[chimera (OP)]

The bill just passed 100-0 in the US senate:

http://www.unrealid.com/

why it's snuck into a bill about Iraq (Supplemental Spending Bill - see link below), one wonders. Even in Holland, where you're supposed to have ID too, now, they did it a bit more up-front.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:HR01268:



The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[l_kryptonite]

ooh, this is going to hurt...

and make sensational television in the process.[}:)]

[chimera (OP)]

quote:Originally posted by l_kryptonite

ooh, this is going to hurt...

and make sensational television in the process.[}:)]

well, a little update on RL effects:

http://news.com.com/FAQ+How+Real+ID+will+affect+you/2100-1028_3-5697111.html?tag=st.rc.targ_mb

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[DoctorBeaver]

Ahh, so THAT'S why Tony Blair os so keen on ID cards. Well, face it, he couldn't possibly think that something the US has done is wrong, could he!

It wasn't me - a big boy did it & ran away

[chimera (OP)]

You wish to use a library computer for a bit of internetting? Really? OK, fingerprints please...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0505200366may20,1,4613732.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[neilep]

I personally don't have a problem with ID cards....I've got nothing to hide and besides, I carry enough ID on every card I already have, so why not have one that just confirms who you really are aswell ?

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[chimera (OP)]

quote:Originally posted by neilep

I personally don't have a problem with ID cards....I've got nothing to hide and besides, I carry enough ID on every card I already have, so why not have one that just confirms who you really are aswell ?

Nah, same here. Totally pristine on the crime-front. It's not me I'm worried about.

But do you think it's good for a society when distrust becomes the common rule? This apart from the fact I think it's totally crappy against terrorism, most of those measures can definitely be a hindrance (fly a lot, lately? Me never, fortunately, but I can imagine wasting days per year on security checks), and eventually only give spin doctors and the like more demographic data to 'convince' the voters with? Think of all those journalists in the past that crossed some border at night to get the real inside story - try that in our modern, cordoned-off theatres of war. They also like to control information going in and out, so yes, this worries me a lot.

And all this while the terrorist just uses the next uncovered loophole he can think of? It's a bit like with the post-911 fixation on airplanes - that plane that stupidly flew over Washington last week or so comes to mind - all hell breaks loose. So I'd expect anyone with bad plans, to try even the sewer before he thinks of using a plane.

Wonder if you could put a reasonable price tag on the total economic dip caused by these measures - time and labour lost, contracts cancelled, etc. - compared with the destruction of the twin towers themselves. Must be pretty heavy by now.

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[neilep]

I think distrust could well be already common rule. Though it may be crappy against terrorism at least it's something, what else can be done ?...I think we live in a paranoid society unfortunately. I have flown a few times in the last couple of years and my experience has actually been ok, but those are MY experiences and I fully understand your point of view ,and i'm not against it at all. I also agree with the economic effects, but it's akin to being 'cruel to be kind'....I'd rather lose a few ££S and be inconvenienced if I new I was going to be safer.

That plane that flew over Washington last week I think goes to prove how vigilante we are nowadays, that's good, it seems to be working. And it sends a signal to terrorists that we're on the look out. You can't travel in London nowadays without seeing posters and signs about suspect packages.

 I wouldn't be surprised if the sewers are being observed anyway, well, in the sensitive areas of the country.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we weren't even having this discussion ? but the fact that we are, is indicative that we're still alive with the freedom to do so.





Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[DoctorBeaver]

The problem I see with ID cards in the way the British gov't want to introduce them can be summed up thus:-

Policeman: Excuse me, sir, can I see your ID card
Man: Sorry, constable, I don't have it with me
Policeman.: That's OK, sir, just take it along to your local police station within the next 7 days

How the hell is that going to be of any use against terrorists?

[daveshorts]

The real problem about ID cards isn't now with cuddley Mr Tony Blair it is in about 15 years time when there has been an oil crisis and the world economy has collapsed and Herr Fuhrer Blair has decided that to protect us from the "TERRORISTS" he will arrest anyone who has written anything derogatory about the present regime anywhere in the last 20 years - cos they must be working for the terrorists musn't they? And with the nice shiny ID cards he can stop you getting NHS treatment, driving a car, and be able to find you for a convienient accident at any time he wants.

If he wasn't slowly erroding all the other institutions that act as checks and balances to potential dictators I would be less worried, but seeing as the commons is a joke, he is trying to remove all the house of lords' powers and he has been sitting on the BBC I worry... if nothing else as a precedent.

There are costs to a free democracy, and one of them is the possibility of being blown up by nutters, however the costs of removing this possiblility are FAR FAR higher - especially considering as there haven't been any successful terrorist attacks on the UK so far, so we can't be doing too much wrong.

[chimera (OP)]

quote:Originally posted by daveshorts

 Herr Fuhrer Blair

A bit sad, that. Think of the pure 100% Anglo-Saxon angle here: if you wish to demonise your PM, there's your perfect stiff-upper lip Higher Upper Class git to compare him to:

Lord Robert Baden-Powell

http://www.pinetreeweb.com/B-P.htm

Remembered for his boy scouts, not for his introduction of the concentration camps in South-Africa. Oh, and his ideas about inserting ramrod discipline as early as possible in these young men's lives probably also came from a rather different, more questionable urge than simply the Uplift of Mankind.

You can probably even find some pointers that show Hitler was influenced by his ideas at one point or another. Gosh, those Germans. It's not only football they steal...

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[rosy]

Um. I don't think that Baden-Powell can actually substitute for Hitler in this context. Tho' I've certainly been aware for some time that the British invented concentration camps.
The point about Hitler is that, under seriously depressed economic conditions (such as were seen in the Weimar Republic after the 1928 crash, and could easily occur anywhere if/when the oil runs out) he rose by approximately legal means to a point at which he could drive a coach and horses through the constitution as it then stood and install himself as a dictator.
I don't know how Mussolini got to be a dictator (he was, wasn't he? or wasn't he?) as that's not on the GCSE history syllabus here in the UK, so I can't cite him, or anyone else, as an alternative example even if it would be equally appropriate.

Whilst Blair as an individual may reasonably be presumed not actually to want to impose a military dictatorship, and anyway the country *at present* wouldn't allow him to do so, I really don't believe that he should be allowed to pass legislation which I would say obviously made it easier for some future demagogue (sp?) to do so.

Others have different views on how the balance between short term safety from bombs and longer term safety from the state ought to be drawn but mine's some way this side of ID cards.

quote:Gosh, those Germans. It's not only football they steal...

quote:A bit sad, that.

Tho' it's an interesting point... how general *is* the assupmtion that anyone making a reference to the mess that was Germany for the 30 and more years after 1918 must be having a go at the German people and not at the frightful things that caused it??

[daveshorts]

Not an ideal analogy really as Kitchener (who introduced the camps) didn't manage to overturn a democracy and become dictator which is what we are talking about. There are many throughly unpleasent Anglo-Saxons in history - but luckly very few who have manged to become a dictator who weren't already king, apart from possibly Oliver Cromwell... although this is rather a long time ago.

To be honest the Blair reference was facetious, and what really worries me is some nutter who manages to get a large majority off the back of some sort of chaos (like Hitler did), and the precident that ID cards, the treatment of the lords and Blairs general treatement of the (unwritten) constitution sets.

ps Baden-Powell did have certain issues with racism, treating the blacks in Mafeking atrociously, but I don't think the concentration camps were his fault.

[chimera (OP)]

True, it wasn't until under Kitchener's command the scorched-earth tactics really got started.
Interesting to read that the Brits don't think their concentration camps are of the same ilk as the Germans: a lot of deaths were attributable to adminstrative and medical neglect.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/boer-s29.shtml

('World Socialist' site (they still around, wow?), but interesting BBC article)

Funny that if you try to say that about the German camps, even though those factors certainly play a major part especially during the last years of the war, you will immediately find yourself labeled a holocaust-denier. Sad how we still are unable to face facts when emotions are on the rampage.

Anyway, it was a bit facetious, TB is by any stretch of the imagination not of the same ilk as the human monsters described here. Bit of a ****, is my personal idea, not very much better than our 'Harry Potter' **** PM -  but I don't need to vote in the UK, so who cares.

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[late edit for confusing typo]

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Originally posted by daveshorts


If he wasn't slowly erroding all the other institutions that act as checks and balances to potential dictators I would be less worried, but seeing as the commons is a joke, he is trying to remove all the house of lords' powers and he has been sitting on the BBC I worry... if nothing else as a precedent.

The Civil Contingencies Bill is the 1 that really worries me. It gives the gov't the authority to suspend parliament & put troops on the streets without parliament itself having any say in it. Add that to ID cards, this new thing they're talking about in cars that will track you everywhere you go to make sure you don't break driving laws & the drastic increase in the number of CCTV cameras and you have the infrastructure for a totalitarian society.

[rosy]

quote:Interesting to read that the Brits don't think their concentration camps are of the same ilk as the Germans: a lot of deaths were attributable to adminstrative and medical neglect.

I think, tho' I may be wrong, that some of that's down to a definite confusion here between the Nazi's Concentration Camps (where people were hearded together, worked beyond what their bodies could stand, and allowed to die of neglect and underfeeding) and the Death Camps (like Auschwitz-Birkenau (sp?) etc) where the stated intention was to implement the "Final Solution" of exterminating people who were deemed undesirable by direct means.
The British indulged in the former during the Boer War (and I think had camps for enemy nationals during at least WW1 as well, tho' I'm under the impression these were less lethal). Which stinks. But the broadcast media tend to focus on the Death Camps, not least because there are survivors still around for interview and lots of gut-wrenching footage of the liberation, which makes for higher-ratings TV. So a lot of Brits (I suspect) know nothing at all of the concentration camps before 1930s Germany. If the information's sprung on them suddenly of course the impulse will be to disbelieve it... it's more comfortable thus. Depressing but true, probably not only of the Brits but on other issues of other nations.

Not that any of this is relevant to the matter of ID cards...

[chimera (OP)]

No, there was indeed a big difference, but it's safe to say I think that quite a few more people died in the German concentration camps just because of the sheer bulk and number of prisoners than the special ones, and that neglect and lousy circumstances also played a big role there. This kind of topic CAN get you into real trouble real soon in some circles. Remember that Daniel Goldhagen book? Wow. I read it, and it's not so flattering about the actions of certain Jewish organisations after the war, either.

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9608/articles/review_essay.html

And no, the Brits don't really want to know all about that. Like the Dutch about Indonesia after WWII, where we had our own lil' Vietnam, with pretty much the same hangover. People I know who were in Burmese camps, nearly starved to death themselves by the Japs, that started burning down villages and killing noncombatants at the first opportunity and somebodies say-so, still full of hatred, and only very late in life had the opportunity to sit down to think about what the f*ck had happened to them. Pretty sad stories. Father of an ex-girlfriend of mine once started showing pics from his time in Indonesia and showed us the wrong pictures by mistake, and had to cough up why those villages looked pretty much like they were on fire and generally in the middle of something godawful going on.

Told us stuff like that still kept him awake at night even after all that time.

Know what the weirdest thing is? Go to Indonesia, Vietnam and a lot of other countries and all the frustration is on our side. They suffered many times more, but won and somehow learned to live over it. Most don't really have any hard feelings about it anymore, strangely.
We're the ones that never really came to grips with it, and some are forced to still live the same old nightmares.

No, not really relevant to ID cards, but maybe makes people realise how much fun 'just doing what you're told' used to be way back when.

[chimera (OP)]

Senate panel votes to expand Patriot Act

http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5736302.html?part=rss&tag=5736302&subj=news

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Hector Louis Berlioz

[rabeldin]

The ID card is inevitable. Centralized power is the goal of today's American politicians, be they Democrats or Republicans. How can one manage hundreds of millions of people without some systematization? If Americans were willing to actually manage their own towns as New Englanders sometimes do, we could have a decentralized government. But we all want the privileges without the responsibilities.

R A Beldin,
Improbable Statistician