ID Cards

So it turns out that ID Cards will now be compulsory from 2010. Thanks for the opt-out that lets people pay for the card, register their details on the National Identity Registry, but not have to take the card until 2010. That's very kind of you to let us pay to put all our personally identifying information on your database.

ID Cards have problems - biometric data just does not work for everybody. In fact, despite using 3 identifying unrelated biometric measurements, some people can't be registered at all. What good is that?

And if even the government doesn't think the ID Cards will do what they are supposed to do, why should the public?

I still don't see a valid purpose for the ID cards. Despite all the rubbish that the public wants them to stop this, that and the other, I don't see how they will.
The government has the following reasons for introducing ID cards:
Terrorism, sex offenders, illegal immigrants, organised criminals, benefits cheats, failed asylum seekers...
I don't see how any of them will be stopped by ID Cards unless people are:

1. forced to carry them at all times


2. forced to produce them at any and every point of interaction with anything remotely official (like a bank, post office, credit card, landlord, employer, etc)

I for one have no intention of doing either, and not because I feel I have done anything wrong.

Taken from a comment
on Slashdot

"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.

And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If they're not guilty, why are they running?"

Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.

But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.

They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.

Next week: Big Sticks to Beat People With

Wafty