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what Faraday cage wallet do you have anyway?
I've always thought Rum and Raisin was an absurd fudge.
The cards are now, of course, even more worthless. This busted nulab government has got to go. Dave and his Etonian cronies aren't something to look forward to however.
Well, at least they've stopped pretending that it has anything at all to do with preventing terrorism.
Now they just have to specifically say exactly what it is for. I'd love to have a universally accepted piece of govt ID, to get around the farcical system of utility bills for bank accounts, or taking your passport to a nightclub. And I can see it coming in useful for things like benefit fraud.
Unfortunately they've spent so much time spreading misinformation and outright lies about the scheme's scope and purpose that I'm starting to doubt that even the govt themselves know what the exact purpose is. Last time I looked (a few months ago) their website was very friendly-sounding but frustratingly vague about the whole thing.
Also, is anyone else deeply disappointed that Jacqui Smith was hounded out of office over the expenses scandal instead of her concerted attacks on civil liberties? It's great that she's gone (I actually cheered), but I wish more had been made of the terrible things done to this country during her time as Home Secretary.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23372564-details/Britons+'could+be+microchipped+like+dogs+in+a+decade'/article.do
@ BUGS
Yes - terribly disappointed. Her civil liberties assault should be the only thing that mattered. But it was really funny to see the law and order minister caught in the headlights of porn and expenses fraud.
@BUGS &c, #4 and #5:
Yes - alas, civil liberties doesn't seem to be too much of a political case in the UK right now. It should be in the foreground:
- NO ID cards, with or without RFID
- NO surveillance of the Internet
- NO camps for asylum seekers - asylum for
everyone who has stayed in a camp more than 12
months
- NO CCTV cameras - TAKE THEM ALL DOWN
- NO terrorist scares
- NO harassment of photographers
- NO "kettling" at demos
"Just say no" to the police state.
@agger There's a political agenda I can get behind!
Cory,
Having made the move the other direction to you I always read your posts with interest as I find your views on the UK quite enlightening and they typical compound my reasons for leaving.
For all the woes that Canadians suffer... it has to be far better than all the crap that goes on in the UK.
Come on Cory, back your bags, come home... you know you miss the cottage life :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlY-JlE5ZCo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7qaSxuZUg
I don't get the cards, are they like green cards that you get here in the States? My husband, whose an English expat, has a green card that's just a plastic id card. He doesn't carry it with him all the time - but does need to use it for some purposes, like providing it in our adoption paperwork. Is it anything like that?
The conservatives are calling this a ridiculous fudge?
That's startlingly honest of them. After all, it's their policy. They want to keep ID cards for immigrants and asylum seekers (a phrase that means... well, let's just say it doesn't mean people who look like Cory), and scrap the plans to give them to UK citizens.
As much as I hate Blair and Brown's government, our largest opposition party is not to be trusted a micron.
I lived in London in the 80s and had to carry a foreigner card until I became a permanent resident - after I married.
However, these were not RFIDs!
They are mandatory
FURORE
They are mandatory for Airport staff
FURORE
They are voluntary but mandatory for Johnny Foreigner
FURORE.
This crap will never see the light of day.
But it bothers me not one jot as I fly away from the UK for good in September for Australia.... home of the insane black lists on the internet....F*CK.
Is there a way to sabotage the card so it cannot transmit/receive?
God45, stick it in the microwave, hit it with a hammer.
I like these ones, expensive but they look kind of classy. Now I've just got to find out if they do a passport holder.
I hate the idea of compulsory ID cards--like coonskin cap, defend-the-log-cabin-with-a-shotgun hate. Minus the RFID, though, I can't see how this is any different from a green card here in the U.S. After all, U.S. permanent residents are required to have green cards and to carry them at all times.
Also, why not just buy an RFID-shielded wallet?
The main reason for mandatory not-a-real-citizen ID is so that the police can know who they can screw over with near impunity.
It's all about the all-seeing database behind it.
The card itself is a complete misnomer. The government is quite happy to promote the view that at some point everybody will get a magic piece of plastic with their name on through the door and this will magically stop TERRURRRR and "kick the darkies out", or whatever people's particular racial prejudice is.
The truth is that my country is planning the largest population-tracking database ever seen on the planet.
http://www.no2id.net/IDSchemes/whyNot.php
Enjoy.
Bugs @4: the cards are for the same reason they are for in the rest of Europe -- for the Police to be able to stop you at will to "verify your identity".
"Oh, you don't have it? Well, let's go to the station to verify your identity... Ah, you finally found it in your pocket? Let me see it... Oh, it seems like it's fallen into a bin, what a shame, let's go to the station to verify your identity..."
It's a useless scheme invented by Napoleon and loved by all sorts of fascisms ever since, which is why they are considered perfectly normal in countries where fascism actually happened.
@Bugs - I felt that Jacqui Smith did not go soon enough. It was ridiculous that she waiting around in office until Brown dumped her in the reshuffle. I don't care about her porno husband (if I was married to that, I would pursuing every civil liberty I had going for me), but the second it transpired she was fiddling a second home... Blunkett resigned for less and he was nearly as malevolent. It would be with the utmost joy and sincerity that she loses her seat in the next general election and is run out of town on a rail.
Of course, this says nothing of her work in the Ministry of Love, boiling all the vitamin out of our civil liberties. Thanks Jacqui! These probably all seemed like perfectly reasonable measure to take when taking stock of your own life!
About half of you are missing the point. The point of the ID card scheme is NOT the ID cards; it's the gigantical uber-database that they were going to be backed by. That was the part that was really attractive to the Government.
The cards may not be mandatory for UK citizens any more, but that won't help you if you want to travel abroad, because in order to get a passport you'll have to get yourself on the central database anyway.
Plus, if No2ID are right, being vetted by the police (for a job) puts you on the database, also.
So, not exactly compulsory, just bloody difficult to avoid.