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Terrorism Uncategorized

Beware of card tricks

The government claims that national identity cards will help to counter terrorism, illegal immigration and ID fraud. That’s rubbish, says Henry Porter, and in fact there is something much more sinister about them – they will fundamentally alter the relationship between citizen and state, and make slaves of us all

Meanwhile the BBC reports that the Identity card scheme faces delay.

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Politics Uncategorized

Leaked emails – ID cards doomed to fail

Sunday Times – ID cards doomed, say officials

TONY BLAIR’S flagship identity cards scheme is set to fail and may not be introduced for a generation, according to leaked Whitehall e-mails from the senior officials responsible for the multi-billion-pound project.

The problems are so serious that ministers have been forced to draw up plans for a scaled-down “face-saving” version to meet their pledge of phasing in the cards from 2008.

However, civil servants say there is no evidence that even this compromise is “remotely feasible” and accuse ministers of “ignoring reality” by pressing ahead.

The government seems to want to push through their Identity Card scheme through by any means possible even if it means by way of a much reduced version. They will probably phase it in through the backdoor by way of renewals of passports and ease back on the introduction of ID cards for non-passport holders.

Give this it might be wise for people to renew their passports now even if they have many years before they expire. Renew for freedom from the Identity Register.

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Whitehall fights ID costs demand

BBC News:
Whitehall fights ID costs demand

The government is battling to ensure that estimates of the benefits and risks of identity cards remain secret.

The freedom of information watchdog ordered the Department of Work and Pensions to publish its findings about how the cards could fight ID fraud.

Now the department has decided to appeal against the information commissioner’s ruling.

What have they got to hide?

How can we have faith in a government that refuses to be open and transparent about one of the most significant changes to happen to this country’s citizens in centuries?

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Not fit for purpose

The new Home Secretary John Reid has vented fury at Home Office over the prisoners fiasco.

John Reid yesterday made a startling attack on the Home Office as he revealed that the department still did not know the whereabouts of hundreds of foreign prisoners who should have been considered for deportation.

The home secretary said the department was “not fit for the purpose: averse to a culture of personal responsibility, technologically ill-equipped for an era of mass migration and led by officials that are incapable of producing facts or figures that remain accurate for even a short period of time”.

Not fit for purpose and technologically ill-equipped!

And this is the department to be put in charge of one of the most technically complex IT projects in the history of the UK, the Identity Cards system.

It was bad enough when we believed that the Home Office was at least competent but now when even the Home Secretary is attacking his own department there is little hope that the ID Cards will not end up a complete and utter fucking shambles that will cause more harm than good to the citizens of the UK.

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Datestamp: May 2016. ID: Unconfirmed.

Science Fiction writer Charlie Stross takes a look at the future of the British Identity Card and the National Identity Register in his Report on the state of the National Identity Register, May 2016

A piece of speculative fiction admittedly but one that I think will hit very close to the mark a decade down the line.

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Movies Reviews Security Terrorism

Review: V for Vendetta

Just got back from watching the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta. I have mixed feelings but it was enjoyable and a lot better than I had feared it might be especially given my feelings for the previous adaptation of a comic that was close to my heart Hellblazer which became the painful Constantine.

I thought that Hugo Weaving was very powerful as V and Stephen Rea did a great job as Inspector Finch. Natalie Portman was merely adequate as Evey and her accent was not as awful as some have written but she was a little wooden in her performance. I thought Stephen Fry was remarkably good also, other characters such as Chancellor Sutler were too poorly written to allow much from the other actors in the cast.

The movie lasted two hours and yet it felt like a lot had been edited out. There was very little characterisation outside of the central few main characters all the others seemed like stereotypes painted in broad strokes. Some events such as what happened that night at Larkhill which enabled V to escape were glossed over as was Finch’s visit to the derelict Larkhill.

I think the general mood of the film was established well, it was visually stunning and there were a number of very powerful scenes especially the fingerman’s shooting of the girl and the subsequent uprising of the townspeople.

In many ways the movie felt like it was set in some parallel universe version of Britain rather than a dystopic near future of our own Britain, possibly due to it being an American production. The Britain of the movie was very twee and a little off, Rupert Graves as a copper using the word “chummy” when apprehending V, eggy in a basket and the Benny Hillesque TV satirical attack on the Chancellor.

A number of things in the movie make me feel like the points of the original graphic novel were lost or misunderstood by the writers. V was too overly made to be identified with Guy Fawkes who in the introductory scene is portrayed as a freedom fighter rather than the religious nutcase that he actually was. I thought that the Guy Fawkes mask in the graphic novel was a useful disguise which was merely appropriate given the date of key events in the story and a shared interest in blowing up public buildings. But the motivations of V and Guy Fawkes are in no way the same.

In fact Guy Fawkes has more in common with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists our society is being made to fear at the moment. The character of V is different but is no hero either really he is a force for change through destruction, rebirthing society by destroying it’s institutions so something better can be born out of the ashes.

The surveillance aspects were altered and there was no sight of surveillance cameras in the movie odd given their ubiquitousness in modern Britain and given the totalitarianism surely there should be even more in evidence. Plus the populace do not seem cowed by the authorities, living in constant fear of speaking out of turn. Certainly this so called dystopia is to my eyes a lot deal better than we can really hope to expect several years down the line from now once we have a National Identity Register, cameras that can scan our faces to identify us and track our movements and legislation that gives the ruling party pretty much free reign to do whatever it wishes.