NO2ID

Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, rejected this charge last night. "Passports are voluntary documents," he insisted. "No-one is forced to renew a passport."


Wanker!


from http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=380072006

"Passports are voluntary documents," he insisted. "No-one is forced to renew a passport."

The Home Office is currently running a campaign to emphasize the meaning of consent in relation to rape:

http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-re ... ?version=1

"The Act also introduced a definition of consent - that a person consents if s/he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice."

Complete bollocks , of course people need a passport.

I'm a non-driver so its my only current means of ID.

So what Clarke is in fact saying, if you don't agree with him, you'll be subjected to staying in the UK.

I'm seriously considering an application for political asylum to Canada if this is the case or an application to the EU that the home office are breaching my rights to travel and work in Europe by putting in this political obstacle.

Surely this must be easy to defeat in the European Court of Human Rights?

That's an excellent point. Governments and quangos and sefras appointed by Governments have made a passport less than a voluntary document in itself. - Even if you don't wish to travel, your rights are restricted without one.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that point...
As I've put it in further emails to Lords:

The Home Secretary finally clarified in what sense this scheme is "voluntary". His words were "The question... is one of free will"! I'm sure you will find it as reassuring as I do to realise that you would have as much choice, under this scheme, of choosing not to have an ID card, as of choosing not to eat, choosing not to drink, or choosing to set your own house on fire with your family inside it - all of which are well within the scope of your "free will".

I've read through Hansard and things seem to be getting clearer and clearer. Apart from two minor helpful "questions" from Labour drones, not one speaker got up to defend the scheme, barring Freedom Charlie himself (whose department should be renamed the Ministry of Freedom, in tribute to his sophistical mangling of the English language). Even John Gummer, who described himself as a supporter of ID cards in principle, got up and spoke strongly against. The words "elective dictatorship" and "deceit" came up a few times in the debate.

What I think is becoming clear is that NO-ONE wants this scheme, apart from the NuLabour power-apparat; probably most Labour MPs don't want it either (they've hardly shown themselves enthusiastic in getting up and defending it). It's all down to the Labour whips' evil grip on MPs groins.

I know this might not make a difference (except to suggest that maybe anyone with a Labour MP should put pressure on them), but it's very heartening.

My take on the Home Office Consent campaign:

http://www.failand.org.uk/id/consent.jpg

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/ ... -campaign/

Potentially fantastic advert, certainly better than the Home Office's. Obviously, the photo is copyright the Home Office, and I worry about the effect it would have on rape victims (whose rapists go largely unpunished).

And I would change the text. If we beat the Home Office to publication, it could have a big impact.

http://www.failand.org.uk/id/consent.jpg

You want to pose for our own shoot?

No. Compulsory ID cards per se are well-established as not contrary to the convention, so any form of compulsion that is not inherently discriminatory is hard to argue against. It may be that the particular system in Government plans breaches some convention rights in other ways, but compulsion is not one of them.

There is no convention article protecting you against the effects of third parties believing misleading Government propaganda. If there were, wouldn't there be a conflict with freedom of expression and belief?

The European Charter is more robust than the Convention:

http://www.europarl.eu.int/charter/default_en.htm

Compulsory biometric ID Cards violate Article 1 (Human dignity), Article 3 (Right to the integrity of the person), Article 4 (Prohibition of degrading treatment), Article 6 (Right to liberty), Article 7 (Privacy), Article 8 (Protection of personal data), Article 17 (Right to property - as regards your biometric property), Article 45 (Freedom of movement and of residence).

We need the European Charter to be given constitutional status, with the role of the second House becoming to ensure all laws passed are compatible with it. The id card issue may become the catalyst for adoption of such a constitution. In the absence of effective constitutional protection, direct action based on these principles is the only option.

Adoption by the member states of the Constitution for Europe (Title II of Part I contains provisions relating to fundamental rights (Article I-9) and citizenship (Article I-10). Moreover, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which hitherto had no legal force, is integrated into the Constitution and reproduced in Part II of the text of the Constitution. This represents a major step forward from http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/constitut ... ves_en.htm) and thus the Charter is a dead duck.

http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/re ... 00-032.pdf and

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/p ... 7/6701.htm

Have some useful background etc.

In case you hadn't noticed, it is the EU Constitution, not the ECHRFF, that is currently the dead duck.

Be that as it may, there is nothing (I repeat) in either document to prevent compulsion to ID cards, and (1) it is established law that the Charter does not and (2) since many EU countries do have compulsory IDs, and the Commission is keen on datasharing, it would be pretty unlikely that the Constitution were interpreted to ban them.

Any human-rights-based challenge must be on narrower questions arising from the nature and detail of the UK system, much of which we simply do not know yet. That there is clearly scope for such challenges under several separate headings, I pointed out in NO2ID's evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

NO2ID is not in the business of other constitutional change, and many people opposed to ID cards are also opposed to European union, so we are not going to become advocates of a European Constitution, even should the last draft make a miraculous recovery from its bird-flu.

The Charter was to be incorporated ....... in the putative constitution of the EU, which is dead in the water, if not a duck.

The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHFF) is an entirely seperate matter.

It is the basis for the UK's Human Rights Act 1998 (Articles 2-12, 14, 16-18 of the Convention, plus parts of the 1st and 6th Protocols).

Since the Labour government has now changed legislation to require people to present ID when registering for a doctor - does that not make it compulsory for life within the UK to have a passport to access our wonderful "universal healthcare" system.

I am sure we could bring a legal challenge to the ID card bill under the presumption of the denial of healthcare as a result of the refusal to accept a "voluntary" national ID card.

The ECHR is not a good court, it has no jury and is run by pompuos, self-important, buerocratic scum. it is the EU that has created butter mountains and wine lakes with its ridiculous Common Agricultural Policy(CAP) They probably support ID cards.

The EHCR may be all the things you suggest, but it is definitely not an EU institution, so fulmination against the EU is beside the point.

There is already a EURO ID Card (sort of bluey grey plastic almost illegible) - the E111 - for access to medical services, and in general circulation now for people to get, to show entitlement throughout the EU.

This is a move from the paper based system, but has hardly automated anything at all.

In the UK, you will still need your NHS (flimsy card) card ..... and to get that you need evidence of indentity, and address, but not (yet) necessarily legal residence.

Parody is exempt as "fair use" under copyright law (because, otherwise, parody of anything copyrighted would be impossible). Small excerpts of text for the purposes of review or quotation, which are deemed "fair use".

Copyright has legal exemptions under "fair use" and it isn't wholly absolute.

The real problem, as you also noted, is its relation to an anti-rape campaign. It would not do any favours to be claiming that ripping off an anti-rape campaign poster is exempt because it is "parodying" the campaign. Even if it's not parodying the anti-rape campaign itself, you can be sure it'll not be reported that way and no-one would take the five minutes to go look at it in the original to see that it isn't what it's being reported as being: "campaigner thinks rape is joke shock horror".

Plus, just the general "not in good taste" nature of it for rape victims and the like. It doesn't actually make any "parody" of that aspect but, you know, it's too delicate an issue to be dancing anywhere near it with political parodies.

A pity because I do think it's nicely done.