyes! He was just saying that identity cards can be forged, therefore do not add anything to law enforcement.
In fact, because high-tech systems are easier to hack than low-tech systems with a bigger component of human common sense, compulsory identity actually increases crime and fraud. Criminals know what they need to forge.
Biometrics and additional compulsory identity would not have stopped the 9/11 attacks because the terrorists were careful to use people with no criminal records.
I’d go further than Eamon. Biometrics and compulsory state-issued ID is not really intended to control criminals or terrorists at all. They’ll just forge, hack and steal the biometric data.
Its purpose is to control law-abiding people like us. To make us more deferential to officials of the state.
It is after all a direct contravention of the spirit of Magna Carta: presumption of innocence. The purpose of biometric data and compulsory identity is to create a special offence – not carrying your tag or obscuring your tag – in which there is no presumption of innocence burdening the state with the obligation to prove guilt, but in which the citizen must prove to the state that he is a good boy.
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RE, I’m afraid I’ll have to contravene Godwin’s Law and not allow you to shut down the thread with a gratuitous Nazi reference.
You completely ignored the historical point, which is, of course, your prerogative, but does lead me to think you are incapable of refuting it.
The other items you mention (birth certificates, SSNs, tax IDs) are administrative tools with long, relatively benign histories — and the ID numbers had one specific purpose when first introduced. It’s only since the advent of database technology that they have become at all worrisome. If you think the ease with which information can be aggregated and retrieved under such numbers isn’t contributing to the desire on a national level for compulsory IDs — whose “mandatory” uses will creep ever upward just as those of the SSN have done — you are willfully naive.
Again, I ask you, cui bono? Are U.S. and U.K. citizens clamoring for compulsory identification cards? How will our lives improve by, um, *rolling* over and taking this latest assault on our privacy? Can you articulate a positive case for national IDs, or will you simply hurl schoolyard adjectives again?
Tim says, “RE, I’m afraid I’ll have to contravene Godwin’s Law and not allow you to shut down the thread with a gratuitous Nazi reference.”
Actually, Timbo, YOU are the one who referred to a fascist state. I don’t make gratuitous Nazi references: you make them. They are your words, not mine. See your post above on 9/3 at 11:05. My “goose-stepping” comment was in response to your “fascist state” comment. But I didn’t allow you to shut down the thread with a gratuitous Nazi reference.
Tim also says, “You completely ignored the historical point, which is, of course, your prerogative, but does lead me to think you are incapable of refuting it.”
Let’s see…your “historical point” is that we are in a fascist state and the national ID card is the “first step after fascism has taken hold,” and I’M ignoring history?
Let’s look at Timbo’s reasoning: Germany had a national ID card. Germany became a fascist state. Therefore, ID cards cause fascism.
How ’bout this, Timbo: Germany had trees. Germany became a fascist state. Therefore, trees cause fascism. LOL.
When it comes to refuting someone, I noted above (being sarcastic, Timbo) that “There can’t be any good reason to have a national ID card. It isn’t like we have a legitimate interest in being able to ascertain someone’s identity.”
Right, Timbo? And you have refuted that brilliantly in your post at…oh, that’s right. You never mentioned it.
Rolling Eyes
I think Mark has answered the above very throroughly.
My post was meant to illustrate two points.
1. ID cards can be forged.
2. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that someone working in airport security might tend to ignore other factors that might arouse suspicion when prevented with a “legitimate” ID card. People are overworked, stressed, lazy, bored etc…
I personally believe that an ID card will have little effect on the guilty and a major, adverse, effect on the law-abiding.
Eamon
If you will look carefully, RE, your comment yesterday at 5:48 p.m. was the first to bring fascism into the discussion (“Yeah, requiring people to have ID’s is the first step toward fascism. Just like driver’s licenses and passports”).
My initial response simply echoed your words in pointing out that — what you have yet to deal with directly, I might add — one of the first acts of fascist states (and I’m using lowercase fascist here to include the Soviet bloc and other authoritarian states) is to enforce mandatory ID schemes.
I did not say, nor even imply, that the U.S. and the U.K. are fascist states. You managed that leap on your own. I was drawing a parallel between the documented behavior of historically fascist states with the current behavior of historically free states, to suggest that perhaps something is wrong with the push toward national IDs.
In your next response, you ignored the historical point and brought in goose-stepping (that would be the gratuitous Nazi reference). I again used historical examples to highlight ID scheme “mission creep” and suggest that whatever the initial intent of compulsory national IDs, it will end in more state control over the vast majority of peaceful, law-abiding citizens.
You want me to deal with your original point? Fine, I will concede that it is often in the state’s interest to ascertain people’s identity. It already has various mechanisms for doing so, as you ably pointed out in an earlier post. So, it’s now up to you to explain to use why a national ID scheme is in our best interest as citizens. How will my life be made better or more safe by allowing the state to warehouse my and my neighbors’ vital data and to compel me to carry evidence of that data for production upon demand?
Tim says, “I did not say, nor even imply, that the U.S. and the U.K. are fascist states. You managed that leap on your own.”
Wrong.
You said that ID cards are “the first step after fascism has taken hold.” The US and UK are apparently going to require national ID cards. Therefore, according to you, fascism has taken hold in those two countries.
Your words, not mine.
Tim then says, “You want me to deal with your original point? Fine, I will concede that it is often in the state’s interest to ascertain people’s identity. It already has various mechanisms for doing so, as you ably pointed out in an earlier post. So, it’s now up to you to explain to use why a national ID scheme is in our best interest as citizens.”
Well, Timbo, as several posters pointed out on this thread, the other forms of ID I mentioned (driver’s licenses and passports) are not mandatory. You concede (correctly) that it is “often in the state’s interest to ascertain people’s identity.” If it is in the state’s interest to be able to ascertain someone’s indentity, then it must also be in the state’s interest to require people to have something establishing their identity. Is this a big deal?
When I was in school, I had to carry a school ID. Doing so did not bring storm troopers to my door.
At most jobs, I have had to have some form of company ID. Doing so has not brought storm troopers to my door.
I drive, so I have a driver’s license. Doing so has not led to fascism.
I travel, so I have a passport. Doing so has not led to fascism.
I work, so I have a social security card. Doing so has not led to fascism.
If the government requires a simple ID card, why would I expect that to lead to fascism?
Now, how would a national ID card help? Well, you already conceded that it would. I will, though, add one point. I used to be a police officer (20+ years ago). It wouldn’t be unusual to see someone behaving suspiciously (e.g., a guy with the name “Chainsaw” tattooed on his arm, casing the back of a shop at 4:00 a.m.). It also wasn’t unusual, when I would stop the person, to have him tell me, “Sorry, I don’t have a driver’s license [or any other form of ID].” So there I am, standing in an alley, with a guy clearly up to no good, and no way to check LEADS, TIPS, Wants, or NCIC on him.
Put that in a modern context. Substitute a guy named Mohammad for the guy named Chainsaw, substitute the below-ground parking garage of a high-rise office complex for the back of a shop, substitute Mohammad breaking the law by not having his ID card (and hence being subject to arrest) for “I don’t have a driver’s license” (perfectly legal), substitute being able to haul Mohammad down to the station for having to tell Chainsaw, “Well watch yourself”–your question pretty much answers itself.
Your paranoia–your leaps of logic that lead you to conclude that if there is a national ID card, we’ll all end up shouting “Sieg Heil!” and sending Jews to the ovens–is sort of funny, but it also suggests that all the moonbats are not confined to Indymedia or LGF.
If it is in the state’s interest to be able to ascertain someone’s indentity, then it must also be in the state’s interest to require people to have something establishing their identity. Is this a big deal?
Yes. That’s neatly summarised the heart of the argument. That it is in the states’ interest is not sufficient reason to allow the state to do it.
Sorry for wandering apostrophe… must use the preview facility…
Rolling eyes is trolling. That much should have been apparent after his willfully ignorant second post.
Trolling or not, he hits on an important point, namely that ID cards per se are not a threat and will never be seen as a threat by Joe Public, which is why civil libertarians are losing this battle. We know that, when we refer to ID cards, we are really using a short-hand for all the crap that comes with them, but our listeners tend not to realise this. If libertarians want to win the fight against ID cards, we need to stop talking about ID cards: every argument needs to concentrate on databases, false arrest, the danger from hackers, etc. The moment you say “ID cards are evil,” most people think “Passports are OK” and switch off.
Come on you lot, stop being so wimpy. I couldn’t care less if compulsory ID cards wipe out terrorism forever – no one has the right to force me to carry one. I don’t exist as a means to improve other people’s security. And I’d rather be unsecure and free than a secure pig in a pen.
Wonderful, Cobden, wonderful!
Yes, let’s stop being so utilitarian.
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Patrick, a fellow who apparently has nothing of value to say, observes only that “Rolling eyes is trolling.”
Yeah, no sane, honest person could EVER think that an ID card might not be The End Of The World As We Know It.
Patrick also refers to my second post as “willfully ingorant.”
Let’s see…Eamon (to whom I was responding) posits: (i) that if a person carries an ID, fake or real; then (ii) that person will be permitted (or aided and abetted) in transporting “Rocket Launcher/Semtex/Box cutters etc.”
I ask Eamon to “please explain each and every step” in his reasoning process that leads him to make such a moronic statement, and I’M the willfully ignorant one.
Ummm…chill, Patrick. You’re 97% bluster, 3% moonbat, and what’s left is your amazing brain.
Cheers.