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

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to have to register for certain things (eg, a driving licence to drive a vehicle on public roads at high speeds with the potential of causing accidents, or a passport for the right to enter foreign countries) - it's quite another to be forced to register for the right to live; if the ID card is a "licence", it's effectively a licence to live.

As to why driving licences work: although it may be hard to catch people driving without licences, most people are not going to take the risk simply to drive a car. On top of that, if they are good enough drivers, there is no reason for them not to take the test and get a licence; but if they're a bad driver, there's more chance that they'll get noticed and stopped by the police.

But if you're a terrorist wanting to cause a lot of death and destruction, and willing to die for your cause, you're not going to be put off by the small risk of being checked for your ID.

[dj-alexander.livejournal.com]

Sounds a little melodramatic. It's not a license to "live". You can still drive a car without a license, you can still watch a TV without a TV license, having a license just indicates that you're responsible and abiding by the law.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Well yes, I can choose to be a criminal instead, but that's not really giving me much of a choice... My viewpoint is that having to register to drive potentially dangerous vehicles around at high speeds isn't quite on the same level as having to register to live in the country I was born in.

You still haven't answered how ID cards might help. (I read the link you gave - mostly it just makes assertions without saying how the ID card would help, the only significant reason it gives is regarding checking fingerprints. Whilst this might help solve some cases after a crime, the idea of a national fingerprint database still has some worries I feel, and it would obviously not help in suicide attacks. Plus, if what the Government wants is a national fingerprint database, I wish they would come out and say that rather than hiding it with more friendlier and misleading terms like "ID card").

Driving licences are giving to people who can drive - they're not perfect, but it filters out people who are hopeless at driving. There are two significant differences to ID cards here:
- We have no way at all to give out ID cards according to who is and isn't a terrorist (and indeed, if we knew who the terrorists were, we wouldn't need ID cards anyway!)
- Someone without a driving licence will in most cases be deterred from driving without one. Why risk getting caught just to drive in a car. But if you're a terrorist, willing to commit huge crimes, the additional crime of "not having an ID card" is hardly going to deter you. How do you propose we keep track of who does and doesn't have an ID card?