We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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CNET News.com reports what we have knowns for some time…
Microsoft has warned that the U.K.’s national identity card plans pose a security risk that could increase the likelihood of confidential data falling into the hands of criminals.
It is frustrating that after months of debate, it is still news. I guess the real news is that it is Microsoft saying that. I particularly like this bit:
Jerry Fishenden, a top security and identity management expert at Microsoft, said that the British government’s current technology proposals are flawed. He also criticized other technology suppliers for failing to speak out publicly about their concerns for fear of damaging any future bids for part of the lucrative contract for ID cards.
So what are the 30 coins worth to a technology supplier, I wonder? But before we rejoice too much, Mr Fishenden is not on concerned about the issue of ID cards and biometrics in the first place, just about a more secure and efficient way of gathering and storing the data:
I have concerns with the current architecture and the way it looks at aggregating so much personal information and biometrics in a single place. There are better ways of doing this. Even the biometrics industry says it is better to have biometrics stored locally.
Perhaps you think I am talking about Venezuela under the thuggish Chavez?
Nope. I am talking about Britain.
Reporters without Borders has produced a useful handbook for blogging in an unfree environment. We will be adding a sidebar link to this useful resource which has some technical tips that may be of interest to people in places where Big Brother tries to controls everything you read.
It can be purchased or downloaded for free from here.
The guide to dissident blogging
Compare this:
By 2050 earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
Syme {no relation} in 1984
with this:
People’s names are already on a large number of databases.
Most of us have dozens of cards in our wallets with our identities on. We
already have a Big Brother society. ID cards mean identity fraud can be dealt with and stopped. ID cards are a means of controlling the Big Brother society rather than creating it. Big Brother society is already here.
Charles Clarke, quoted in the Eastern Daily Press today.
Controlling the Big Brother society might sound like preventing it, restraining it. But your expectations deceive you. Forget literary allusion. “Big Brother society” means whatever the establishment defines it to mean.
Now consider only the words, how they literally fit together. Big Brother society = our society. ID cards are a means of controlling society.
I promise only mild amusement, but sometimes mild amusement is what one needs. And there’s a subtle mordancy underneath.
The latest splendid animation from Will Flash for Cash Productions in aid of the UK campaign against ID cards is here, and will explain the title of the post.
For those who missed it, their earlier biting attack on Mr Secretary Clarke and the glorious scheme using a cute musical puppy is here.
Welcome to a strange world. Sound, and familiarity with British political figures, most definitely an advantage.
Gustave Le Bon would have something to say about this. He’d point to the sugestibility of the emotionally aroused crowd:
Almost three-quarters of the public believe that it is right to give up civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks.
A Guardian/ICM poll published today shows that 73% of respondents back the trade-off, with only 17% rejecting it outright. The results provide evidence of public support for Tony Blair’s anti-terrorist reforms which he unveiled before leaving on his summer holiday earlier this month.
Full article here.
I simply do not accept there is a trade-off to be had. Our liberty is our safety.
The world is replete with counterexamples to the trade-off twitch. (One cannot call it a theory.)
Take Saudi Arabia. Civil liberty does not exist there. It is an alien concept, and, in common with other alien concepts, banned. There is no protection of citizen from state, and no limit to the actions that can be taken.
Yet terrorism is in robust health. The Kingdom’s official figures for the last two years (which one would expect to paint the rosiest picture) are 129 dead and 720 injured among civilians and security forces. More than twice Britain’s casualties among a population that may be around a third of ours–reliable figures on anything Saudi being hard to come by. (They probably have significantly more police, too.)
There is a gap that is rarely acknowledged between the nominal powers of officialdom and their actual powers in practice. Unless we are vigilant, and the rules are tightly drawn powers will be (not may be, will be) used for broader purposes than those for which they are granted. What’s more ways will be found to use the leverage of one power to enhance another. New police powers do not merely add to the force of those that already exist, they multiply and magnify them.
Last night an example of systematic police intimidation was proudly displayed as PR for the police on the most popular British TV channel (ITV1, not the BBC).
The program (“Inside Crime”) was one of those encouraging people to assist with current investigations and appealing for witnesses to various murders and robberies. Fine. I don’t think I have a problem with that: seems like a genuine public service. But of a 25 minute programme something like a fifteen minute segment was devoted to cameras accompanying police in Dartford as they “cracked down” on drugs and illegal working on one evening.
A sergeant swaggered around in a head mic proudly demonstrating how new technology allows the detection of traces of cocaine in pub lavatories. It was then revealed that “with the cooperation of landlords and managers” that night everybody wishing to enter a pub or club in the centre of Dartford had to submit to police swabbing their hands for drugs as a condition of entry. Those who tested postive were then formally searched under “reasonable suspicion”.
The swabbing itself didn’t count as a search because it was “voluntary”. Thus is the law perverted by those who are supposed to uphold it. The programme was silent on what happened to those who got as far as the entrance to a bar but refused the entry procedure. I’d be interested to know.
→ Continue reading: The power wedge
At first sight, this story is incomprehensible.
Secret terror courts considered
Special courts sitting in secret for pre-trial hearings in terror cases are being considered by the Home Office.
Forget the justice of the process–secret hearings with Home Office-selected advocates and judges–for a moment. What would the value of this be? If an actual trial must still take place under normal conditions, what’s wrong with normal committal proceedings, which rarely require much in the way of presentation of evidence?
There must be a prosecutorial advantage to be had, now or later, or the Home Office would not consider it. Is this a staging post to something more? A piece of impossible kite-flying for some bait-and-switch? Or is it a way to evade other procedural safeguards?
(A speculative example of the last: The Special Judge says there’s a case to answer. The accused is remanded in custody. A trial will take place when the prosecution is ready. Reporting restrictions are in place, to avoid prejudicing a future trial. But further evidence-gathering takes a very long time. In effect one has indeterminate imprisonment with a radically lowered burden of proof. There may be no opportunity to test the evidence. But there can be no public disquiet. No one will care, because next to no one will know–and those who do will be bound to secrecy.)
Steve Ranger of Silicon.com reports that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is spending 5 million pounds (about $8.7 million) to equip its embassies and consulates around the world with the technology to issue biometric passports. Technology company 3M will install new passport issuance systems that can identify biometric information at 104 embassies, consulates and high commissions.
Great, who needs ID cards, when you get your fingerprints in the passport.
Wired writes that Britain’s House of Commons this week moved forward with plans to create a new national ID card, but a sharp reversal in support for the controversial measure signals a rocky road ahead.
British lawmakers voted in favor of the bill on Tuesday by an unexpectedly thin margin of 314-283. At the last minute, some members of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party revolted against the cards, which would carry fingerprints and iris scans of cardholders and be backed by a national database containing extensive personal information.
A Home Office spokeswoman said it’s too early to comment on the bill’s future success.
We won’t speculate on the passage of a bill through parliament. It still has an awful lot of readings to go through. Anything can happen to it.
I wouldn’t hold my breath as Tony Blair indicated that he will use a Parliament Act to force the legistration through. The struggle continues…
The likely cost of rolling out the UK government’s current high-tech identity cards scheme will be £10.6 billion on the ‘low cost’ estimate of researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), without any cost over-runs or implementation problems. Key uncertainties over how citizens will behave and how the scheme will work out in practice mean that the ‘high cost’ estimate could go up to £19.2 billion. A median figure for this range is £14.5 billion.
The LSE report The Identity Project: an assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill and its implications is published today (27 June) after a six month study guided by a steering group of 14 professors and involving extensive consultations with nearly 100 industry representatives, experts and researchers from the UK and around the world. The project was co-ordinated by the Department of Information Systems at LSE.
The LSE report concludes that an ID card system could offer some basic public interest and commercial sector benefits. But it also identifies six other key areas of concern with the government’s existing plans:
- Multiple purposes
- Will the technology work?
- Is it legal?
- Security
- Citizens’ acceptance
- Will ID cards benefit businesses?
To read the full text visit here. Also, you can download the executive summary of the report here and a full text (300 pages) here.
Ideal Government blog is providing a discussion space for the LSE identity project as well as for the topic of Identity cards in the UK in general. Well worth a trip over there…
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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