Clarity

.... for Great Britain. Time will tell if it was the right decision.

IDENTITY CARDS BILL RECEIVES ROYAL ASSENT The Identity Cards Bill received Royal Assent today, placing on the statute book important measures which will help Britain meet the challenges of the 21st century. The National Identity Scheme will provide all UK residents aged over 16 with a universal, highly secure means for safeguarding their identity.

The new agency that will issue passports and ID cards will be called the Identity and Passport Service (IPS). Incorporating the United Kingdom Passport Service (UKPS) and working closely with the Home Office´s Immigration and Nationality Directorate, it will become operational on 1 April 2006.

The Home Secretary Charles Clarke, said:

"Being able to prove who we are is a fundamental requirement in modern society. Building on the experience and proven excellence of the Passport Service, the IPS will ensure the UK is at the forefront of the worldwide drive to increase document security, safeguard borders and protect identities for use by those who are entitled to them.

"I believe that the National Identity Scheme will bring major benefits. It will give UK residents an easy and convenient way to prove their identity; deter illegal immigration and illegal working; help tackle organised crime and terrorism; and provide a means to defend against the abuse of public services. At the heart of the scheme, a secure national database linking basic personal details to unique biometric information will strengthen, not erode, civil liberties by protecting individual identities."

The National Identity Scheme, to be phased in over a number of years, will link basic personal information, such as name and address, to secure biometrics - a computer image of a person´s iris, face or fingerprints. These are unique and provide a hi-tech form of security for every citizen.

The new agency will be responsible for:
• issuing passports and providing passport services;
• issuing ID cards and providing the means of verifying the identity of individuals for accredited organisations;
• delivering the National Identity Scheme including the establishment of the National Identity Register; and
• promoting the use of the National Identity Scheme across the public and private sectors to improve identity management and ensure full realisation of the benefits of the scheme.

It will not be compulsory to carry a card and there will be no new powers for police to demand to see a card. However, this would be a universal scheme for everyone legally resident in the UK and, subject to further primary legislation, it will be compulsory to register on the scheme.

Notes to Editors
1. The Identity Cards Bill was approved in both Houses of Parliament on 29 March 2006.
2. The Act covers the whole of the UK and:
• Establishes the National Identity Register;
• Provides powers to issue identity cards;
• Ensures checks can be made against other databases to confirm an applicant´s identity and guard against fraud;
• Sets out what information would be held and what safeguards would be in place;
• Enables public and private sector organisations to verify a person´s identity by checking against the National Identity Register, with the person´s consent, to validate their identity before providing services;
• Includes enabling powers so that in the future access to specified public services could be linked to the production of a valid identity card; and
• Provides, through further primary legislation, for it to become compulsory to register and be issued with a card, including penalties against failure to register.

3. The Identity and Passport Service will become operational on 1 April 2006.

4. The Act includes an opt-out which means that until 1 January 2010, people applying for or renewing a passport can choose not to get an ID card, although their details will be entered on the National Identity Register.

5. The role of Chief Executive of the New Agency will be advertised as soon as practical. The successful candidate is expected to take up their role later in the year.

6. The new agency will build on existing UKPS capabilities and a senior management structure has been developed through extensive consultation with managers and unions. This will also be in place from 1 April 2006.

7. UKPS, an Executive Agency of the Home Office, is responsible for issuing passports to British nationals living in the UK. Its role is to ensure the integrity of all passports that are issued, and that the British Passport remains amongst the most secure worldwide. During peak season in the year 2004-05 the UKPS employed 3,303 staff, 90% of whom work in the regional offices.

8. In 2004, UKPS was one of four nominees (and the only UK organisation nominated) for the prestigious international Carl Bertelsmann award for public sector efficiency, and became one of the few organisations to win a fifth ´Charter Mark´. In 2005 the UKPS also took the top place, for the second year running, in the Comparisat customer satisfaction benchmarking exercise.

9. There are currently around 47 million British passports in circulation, with 80% of the population holding a passport. The number of applications is expected to rise to around 7 million in 2006. With the exception of the USA (8 million) this is more than any other country in the world. The UKPS will have processed a record 6.6 million passport applications in the financial 2005/06, while delivering continued high levels of customer satisfaction, exceeding its customer satisfaction target.

10. Also receiving Royal Assent today are the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill. A copy of the Act can be found at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk (Home Office PN 094/2005) and the Terrorism Bill (Home Office press notice 051/2006) The full text of the Act and explanatory notes can be found at: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006.htm

IF stomach<>FULL "keep eating" ELSE "fart" AND "retry"

Courtesy of my work colleague, Scott Pugh.

Henry Porter, Sunday March 19, 2006, The Observer
You may have noticed the vaguely menacing tone of recent government advertising campaigns. Here is a current example: 'If you know a business that isn't registered for tax, call the Revenue or HM Customs - no names needed.' Another says: 'Technology has made it easier to identify benefit cheats.' Whether the campaign is about rape, TV licences or filling in your tax form, there is always a we-know-where-you-live edge to the message, a sense that this government is dividing the nation into suspects and informers.

Reading the Identity Cards Bill, as it pinged between the House of Commons and the Lords last week, I wondered about the type of campaign that will be used to persuade us to comply with the new ID card law. Clearly, it would be orchestrated by some efficient martinet like the Minister of State at the Home Office, Hazel Blears. Her task will be to put the fear of God into the public at the same time as reassuring us that the GBP90 cost of each card will protect everyone from identity theft, terrorism and benefit fraud.

The ads might imagine any number of scenarios. Here is one. 'Your elderly mother has fallen ill,' starts the commentary gravely. 'You travel from your home to look after her. She has a chronic condition but this time, it's a bit of a crisis and you need to pick up a prescription at the only late-night chemist in town. Trouble is, she has mislaid her identity card and you never thought to get one. Under the new law, the pharmacist will not be able to give you that medicine without proper ID. So, get your card. It's for your own good - and Mum's.'

It became clear last week that the government will do anything to get this bill through parliament, including ignoring its own manifesto pledge to make the cards voluntary, a fact that we should remember as each of us entrusts the 49 separate pieces of personal information to a national database. By the end of last year, the government had already spent GBP32m of taxpayers' money on the scheme and, at the present, the expenditure is edging towards GBP100,000 a day. No surprise that Home Secretary Charles Clarke dissembles about Labour promises.

Labour's manifesto said: 'We will introduce ID cards, including biometric data like fingerprints, backed up by a national register and rolling out initially on a voluntary basis as people renew their passports.'

It turns out that there is nothing voluntary about it. If you renew your passport, you will be compelled to provide all the information the state requires for its sinister data base. The Home Secretary says that the decision to apply for, or renew, a passport is entirely a matter of individual choice; thus he maintains that the decision to commit those personal details to the data base is a matter of individual choice.

George Orwell would have been pleased to have invented that particular gem. Yet this is not fiction, but the reality of 2006, and we should understand that if the Home Secretary is prepared to mislead on the fundamental issue as to whether something is voluntary or compulsory, we cannot possibly trust his word on the larger issues of personal freedom and the eventual use of the ID card database.

Clarke has now established himself as a deceiver, even in the eyes of his party. Labour democrats such as Kate Hoey, Diane Abbott, Bob Marshall-Andrews and Mark Fisher all understood that the Lords' amendments of last week simply sought to underline this concept of a voluntary scheme, which complied with the 2005 manifesto. Oddly enough, the compulsory provision of personal information to the government database is not the greatest threat to our freedom, though it is in itself a substantial one. The real menace comes when the ID card scheme begins to track everyone's movements and transactions, the details of which will kept on the database for as long as the Home Office desires.

Over the past few weeks, an anonymous email has been doing a very good job of enlightening people on how invasive the ID card will be. 'Private businesses,' says the writer, 'are going to be given access to the national identity register database. If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe. If you want to apply for a London underground Oystercard or supermarket loyalty card or driving licence, you will have to present your card.'

You will need the card when you receive prescription drugs, when you withdraw a relatively small amount of money from a bank, check into hospital, get your car unclamped, apply for a fishing licence, buy a round of drinks (if you need to prove you're over 18), set up an internet account, fix a residents' parking permit or take out insurance.

Every time that card is swiped, the central database logs the transaction so that an accurate plot of your life is drawn. The state will know everything that it needs to know; so will big corporations, the police, the Inland Revenue, HM Customs, MI5 and any damned official or commercial busybody that wants access to your life. The government and Home Office have presented this as an incidental benefit, but it is at the heart of their purpose.

Last week, Andrew Burnham, a junior minister at the Home Office, confirmed the anonymous email by admitting that the ID card scheme would now include chip-and-pin technology because it would be a cheaper way of checking each person's identity. The sophisticated technology on which this bill was sold will cost too much to operate, with millions of checks being made every week.

That is a very important admission because the government still maintains the fiction that the ID card is defence against identity theft and terrorism. The 7 July bombers would not have been deterred by a piece of plastic. And it is clear that the claim about protecting your identity is also rubbish because chip-and-pin technology has already been compromised by organised criminals. What remains is the ceaseless monitoring of people's lives. That is what the government is forcing on us.

Practically every week in these columns, I urge you to pay attention to the government's theft of our liberties. I would feel a bore and an obsessive if I hadn't pored over the ID card bill last week and read Hansard's account of the exchanges in both houses. One of the most chilling passages in the bill is section 13 which deals with the 'invalidity and surrender' of ID cards, which, in effect, describes the withdrawal of a person's identity by the state. For, without this card, it will be almost impossible to function, to exist as a citizen in the UK. Despite the cost to you, this card will not be your property.

People keep asking me what they can do about the lurch into Labour's velvet tyranny and I keep replying that the only way for us is to re-engage with the politics of our country. But it is difficult. The new Conservative regime under David Cameron has not yet found the voice to articulate the objection to the radical changes proposed in our society. Edward Garnier, the Tory spokesman on ID cards, did his best in the Commons last week, but we need to hear his leader express the principled outrage that comes from conviction and unyielding values. If we don't, we may justifiably wonder if the Conservatives are sitting on their hands in the belief that they will eventually inherit Labour's apparatus of control.

Outside parliament, what needs to happen is the formation of the broadest possible front against these changes, a movement which deploys the most principled democratic minds in the country to argue with the lazy and stupid view that if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from Labour's attack on liberty. I believe that will happen.

Who wants the Abolition of Parliament Bill?  by David Howarth

Hardly anyone has noticed, but British democracy is sleepwalking into a sinister world of ministerial power.

LAST WEEK all eyes were on the House of Commons as it debated identity cards, smoking and terrorism. The media reported both what MPs said and how they voted. For one week at least, the Commons mattered.

All the more peculiar then that the previous Thursday, in an almost deserted chamber, the Government proposed an extraordinary Bill that will drastically reduce parliamentary discussion of future laws, a Bill some constitutional experts are already calling the Abolition of Parliament Bill.

A couple of journalists noticed, including Daniel Finkelstein of The Times, and a couple more pricked up their ears last week when I highlighted some biting academic criticism of the Bill on the letters page of this paper. But beyond those rarefied circles, that we are sleepwalking into a new and sinister world of ministerial power seems barely to have registered.

The boring title of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill hides an astonishing proposal. It gives ministers power to alter any law passed by Parliament. The only limitations are that new crimes cannot be created if the penalty is greater than two years in prison and that it cannot increase taxation. But any other law can be changed, no matter how important. All ministers will have to do is propose an order, wait a few weeks and, voila, the law is changed.

For ministers the advantages are obvious: no more tedious debates in which they have to answer awkward questions. Instead of a full days debate on the principle of the proposal, detailed line-by-line examination in committee, a second chance at specific amendment in the Commons and a final debate and vote, ministers will have to face at most a short debate in a committee and a one-and-a-half hour debate on the floor. Frequently the Government will face less than that. No amendments will be allowed. The legislative process will be reduced to a game of take-it-or-leave-it.

The Bill replaces an existing law that allows ministers to relieve regulatory burdens. Business was enthusiastic about that principle and the Government seems to have convinced the business lobby that the latest Bill is just a new, improved version. What makes the new law different, however, is not only that it allows the Government to create extra regulation, including new crimes, but also that it allows ministers to change the structure of government itself. There might be business people so attached to the notion of efficiency and so ignorant or scornful of the principles of democracy that they find such a proposition attractive. Ordinary citizens should find it alarming.

Any body created by statute, including local authorities, the courts and even companies, might find themselves reorganised or even abolished. Since the powers of the House of Lords are defined in Acts of Parliament, even they are subject to the Bill.

Looking back at last weeks business in the Commons, the Bill makes a mockery of the decisions MPs took. Carrying ID cards could be made compulsory, smoking in ones own home could be outlawed and the definition of terrorism altered to make ordinary political protest punishable by life imprisonment. Nor will the Human Rights Act save us since the Bill makes no exception for it.

The Bill, bizarrely, even applies to itself, so that ministers could propose orders to remove the limitations about two-year sentences and taxation. It also includes a few desultory questions (along the lines of am I satisfied that I am doing the right thing?) that ministers have to ask themselves before proceeding, all drafted subjectively so that court challenges will fail, no matter how preposterous the ministers answer. Even these questions can be removed using the Bills own procedure. Indeed, at its most extreme, in a manoeuvre akin to a legislative Indian rope trick, ministers could use it to transfer all legislative power permanently to themselves.

The Bill raises fundamental questions about the role of Parliament. Ministers, egged on, some suspect, by the Civil Service, treat Parliament as a voting machine. Its job, in their view, is merely to give legal cover to whatever ministers want to do. They treat debate and deliberation as mere chatter before the all-important vote. They see no great difference between full parliamentary procedure and a truncated procedure for statutory instruments because, for them, the result either way is the same, that ministers receive legal authority for their plans. Just as a perfect criminal statute for ministers appears to be one in which everything is illegal so that prosecutors have discretion to put anyone in front of a court, a perfect authorising statute is one that makes lawful any ministerial act or policy.

Some of us have a different view. We think that deliberation and debate matter, that they are part of what makes parliamentary democracy work and make the new laws we pass legitimate. Deliberation improves legislation but more importantly, it forces governments to give reasons for their proposals that go beyond their narrow self-interest. In private meetings of the governing party, or in the Cabinet, or above all in telephone calls between ministers and special advisers, purely partisan reasons can hold sway. But in public, especially where there is real debate, ministers have to offer reasons that might persuade others. If they cannot think of any such reasons, their embarrassment constrains them. As the political scientist Jon Elster says, even hypocrisy can have a civilising effect.

The Government claims that there is nothing to worry about. The powers in the Bill, it says, will not be used for controversial matters. But there is nothing in the Bill that restricts its use to uncontroversial issues. The minister is asking us to trust him, and, worse, to trust all his colleagues and all their successors. No one should be trusted with such power.

As James Madison gave warning in The Federalist Papers, we should remember when handing out political power that enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. This Bill should make one doubt whether they are at the helm now.

David Howarth is Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge and Reader in Law at Cambridge University.

DAILY EXPRESS - 15/03/2006  Little card that will be the eyes of Big Brother

LEADER
The Identity Card Bill returns to the House of Lords today. The upper chamber has mounted a spirited opposition to Labour's proposed legislation.

For some weeks an anonymous e-mail has been circulated among peers, detailing the true nature of the national ID register. Here we reproduce this fascinating document in full.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

YOU may feel that identity cards are not something to worry about, since we already have photo ID for our passport and driving licence and an ID card will be no different to that.

But the proposed ID card will be different from any card you now hold.

It will be connected to a database called the NIR (national identity register), where all your personal details will be stored. This will include the unique number that will be issued to you, your fingerprints, a scan of the back of your eye and your photograph. Apart from your name, address and date of birth, there will be spaces on this database for your religion, residence status, and many other private and personal facts. There is unlimited space for every other detail of your life on the NIR database, which can be expanded by the Government with or without further Acts of Parliament. By itself, you might think that this register is harmless, but you would be wrong. This new card will be used to check your identity against your entry in the register in real time, whenever you present it, to "prove who you are".

Every place that sells alcohol or cigarettes, every post office, every pharmacy and every bank will have an NIR card terminal (very much like the chip and pin readers that are everywhere now), into which your card can be "swiped" to check your identity.

Each time this happens, a record is made at the NIR. This means, for example, that there will be a government record of every time you withdraw more than GBP99 at your bank, which now demands ID for these transactions.

Every time you have to prove that you are over 18, your card will be swiped and a record made at the NIR.

Restaurants and off-licences will demand that your card is swiped so that each receipt shows that they sold alcohol to someone over 18 and that this was proved by the access to the NIR, indemnifying them from prosecution.

Private businesses are going to be given access to the NIR database.  If you want to apply for a job, you will have to present your card for a swipe. If you want to apply for a London Underground Oyster card or a supermarket loyalty card or a driving licence, you will have to present your ID card.

The same goes for getting a telephone line or a mobile phone or an Internet account. Oyster, DVLA, BT, Tesco and Nectar (for example) all run very detailed databases of their own. They will be allowed access to the NIR, just as every other business will be. This means that each of these entities will be able to store your unique number in their database, and place all your travel, phone records, driving activities and detailed shopping habits under your unique NIR number.

These databases, which can easily fit on a storage device the size of your hand, will be sold to third parties either legally or illegally. It will then be possible for a nongovernmental entity to create a detailed dossier of all your activities.

Certainly, the Government will have clandestine access to all of them, meaning that they will have a complete record of all your movements, from how much and when you withdraw from your bank account to what medications you are taking, down to the level of what sort of bread you eat; all accessible via a single unique number in a central database.

This is quite a significant leap from a simple ID card that shows your name and face.  MOST people do not know that this is the true character and scope of the proposed ID card.  Whenever the details of how it will work are explained to them, they quickly change from being ambivalent towards it.

The Government is going to compel you to enter your details into the NIR and to carry this card. If you and your children want to obtain or renew your passports, you will be forced to have your fingerprints taken and your eyes scanned for the NIR, and an ID card will be issued to you whether you want one or not. If you refuse to be fingerprinted and eye scanned, you will not be able to get a passport.

Your ID card will, just like your passport, not be your property. The Home Secretary will have the right to revoke or suspend your ID at any time, meaning you will not be able to withdraw money from your bank account, for example, or do anything that requires you to present your ID card.

The arguments that have been put forward in favour of ID cards can be easily disproved. ID cards will not stop terrorists; every Spaniard has a compulsory ID card, as did the Madrid bombers. ID Cards will not "eliminate benefit fraud", which, in any case, is small compared to the astronomical cost of this proposal, which will be measured in billions.

This scheme exists solely to exert total surveillance and control over the ordinary free British citizen, and it will line the pockets of the companies that will create the computer systems at the expense of your freedom, privacy and money.

The Bill has proceeded to this stage due to the lack of accurate and complete information on this proposal being made public. Hand to hand, we can inform the entire nation if everyone who receives this passes it on.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

What can you do?  Read about the campaign against this new and worrying system at
http://www.no2id.net.

I once met a disturbed garage attendant and was chased down the road by said attendant, who was shouting: "STUCK DOWN A HOLE! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! WITH AN OWL! IN THE DARK! WITH AN OWL! IN A HOLE WITH AN OWL! IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!"

Source: Didge from ACF. For some totally bizarre reason, this is one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time.

As reported on ACF, I had a most excellent day's cycling on Saturday last. I stopped here for a bun and a coffee after arriving at the pub one and a half hours too soon....



It was cold, but the sunshine was fantastic and warm. Since I was way ahead of schedule, I decided to detour down whichever roads I fancied as I looped towards Forest Green. My first diversion was to Okewood Church, a lovely 13th century building tucked away in a very quiet wood a long way away from any main roads.



I stayed there for quite some time watching the birds and drinking in the peace and quiet of the place. I can't wait until bluebell season, the woods around this ancient building will be covered with them. After a while, I continued on, constantly being overtaken by Gents In Lycra (!) and looped through Forest Green and back towards home. For my last stop, I thought I would maintain the theme and make a visit to Ewhurst Parish Church, another lovely building:



Here I made the fairly serious mistake of sitting on a bench in the shade. I later found out that the air temperature was a brisk 2 degrees centigrade, with a breeze. Hence the frost was not melting in the shade. Considering I had 7 miles of hills between me and home, chilling off was not the most sensible idea.

So I took it easier than usual on the way home, and shopped at a nearby farm for fresh duck eggs for Sunday's breakfast. What a perfect day.

Ian was very apprehensive about my arrangements to visit a friend on Sunday who's silver tabby cat has just had a litter of kittens. I say "just had" - the kitties in question are now about eight weeks old. I have always found kittens totally irresistable, and Ian was concerned that our household was about to be augmented before it's ready.... However, what he didn't know is that they are all already spoken for, so there was no danger of my becoming attached to any particular small bundle of fluff during the hours of my visit.



I did enjoy cuddling them though - I'd forgotten that very endearing and amusing kitten-habit of tearing around like small, fuzzy, destructive banshees for about half an hour, and then all collapsing in a heap together and sleeping for a while, before getting up to do it all again.

Lots of fun.

The Questioner
you chose CY - your Enneagram type is SIX.

"I am affectionate and skeptical"
Questioners are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

Be direct and clear.

Listen to me carefully.

Don't judge me for my anxiety.

Work things through with me.

Reassure me that everything is OK between us.

Laugh and make jokes with me.

Gently push me toward new experiences.

Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a Six

being committed and faithful to family and friends

being responsible and hardworking

being compassionate toward others

having intellect and wit

being a nonconformist

confronting danger bravely

being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a Six

the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind

procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself

fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of

exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger

wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right

being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

Sixes as Children Often

are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn

are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger

form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent

look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel

are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

Sixes as Parents

are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty

are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence

worry more than most that their children will get hurt

sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries

The Quick and Painless ENNEAGRAM Test written by felk on Ok Cupid

Here's a nice little verse from a Zen Calendar that Sam's quoting to us one day at a time on ACF:

Resolve to be thyself;
and know that he who
finds himself loses
his misery.