Home Sec : ID cards wouldn't have helped.

[zotz]

Charles Clark has said the one thing nobody expected him to. A lot of people have just lost yesterday's hastily-made bets.

He did also say, though, that he thought they'd still be a good thing in general, so don't abandon the campaign quite yet.

Comments

[dj-alexander.livejournal.com]

Rather than rehash what's said elsewhere, I shall simply post a like to what's said elsewhere:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs4/Id_Cards_Briefing.pdf

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

And similarly, if we're debating by posting links, please see http://no2id.net/ .

[dj-alexander.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I already know both sides of the case, and I've previously read 1984 as well as having seen the film.

The problem with campaigns like that is that they're using hysterical unreasoning and fear of the unknown to a far greater degree than the govenment is to get ID cards in in the first place.

Oh yes, let's call him Bliar and draw cartoons of him - the stuff of grown ups.

[zotz]

hysterical unreasoning and fear of the unknown

Well, many things that are being said are accurate - having a large central databse of information on people is unprecedented as far as the UK is concerned, and would make a lot more information available to a wider range for governmental (and possibly to some extent non-governmental) organisations than is currently the case. It doesn't seem likely that there'll be reasonable safeguards against excessive or inappropriate use, because it hasn't been stated that there will be anything convincing and, to be honest, British government has never subscribed to a US-style checks-and-balances approach. Also, it'll probably be cripplingly expensive and (if we can rely on the precedent from other large-scale public-sector IT projects) probably won't work to anything like the extent originally envisaged.

This is all based on government statements or the history of government in the UK.

[dj-alexander.livejournal.com]

I like to view it like Concorde and Mobile Phones.

Passenger planes travelling at supersonic speeds were unprecendented and everyone was against them- there were massive portests in New York as the residents said they would be too loud and damage the environment too much. Yet, once they came into use, this was not the case. However ~20 years later there was a big accident with one of them.

Same things happened with mobile phones. There were protests against them, stories of people microwaving their heads and melting their brains. Yet we still have them today, but unlike Concorde they haven't been proved dangerous yet.

The idea that ID cards will completely stop terrorists is just as absurd as the idea that they won't stop terrorists. Fact is neither is likely to be the case and we won't know how effective they are until they come into use, whether the pros outweight the cons and vice versa. They're only going to be part of the solution, not the complete solution, but certainly not a complete waste of time either.

Personally I can't stand people that take the hardline on either side of the debate, those that refuse to accept there's any good in them, or those that think they're the answer to all our problems - they just appear to be equally ignorant and unreasonable as far as I'm concerened. At least what the government is saying, that they will help to some extent, seems more reasonable then any of the arguments against ID cards.

[zotz]

Concorde and mobile phones were unprecedented. There's a perfectly straightforward (and utterly shameful) record on British security legslation (see the sorry and protracted tale of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts, for instance), but if you want to ignore it then that's your privilege.

[dj-alexander.livejournal.com]

Not ignoring it, it's just a natural step forward. Better phones... better planes... better security? We always have to take steps forward, it's just sometimes the steps forward we take turn out to be the wrong ones - but standing still is just pointless.

Besides which didn't you just say:

having a large central databse of information on people is unprecedented

[zotz]

It's unprecedented in Britain. AFAICT from other examples, that sort of data-collection is either basically intended to be oppressive, or is abused in bad ways. I'd be happier with the proposals if there was meaningful discussion of safeguards, but I'm not aware of any.

Large SSTs were unprecedented globally, and anyway the basic objections were more economic. Cellphones . . . well, I haven't noticed it impeding their uptake at all.