The ID database slavery plot and Labour lies

Yesterday on the Guardian's site, a lost lonely attempt to explain the ID database plot was made by Andy Burnham, New Labour regime ID minister. Its apologetic title, "The other side of the ID cards story" illustrates just how much of a diabolical ugly mess this story is.

In his article, Burnham identifies the 'real problems' as:

"How do we help people secure their identity in the modern world? How do we protect ourselves from fraud and criminal activity that relies on false identities? How do we respond to international requirements for more secure travel documents?"

Before we go into each of his points, it is worth remembering that this echoes the way New Labour treat data generally, which is as if it were a 'problem' that needs 'solving'. For New Labour, data needs managing, 'regulating' and opening up to government scrutiny and sharing and compiling and tying into a biometrically backed up serial number, otherwise the world will fall to pieces.

They treat data from an angle that somehow the status quo is never enough, and if only government could just do this, upload that, store this, share that then society will be just that bit better for you and doing so actually isn't that big a deal at all.

But that is a falsehood. The reality is they have got themselves embroiled in a policy that is duplicitous, dangerous, distinctly un-British and spiralling out of control on all fronts.

This is not a policy 'for the people', it is a policy for the NL/corporatist government alone, who seek to reshape via the most megalomaniacal system, what liberty and privacy mean in the UK.


"The Modern World"

Let's start with the 'Modern World' that Burnham talks about. Their ID database policy, and New Labour's wider ideology for abolishing privacy in the United Kingdom are like picking at a scab; it just keeps getting worse and worse and you wish you hadn't.

Inevitably, it is always the fault of the modern world, the catch-all soundbyte deployed to condone every kind of intrusive technology and practice like CCTV, RFID, ID Cards, implanted microchips, DRM, face scanning, 'mind' scanning, medical record uploading and sharing, pre-emptive health screening, data retention of internet surfing etc.

Yet what is never explained or explored is why this 'modern world' always means giving up yet more of your personal data to government and multination corporations. Where, exactly is the modernity in that? The answer is of course, nowhere.

There is absolutely nothing in the real modern world that requires you to be biometrically branded like a cattle on a government database just for being a person.

There is absolutely nothing in the real modern world that requires an ID card you always carry to be tied into one government database that records your life, and it doesn't matter how much New Labour ministers yell 'the modern world', it just ain't so.

Indeed the modern world would be infinitely better off without a single-point-of-failure database that is verified through a piece of worthless plastic you will ever be coerced to carry around with you like a ball and chain, oh...and protect from damage, thievery, misuse etc.

The modern world is blamed, misleadingly, for every type of intrusion under the sun. In reality it is because the modern world enables things like an ID scheme, not because the modern world needs things like an ID scheme, and for what New Labour are trying to do, we are lightyears out of the orbit of the 'modern world' argument, into one, exclusively, of political choices.

As for securing your identity ?

First off, they are not actually proposing to secure your identity (which is in itself a dodgy thing that governments shouldn't be trying to do anyway), they are trying to establish a new kind of shared-government asset; a mass-surveillance database and a new 'thing' for that, which will be called an 'identity' for everyone.

Their plan is to biometrically glue you into a serial number under which all events in your life are recorded, the data from which can then be shared on a whim with whatever government deptartment wants it. Anyone with access to the database will have access to that 'identity'. Additionally if your card is stolen or damaged you won't have access to the identity the government have bestowed upon you. Furthermore, keeping so much and everyone on one single database is about the least secure thing you could ever do, and pretty much every tech company including ones that could financially benefit from this virtual prision you will be paying for, are screaming at the government don't do it.

Read the bill. See if you think it is about 'securing' your identity. The bill is about creating a new database and a set of arbitrary penalties for not contributing to it. Your identity is about as insecure as it could possibly be with this scheme. It was never about empowering you with another means of proving who you are, which by the way is not an id card, or serial number, or blob of data.


"Fraud and criminal activity that relies on false identities"

What to do about over-population?
Some people feel it is a potential global problem and there just won't be enough food and resources to sustain everyone. But actually accepting that as a massive problem and then dealing with it in a reasonable time frame, some have actually suggested organized genocides through famine, war or disease and long term sterilization.

In terms of intensity, this is much like the ID scheme is to fraud and criminal activity, it is a new extreme that goes way way too far, smashes any moral compass, and punishes everyone, except unlike the mass de-population plot it won't actually work at all.

There will be always be criminals and there will always be fraud, there will be in a post-ID scheme world too, actually way more. However, we simply don't rewrite and re-wire society to try to deal with those kinds of issues.

To put it another way, perhaps a better analogy, it is like the government having a permanent record of all your sexual partners as their solution to rape. Additionally, to have sex at all you will have to get permission from the government each time who will make a note of it.


"How do we respond to international requirements for more secure travel documents?" (Global ID)

New Labour, taking advantage of a post 9/11 mania, have come up with their 'Final Solution' to privacy in the ID Scheme, where, because privacy is basically invisible until it goes wrong, it kind of doesn't exist at all. It is an outdated concept along with precaution and seperation and due process, and you won't notice it has gone because you are more interested in whatever the government tells you to be interested in like schools and hospitals etc.

The EU and the US, and the 'modern world' are blamed for the ID scheme 'necessity', but in reality, what New Labour have done is massively exploit a tiny biometric passport wish (a photo on a chip), into a mass, human-tagging, surveillence and data-slavery brave-new-world that displays the same (or far worse) level of industrialized contempt and outright danger for the population as witnessed in Nazi Germany. Any government trying to seriously propose this shouldn't be a government to put it mildly, but then would you really expect less from the overlords that thought the pre-arranged Iraq War was a good idea, or think torture is pretty cool ?

Burnham whimpered, "Opinion polls still show public support for ID cards"

Suuuuuuuuure they do. Oh you mean those 'other' polls. Don't forget the 90-days, death penalty etc. Thing is, MPs are supposed to protect people from silly crap as well. Actually I wonder what the numbers would be if you called it what it really is, 'The UK surveillance and data-slavery database'

"And I doubt I am the only Guardian reader who has always supported a British ID card in line with our European counterparts. This is an important issue and I suspect you may have a few more readers who would like to hear a little more of the other side of the story."

But there is no other side to the story, the ID database plot has been dressed up in 'ID cards' as a kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink; this will sort those illegal immigrants, terrorists and criminals out, yet is actually designed to do nothing of the sort. It has been fraudulently mis-sold as, ironically, a kind of nationalist 'ticket' that will cure several ills, but in reality it is a social-data gathering experiment turned acromegaly, that provides New Labour with a Brave New World to administer, and gives you absolutely nothing in return, save this nouveau-slavery masquerading as tough on terror/crime bullshit.

Even if, for some misled warped reason, you were in favour of ID cards, this plan isn't actually it.

So the answer is no Burnham. This crap needed to die a death ages ago. End this scheme now or it will be killed for you.

ID cards ID database Andy Burnham New Labour slavery NIR Blair privacy