It is not yet too late, the proposals have yet to be fully acted upon, although several police forces are using parts of them. The question is: Do you want a police & spy state? If it comes in, it will put Communist Russia, the KGB, the old East Germany & the Stasi to shame. Surveilance & database technology has advanced since those days.

Here is the basic text of a letter we have sent to our M.P. If you wish to retain your privacy, security and freedom. If you feel the British way of life is worth defending. If you would rather not be arrested because you forgot the card, why not send a similar letter to your M.P? It will be better if the words are your own, obviously copied & pasted text carries less weight. Include your name at the end, anonymous letters are ignored.

This text is just to give an idea, please be polite, discourtesy is counter-productive & will get binned.

A letter can be E-Mailed as in this case, or sent by 'snail-mail'. Of course, if you fancy spending up to £300* on a compulsory piece of plastic. If you relish the idea of all your private details being available to any-one. If you think the state should own your identity, not you, then do nothing.

If you don't know your M.P.'s name, you can click on the "No2ID" logo above. Click on 'Write to your M.P.' then enter your Postcode in the box. This will give the name & E-Mail address of your M.P.

Dear Member of Parliament, (Put your M.P.'s name here)

The full implementation of the I.D. card bill is only a matter of time. Unless a decision is made by Parliament, in favour of the British people and the freedoms unique to these islands.

The decision to be taken is probably one of the most important in the life of this Labour administration. A vote in favour of the card will usher in a surveilance society and immediately start eroding our hard won freedoms.

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, spelling the end of a surveilance society for millions of East Germans. That society was created after a military occupation. We should not make the mistake of starting on that slippery path.

The Domesday Book was an earlier version of a national database, it was compiled after a military occupation. The I.D. Card will be far more intrusive, due to the technology now available.

Some time after the Domesday (Doomsday) Book came Magna Carta, the first faltering step towards the freedoms we take for granted. The card will spell doomsday for those freedoms.

As Charles Clark admitted, it will not affect the issue of terrorism, instead it will create the kind of society that terrorists wish to impose on us.

It will not reduce crime, instead it will introduce a new range of crimes, quite apart from criminalising all who object to it.

It will not stop identity theft, instead it will make it easier. The moment that a majority of our population are on a single database, a virtual supermarket will open.

Criminals will be able to browse through thousands of names, to find an ideal match, then download the information. I am sure the database will be described as secure, how can it be? If it is available to one person, it is available to others.

The best brains in America have not been able to come up with an un-hackable data storage system. There are frequent cases highlighted in the media, just the visible tip of the iceberg. How many more are not discovered or reported? Every unpickable lock invented has been picked.

Since it won't stop terrorists, won't stop crime, won't stop identity fraud, why vote for it? It will be increasingly expensive, unreliable and ineffective.

The thousands of millions of Pounds it will cost, can be put to better use. To make our borders more secure and increase the effectiveness of our Homeland security forces. To spend more money on employing policemen & enforcing the laws we already have.

It will be a massive intrusion into everyone's private lives and business. It may well have a similiar effect on this Government to that of the Poll Tax on the previous ruling party. That tax was pushed through, despite the lessons of history and against common sense.

As our representative in Parliament, we hope and trust you will vote against the introduction of Identity Cards. To protect us all from an idea totally alien to our way of life.

Regards, a Constituent and Voter. (Your name.)

If you find what your M.P.'s claimed opinion is, let us know. We can then compile a register of 'for; & 'against' members on these pages. Your M.P. will usually reply only to some-one in his or her voting area.

The End of Democracy! ! Fact, not Fiction.

Our government failed to get Parliamentary approval for a National Compulsary Fingerprint and Biometric Database for ALL U.K. Citizens.

So in an almost unbelievable display of arrogance, they went ahead with it anyway. The will of Parliament was circumvented by using Royal Prerogative Powers. These little known powers, left over from the days of absolute monarchs, were originally the sole right of the Monarch.

They are now in the hands of the Prime Minister.

So he was able, using these arcane powers, to completely bypass the will of both House of Parliament. Making a decision that overides that of our elected representatives. In this instance democracy was bypassed, sidelined by one man, who holds the power of a King or Dictator.

This Draconian decision was implemented by a new rule for those wishing to obtain or renew a U.K. passport. It will be compulsory to submit to fingerprinting and the taking of facial biometric scans. In other words, all these people are now treated as are criminals. Eighty percent of U.K. citizens hold a passport, five million apply each year for a new passport or renewal of an existing one.

It will obviously not be long before most of our population is on an ID Card database, even though Parliament has not approved. David Blunkett called the ID Card an 'entitlement card', this shows the way his former department is heading. It is obvious that the remaining twenty percent of our population will be increasingly pressured, by withdrawal of basic services.

Those who have spent their entire working lives paying towards our social & medical services will be denied those very services. Unless they submit to being fingerprinted, scanned & photographed like common criminals.

This is a much bigger scandal than the lies that got us embroiled in the Iraq war. Far more insidious and will adversely affect us all. Big Brother will soon rule all our lives, only twenty-two years after George Orwell's predicted date.

This will be the beginning of the end of democracy.

National ID. Cards, (1984 revisited)

Our current government in 2002 again floated the ides of a National Identification Card for everyone. This prospect has been raised many times in the past & each time submerged in a wave of objections.

They now hope to start the process of introduction, apparently oblivious to public opinion & the long term ramifications. The Government says that a majority of people support the idea, this is an obvious lie, the majority of people have not been asked. A referendum on this subject is far more important than one on the E.U. constitution, so far the government have been careful to keep the real facts quiet.

They hope, after past attempts, that people will be weary of fighting & just accept it. If that happens it will mark the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it. O.K. we had ID. cards during the Second World War. They were tame compared to what is proposed now. Just an officially printed card with a person's name & address. It was phased out in 1952, after objections over widespread Police abuse of the system! !

The proposed new cards include every citizen's life story. Medical records, Educational history & qualifications etc. Presumably also Employment history & family connections etc. Certain strata of society will have a field day. Thieves, having stolen a man's card, will be able to target his family.

It will be a massive extention of current National & International databases. At the moment they hold details of most peoples credit history, buying patterns etc. The data on each card will be added to this mass of information.

The Home Secretary made a cynical attempt to 'muddy the water' by calling it an 'Entitlement Card'. This shallow ploy is insulting people's intelligence & hopefully most will see through it. In any case, entitlement to public services is a basic tenet of democratic civilisation, we have no need for a piece of plastic. This proposal must be fought with all the ferocity at our disposal, the result of not doing so is unthinkable.

As with much legislation it will target the innocent & not wrong-doers. A plastic card is almost the easiest thing in the world to copy or forge. Blanks will be mass produced in tens of millions, a flourishing black market in these will soon develop. Any reasonable quality digital camera can copy a person's iris pattern. Most have a 'macro' feature & a self timer.

Packages are available which allow anyone who can afford them to read, edit or write cards using a PC. Once, as will happen, carrying ID. Cards becomes compulsory, innocent travelers will end up in police cells because their card has been lost or stolen. Terrorists with forged or stolen cards will go about their business un-hindered.

Our police may be the finest in the World, however, they represent a cross section of society, not all are good. A policeman may stop someone in the street & read all about them with his hand-held scanner. If so minded, he may say to his colleague, 'This guy lives alone & has no money, no one will mind if we bump up our arrest figures'. Alternatively, 'this fellow has connections, best leave him alone'.

At the end of the day an ID. Card system will be a first step towards a totalitarian society. The old East German Secret Police would have dreamed of such technology. Once Western countries have gone down this road the rest of the world will follow. Eventually most of our planet will effectively be run by one vast police bureaucracy.

Outer space will begin to look ever more attractive.

The legislation has been enacted. It is only the Governmants incompetence & miscalculation that has delayed full scale introduction. The National Database, the real goal of our Government, has been started via the back door.

Footnotes.

(1) Taken from Privacy International's report.

Click on following text for the full report:
One unintended repercussion of ID card systems is that they can entrench widescale criminal false identity. By providing a one stop form of identity, criminals can easily use cards in several identities. Even the highest integrity bank cards are available as blanks in such countries as Singapore for several pounds. Within two months of the new Commonwealth Bank high security hologram cards being issued in Australia, near perfect forgeries were already in circulation.

This conundrum has been debated in Australia, the U.K. and the Netherlands. It relies on the simple logic that the higher an ID cards value, the more it will be used. The more an ID card is used, the greater the value placed on it, and consequently, the higher is its value to criminal elements.

(2) Exerpt from Hansard:

Click on following text for full version, be prepared for some heavy reading:
21st March 2005 : Column 70

Against this background, it is wholly unsurprising that no less a personage than the Prime Minister, albeit in another, more oppositional, life, was emboldened to say:

"Instead of wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on compulsory ID cards . . . let the money provide thousands of extra police officers on the beat in local communities".