Both of these items came to my attention today. First they are pushing towards a national ID card scheme.
I’ve talked about national ID cards at length including it’s fatal flaws. The facts don’t stop people from wanting the politicians to “do something“ and from the politicians taking advantage of the situation even though ID cards cannot make things any better. People don’t realize the risks they are taking and that you can’t get something for “free“. To me it’s blindingly obvious that either it can’t work as they claim or that they will end up with something intolerable. They even know it — they just haven’t put it together. For example Home Secretary Mr. Blunkett said:
Suggestions of Big Brother-style surveillance are ludicrous.
Then later in the article it says:
Blunkett believes the cards, containing unique data such as fingerprints or iris scans, will enable authorities to better crack down on immigration abuses, pre-empt terrorist attacks and keep track of criminals.
How can you “pre-empt terrorist attacks and keep track of criminals“ without “Big Brother-style surveillance“?
Second they are giving the government emergency powers and the power to declare an emergency. Commentators Kim duToit and Philip Johnston are particularly harsh on them claiming things like:
- government can do pretty much anything it wants in the event of an emergency;
- government will decide what constitutes an emergency; and
- there’s no way the citizenry can gainsay any of it.
And:
Government will take the most sweeping and draconian powers ever bestowed upon a British government in peacetime, reserving the right to suspend the foundations of our liberties, such as habeas corpus and the Bill of Rights, when it judges that an emergency has occurred.
I tried to read it but got lost in the definitions and references to numerous subsections and previous law. The bottom line may not be any worse that some of the things we have in this country but at least we don’t have a national ID card and we do have our firearms to use as a last resort if a tyrant does decided to take advantage of the excess powers.