Why you should resist the ID card

This article focuses
on the introduction of the British
national ID card but the same principles can be applied in any
country.

1) A government engaging in escalating criminal
actions and becoming more and more secretive should not
be watching and tracking us as if we’re all criminals. The
same goes for CCTV surveillance. That’s not freedom. Would
you let a convicted murderer and pedophile watch your child
24/7?

The often peddled mantra of ‘why should you care if you
have nothing to hide?’ is manifestly ridiculous in light of
the fact that we have a government that has everything to hide
and yet we’re the ones under suspicion. Should it concern
us that our government shredded hundreds of thousands of
documents before a 1st January Freedom of Information
deadline? Why should the government care about freedom of
information if they have nothing to hide? But they did care
enough to order this mass shredding.

We are told by the government to make our lives completely
transparent or go to jail, while the government itself becomes
more secretive than ever before. Why should they know everything
about me when they won’t tell me anything about themselves?
Would you walk up to criminals and give them your credit card and
PIN number?

2) The government told us that the ID card would make our
information more secure. Blair said this would
protect, not infringe our liberties. And how did they
propose paying for it? By selling the information of 44
million British citizens to private companies. How
secure is that?

3) As a perspective on how governing powers use ID cards,
consider the fact that residents of Fallujah in Iraq were finger
scanned, given retina scans and ID cards just to be able to leave
and enter the village. Every citizen is treated as a potential
insurgent and is given an ID card. Is that how our government
views us all, as potential insurgents? So, "What do you have to
hide?" is the wrong question. The question should be, "Why does
the government need to know everything about me?

4) ID cards will not stop terrorism. Even the Home Secretary
Charles Clarke admitted it after the London
bombings. In addition, the Blair government has been caught
faking terror alerts to push through increased power. Firstly in
the case of the Ricin plot that never was and
also an attack on Canary Wharf which was
admitted to be totally scripted. Furthermore, the so-called
London bombing mastermind was an MI6 asset. Reams of
evidence point to the bombings being an inside job, one
of the purposes of which was making British people accept ID
cards. Large scale terrorist atrocities
worldwide always lead back to government perpetrators.
In this instance it is important to recall Herman
Goering’s quote, "Of course the people don’t
want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country
who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter
to drag the people along, whether it’s a democracy, a
fascist dictatorship, a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for
their lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater
danger."

5) Top criminologists have gone public to say
that ID cards will actually result in an increase in identity
theft, not a decrease as the government claims.

6) The introduction of the national ID card is one step
further towards the mandatory implantation of ID chips in all
British citizens. Does this sound outlandish? Implantable chip
technology has been in existence for a decade and discussions on
ID chipping humans is in the news regularly. Tommy Thompson, the
former Health and Human Services Secretary in the Bush
administration, had a chip implanted and is
now touring the country lauding the virtues of
ID chips. During the confirmation hearings for John Roberts Jr.,
George W. Bush’s nominee for Supreme Court chief justice,
Roberts was questioned by Senator Joseph R. Biden on whether he
would rule against a mandatory implantable microchip to track
American citizens.

7) The purpose of government is to serve the people, not
control them. Any scheme of national registration is alien to the
basic fundamental principles of a supposed free country.

Prison Planet 2005