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Q: “What do you stand for?”
A: We are a
single-issue protest group set up with the aim of stopping the government
introducing a compulsory National Identity Card into the UK. We are
also against ‘voluntary’ National Identity Cards as a back-door route
to compulsion. For the full arguments against such a card, click
here.
Q: “In a nutshell, why are you against this?”
A: This is
not ‘merely a step too far,’ it is 100 giant paces towards totalitarianism.
It is also expensive, unworkable and will produce very little of the
‘advertised benefits.’ It will not stop crime, it will not stop terrorism
– indeed it could aid both of these. Whatever the problem or question,
the National Identity Card is not the answer. If you care about our
privacy and freedom please join us in our fight to stop this right
now.
Q: “I have heard that this will cost a lot
to implement. Is this true?”
A: The government’s
own estimate is three BILLION pounds. Add to that the usual mess-up
caused when any government gets involves with impossibly large projects,
and you can double or triple that estimate. This at a time when our
hospitals are a disgrace, schools are in urgent need of repair, our
public transport systems are a joke and children in deprived areas
are living in squalor. Now ask yourself why a government (and a LABOUR
government at that) would rather spend three billion on logging us
all into a giant computer system, than on such essential social tasks.
Q: “Who will pay for it?”
A: YOU will.
Either directly (there are plans to charge you for the privilege of
being turned into a number) or through increased taxation. Governments
don’t have any money – it all comes from you and me, one way or another.
And under a compulsory ID card system, you will be compelled
to pay. You will not have a choice. Resistance will be met first with
fines and then imprisonment.
Q: “Where is the real danger here?”
A: In the sneaky
‘stealth’ introduction of such cards, thereby disarming opponents.
First our driving licences and passports will be ‘chipped’
with biometric information. This will ‘soften us up’ to the idea.
Then foreigners will have to carry a biometric ID card – who will
object? They’re only foreigners after all. Then social security claimants
(on the ‘anti fraud’ ticket) will have to have a card. Finally, and
‘reluctantly’ (maybe under the disguise of ‘preventing terrorism’)
they will introduce legislation forcing us all to be registered on
the government computer.
Q: “What is this ‘biometric’ I keep hearing
about?”
A: Unlike a
photo or a signature (both of which can be easily faked) biometric
information is truly unique to you. Fingerprints are nearly, but not
quite, good enough (they are not quite unique and they are hard to
read and match by computer). Current favourites are iris scans (your
iris pattern is pretty unique) and DNA (your DNA is also nearly unique).
Out of these two, iris scanners are much cheaper and easier to implement
in the millions of scanners which will be required in the field. They
are far from foolproof and produce many false readings.
Q: “What’s wrong with having ID? Surely we
need that in our modern world?”
A: CASNIC does
not oppose voluntary identity documents. Bus passes, library
cards, bank cards, etc. Furthermore, we are not against any particular
methods (e.g. biometric) of identification. Put simply, if
you choose to have a biometric card issued by (say) ABC Bank,
then this is your choice. You can bank there or not, carry their card
or not – and sue ABC if they release your private information to a
third party without your consent. We are against the compulsory introduction
of a National Identity Card for every resident, with its associated
‘citizen database’ run by government bureaucrats. Such a database
would grow year on year until eventually the government held a file
on every person in the UK. The file (and card) could contain financial
history, health background, religion, ethnicity, criminal convictions,
purchase history, physical whereabouts of the ‘target’ citizen, political
profile, DNA profile etc. etc. Each passing year will call for more
data to be added to the card in the name of “anti-fraud” “anti-crime”
“anti-terrorism” “protecting children” “anti tax-evasion” or any one
of a number of similar reasons.
Q: “Sounds a bit Big Brotherish I agree, but
what makes you think this government want that kind of level of control?”
A: All governments
of all persuasions in all countries constantly seek increased power
and control – often, by the way, for genuinely benign reasons, but
often not. Successive governments-in-waiting in the UK have chattered
abut ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’ – each elected government
has done the exact opposite when in power – introduced more
laws, higher taxes, more centralisation and stripped away more freedoms.
It is central to our argument that a National ID Card and its associated
citizen database are the ultimate enabling tools for corrupt regimes.
This government may be benign – but the next? And the next fifty
governments? Basically, do you trust governments to have your best
interests at heart?
Q: “Won’t it stop crime?”
A: Maybe it
will prevent a certain amount of social security fraud, but that’s
all. Certain other major crime may even be aided by such
a card. For reasons, see the question below on terrorism. The proper
way to tackle social security fraud is through proper identification
of social security claimants – not compulsory introduction of ID cards
for all citizens, claimants or not. (The same class of argument would
be the introduction of a compulsory National Identity Card for all
because... people were borrowing books from libraries using fake names
and address and not returning them. The answer – better ID for library
users, not for everyone.)
Q: “But won’t it stop terrorism?”
A: No. In fact
it could make the terrorists life easier, if anything. Even the government
dropped their tired ‘fighting terrorism’ slogan in 2002 regarding
ID cards when they realised it didn’t stack up. David Blunkett has
started using it again recently to bolster his other very weak arguments
for this draconian measure. Imagine the Sept 11th terrorists abandoning
their evil plan because... they didn’t have a valid ID card. That’s
not very credible. Will lack of an ID card stop any determined terrorist?
No. Also, many terrorists (e.g. Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma bomber)
are ‘card-carrying citizens’ of their own countries. The National
Identity Card can and will be faked (see below) allowing
terrorists to enter the country with fewer security checks than at
present. Why? If you carry the card, and your eye scan matches the
database – then “pass friend”, without a second glance. Normal ‘common
sense’ anti-terrorism precautions will be dismantled and total reliance
placed on the card.
Q: “But these things cannot be faked, surely?”
A: It’s a plastic
card, made by man, with a chip, made by man. Anything made by man
can be faked by man. You could not create such a fake card in your
workshop. But what about an ultra-modern laboratory, run by the most
sophisticated criminal minds on the planet, designed and built specifically
to clean-up on the estimated 300 BILLION pound market in counterfeit
cards? Would this headline from The Telegraph, June 2007, surprise
you?
“Parliament
Bombers Used Fake National
Identity Cards to Gain Access to Westminister.”
Or this one:
“Counterfeit
ID Card Ring Discovered in Taiwan.”
Or this one:
“Drug
Lords Now Making More on
Counterfeit ID Claims Report”
Also,
these cards are produced by people, working in factories
(huge factories) staffed entirely by... people. These workers
will be, in the main, minimum wage employees. Do you think some
of them might be tempted by a bribe of £500, £1,000, £10,000 a time
to run a few ‘specials’ through the system, or deliver 100 ‘blanks’
to a guy in the pub, no questions asked? If not them, how about
the supervisors or managers? £100k a year ‘back-hander’ is pretty
tempting.
Q: “I still don’t quite get it. How can an
Iris scan or finger-prints be faked?”
A: The biometric
information cannot be faked (let us assume). In other
words, your iris and your finger-prints are unique. It is the detail
on the card that can (and will) be faked. Thus a terrorist will
have a false card with his iris scan and his finger-prints,
but a fake name address and citizen number – all illegally
(but properly) registered on the Citizen Computer by (say) a paid
insider. When he uses the card at the airport, the iris scan will
match the card and his record will come up as John Doe, 43 The Street,
Anytown – whereas he is really Mr A Terrorist, c/o Osama Enterprises
etc. Remember, there is no ‘iris’ or ‘finger-print’ actually on
the card – all that is there will be a lot of ones and zeros (a
digital code) representing your iris and your finger-print.
Q: “Are you saying that terrorists and criminals
will be running around with fake ID, whereas the law-abiding citizens
will be subjected to yet more government scrutiny and control.”
A: Yes. If
this is hard to believe, consider guns. The government stripped
tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens of their legitimate rifles
and pistols and closed down most of the gun shops in the UK. Meanwhile,
armed criminals freely roam around our inner cities, laughing at
such laws. The going price for a hand-gun in London is £50. £100
if you want fifty 9mm rounds with it. A sub-machine gun? Yours for
£250. The citizens suffer, the criminals laugh.
Q: “We had them during the war...”
A: That ID
was equivalent to the average library card. It is not what we are
talking about here. Forget war-time ID cards – this is a whole different
league.
Q: “If you have nothing to hide, surely you
have nothing to fear?”
A: Your need
for privacy does not, in any way, imply you have something to fear
or hide. This is an entirely erroneous notion. To invade your privacy,
someone had better have a VERY good reason. One valid reason would
be if you were committing criminal acts or strongly suspected of
doing so. Then, with due process of law, the police could invade
your privacy for a strictly limited period, strictly associated
with that criminal activity. Only vicious, out-of-control dictatorial
regimes believe in monitoring and controlling all citizens all of
the time just ‘in case’ some individuals get up to no good. If you
are still unsure about this ‘nothing to hide’ argument, consider
this imaginary situation: The police are demanding powers to put
a spy camera into every room of every house in the country, linked
back to a central police 24- hour monitoring station. Apparently
a lot of crime goes on in people’s houses. Children are molested
in the tens of thousands, marital rapes occur by the hundred and
criminals use private houses to plot their crimes and to divide
up the spoils of their activities. Such a move would give the police
the powers they need to protect vulnerable children and to clean
up crime. Hopefully, such a move would fill you with horror. But
why? If you have nothing to hide, what could you possibly fear?
Are you molesting your children or plotting a crime? No? Well you
have nothing to fear. Hopefully this example should convince you
of your right to privacy. Interestingly, we have gone so far down
the route of Big Brother State Control that some people reading
this would actually welcome the compulsory introduction of these
cameras.
Q: “Surely we can’t have total individual
freedom in society. Do you want government to grant us more freedom?”
A: Our freedoms
are not granted to us by governments! It does not work like that
(at least it shouldn’t work like that). We have our
freedoms by right – and then we employ servants (the government)
to curtail those freedoms in certain strictly limited but essential
ways. Again, they’d better have a VERY good reason to curtail more
of our freedom. It is the duty of every citizen to closely monitor
the freedoms that are curtailed and the alleged reasons for doing
so – and to protest vehemently if they disagree with the latest
restrictions. We must very carefully balance the freedom of the
individual with the needs of living in a social group and be constantly
on the look-out for corrupt or spurious reasons for curtailing freedom.
Q: “Aren’t there other benefits of the card?
For example, if it contained my health history, medicines I took,
food allergies etc – wouldn’t that be useful if I collapsed in the
street and an ambulance came?”
A: Without
doubt, if we all carried a National Identity Card and were logged
and tagged on a government computer, there would be advantages.
Interfacing with bureaucrats would be easier, for example. Just
because something has advantages, it does not mean it should be
implemented. (Example: Banning all motor vehicles from the UK would
save 3,700 lives a year and save billions in road maintenance, oil
imports etc. Example: A curfew on all citizens from 6p.m. would
probably save thousands of lives each year and halve the crime rate
in the UK. Example: Banning alcohol and cigarettes would save 20,000
lives each year.) The specific answer to your question is this:
If you think you are at risk, or you think you want a Medical
Emergency Card, then you may have one and carry it always. This
has nothing to do with the rest of us and we should not be forced
to carry the same card.
Q: “They have them in other countries. They
don’t seem to mind do they?”
A: Again
it is not a good argument for something to say it has been implemented
in another country. (Example: They have banned Internet Access in
China – so why not here?) A few other countries have an ID card.
It is often a piece of plastic with a photo and scrawled signature.
This is not what we are protesting against. In our view, no government
has the right to keep a database on each citizen and use force to
ensure compliance in registration. Citizens who have accepted this
are playing the very dangerous game of relying on a benevolent government
now and forever.
Download entire Q&A; as pdf document.
(Right-click and choose 'Save Target As' to save to disk)
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