The 'if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide' argument doesn't hold up over time. It might have been absolutely fine to say 'I like Communism' in Berlin in 1925, but a mere theirteen years later, you'd be coming to regret it if it had been recorded. We've no way of predicting what governments will be in power in ten or twenty years time and having such a well documented history on everyone could well come round and bite them very hard.

Interestingly, the UK govt already has something similar in mind for cars. Plans are afoot to track all movements of road traffic with mandatory GPS devices - in the name of 'saving the environment' of course (seems to be the latest excuse for everything these days).

Of course, innocent drivers have nothing to fear from having their every movement in their vehicle tracked

Of course, a government as nice and benevolent as the current lot would never misuse or misrepresent security intelligence .....

As for the judiciary being a safeguard, reflect on the fact that the government of the day makes the laws. The people of the UK don't have the benefit of their right to silence any more thanks to the wonderful caring government who just wants to ensure that we are able to have the best possible alibi in the event that we are falsely accused

We had quite a spat over road pricing on here:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=78130
(if you gloss over the bits abot signing the petition). There's no environmental benefit to the scheme and it's basically a stitch up. Every argument they come up with seems to fall over quite quickly.

It is sensationalised, and over-reported by the media, along with many such alarmist issues. 24-hour rolling news has to be filled somehow. As someone has already said, this is manipulated into a real threat and hence justifies what the government proposes.

dave

Here's an example.

And in related news.

So now that the other reasons for introducing ID cards have been shown to be nonsensical, Tony's cronies are using their own incompetence as the next excuse.

That's me scuppered then. I moved about 3 times when I first graduated and was living in London and the SE. Mainly to areas where polltax was less or because my job had changed. I certainly can't remember the addresses of all the bedsits I lived in.

"I'm sorry Sir, you haven't been able to answer the question about how much you withdrew from a cashpoint in Hull in 1988 at 3am after emerging from a nightclub and what you had on the donner kebab on the way home so we have to deny your request for a passport".

Cheers,
Nick

"I deny ever even being in a nightclub. And I most strenuously reject the suggestion that I have ever been to Hull!"

Mahatma Gandi was once asked what he thought about democracy in the west and he said 'It would be a very good idea".

Didn't the Nazi's also have a separate judiciary? Didn't the germans elect Hitler? Have you looked at how they were persuaded to do this?

Have you read 1984?

In the film 'V for Vandetta' the inspector asks (something like): if your Government was involved in criminal activity, the deliberate slaughter of thousands, would you want to know?

Do you want to know?

Have you looked at cases like the 'Birmingham Six' and the many other cases of very deliberate miscarriages of justice by persons at the highest levels of the legal system?

Have you been following Fitzgerald's efforts to convict Cheney, Rove and others? Even the grand Jury that sentenced Libby said that the wrong person was on trial, that Libby was a fall guy and asked why Cheney and Rove weren't on trial? Why do you suppose, with a supposedly 'Independent' Judiciary, Rove and Cheney didn't face trial?

Have you been following the many lies by persons holding the highest offices in the land on the road to the war in iraq?

How comes no one has been charged with war crimes?

The UK Govt said that the UK was in 'imminent Danger', and reports were circulated about a 45 min attack time from Sadam's lethal chemical and other weapons.

Have you been following the Guantanamo prisoners, the nicely labeled 'rendition' flights (where you can be taken from your home in the UK or anywhere else and tortured in another country till you 'confess' or die), the napalm/chemical bombings at Falluga, the depleted uranium and the slaughter of 100's of thousands of innocent people?

Have you looked into who was behind the 911/WTC demolitions and the phony 'war on terror'?

If anyone has not been following some of the UK's high profile 'Miscarriages of Justice, this is an old article from the Guardian that lists a few including Guidford four, the Maguire seven and the bridgewater three.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/arti...,634024,0.html

This is a short times on-line interview with Gareth Peirce, on of the few people in the legal system that is concerned with justice:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...328832,00.html

Notice the similarities with those convictions and the likely ones for the muslims held for the 21/7 london bombings.

****
Speaking to one of the Guildford Four recently, his reaction is: "Those poor guys, those Muslims — that's exactly what happened to us. Has nobody learned?"
****

Totally agree with your post James, up until you say this:

"Have you looked into who was behind the 911/WTC demolitions"

That's "the Earth is hollow" stuff chap....

If you go back to my post you will note that I didn't say that the "earth is hollow", rather i said that there was a belief that the earth is hollow, neither did I say that I subscribe to this particular belief, no more then i subscribe to the thousands of other beliefs that I am aware of. I don't know.

'Belief' implies that that the holders of the said belief do not know for certain, in which case it would not be a belief. I've read a lot about 'hollow earth' theories over the last 20+ years, and though there is very little evidence, the belief has been held for thousands of years, and this fact alone makes one wonder. The great British astronomer Edmond Halley (the one who discovered the path of the halley's comet) picked up and wrote about it in 1692. If you are interested, there is literature about the beliefs and theories. This, for example, is a page that lists Nazi connections with Tibet (who as i said, claimed to be outer-world representatives):
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en...ala_tibet.html


The 911/WTC demolitions though are a totally different thing all together. Here there is no question of belief. There is literally tons of evidence that shows that the buildings were blown up, that it was an inside job.

I do not believe that the WTC buildings were demolished, I know for certain that they were - and if you could take out or ignore that brain-washing that you've received from the Bush administration, your media and governments over the last 5 years, you too would see this.

Oh I know my stuff about Agarthi, don't worry about that, Fortean Times subscriber me.

I'll pass on the WTC "demolition job", you play fast and loose with scientific evidence and it would be pointless to link the many counter-refutals about those conspiracy theories.

In a way you play in the hands of the Bush cohorts, by crediting them with such competence rather than accept that 9/11 was mainly a great big cock-up, security wise, from the sole superpower on Earth. That I believe is proof that you have been influenced by way too many Hollywood blockbusters where the American hero saves the day/the American villain is ruthlessly cunning...

I think you meant working at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. Always makes me giggle, that one. Personally I don't care. Let them come, let them work.

When you read stuff like that, you just can't take all that Big Brother paranoia too seriously

Isn't the question of whether the WTC was blown up deliberately or genuinely the result of a terrorist attack rather small beer? Even if someone were to turn up and say that they were the one who wired the explosives would it really make much difference?

We already *know* that it was used an excuse for many things of far greater significance, both real wars against 'problem' countries and legal and illegal assaults on the rights of individuals around the world.

Since the UK has no way to force a referendum the options for forcing the government to change its mind are very limited. A petition may not be much but at least its something. It seems that there are several people here who also think that ID cards are a bit dodgy, so does anyone have any other suggestions?

Assuming you are responding to the previous post about cleaners at the immigration service:

Such incompetance by the authorities expected to part administer the scheme scares me as much as the risks to privacy.

dave

It is also scary Dave because the potential for innocents to be screwed up by the system is as high as that of less innocents people going undetected. However the very unreliability of the system would mean that challenging it would not be met by a brickwall of stalinian bureaucracy, hopefully...

On the subject of innocents being screwed up by the system, and the dangers of giving the police a database with all our fingerprints in it, try the following story in the Grauniad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2001657,00.html

Still got nothing you want to hide?

And here is another example. By the they have finished we'll be begging for ID cards

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/arti...040011,00.html

dave