NO2ID

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main ... ion.html#3

I'm not the only grey in the village - we do a lot of protesting down my way

By Vicki Woods

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If anybody manages to halt, change or disrupt the Government's ID-card lunacy, it will be that grey demographic, aged 49-to-death's-door, because most people younger than that can't get their heads round what the problem is.

As I type, I am wearing a special badge saying "NO2ID", sent to me by the website www.no2id.net, which is protesting like billy-oh about the blessed things. And I am renewing my passport, months and months before it is due, so as to escape being databased by a malignant government (by 2008). If you renew before October, you will avoid the hassle of being interviewed in some regional office by some snotty functionary working for the passport office.

I am not the only grey in the village, either. Everybody I know has a nice new passport.

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Hurrah! Let's hear for us in the 49-to-death's-door demographic. We vote. We care. We notice. We write letters. We make a fuss. We are far less easily scared than them kids over there preferring to watch Big Brother than worry about living in it for real and I say that with a suitable and necessary apology and caveat to all members of The Youth Demographic currently reading this. But, frankly, our lot are beating your lot hands down. On this and other issues.

Some of us in the 'under 25' bracket care too! Don't underestimate the different groupings and categories of people that are just as concerned about the dangers of ID!

That's great to hear shelly and as I said earlier, apologies to those in the youth demographic if I was being a bit insulting.

That said, I'm pretty sure you'll find a heck of a lot more Baby Boomers here than Gen Xs, Ys, or under 25s. But then we were brought up on films like Rebel without a cause

'What you rebelling against?'

'What you got?'

Kinda thing. I get impression, and again, no insult intended, that young people today care an awful lot less about, you know, stuff, than we did. If more of them voted, for example, would we have tuition fees and student loans?

As Edina said in Absolutely Fabulous, we only went to college to close them down, not to study for a career.

It's been said that today's young people are mostly intensely relaxed about being monitored the whole time and monitoring others. I don't get any sense of anger or outrage coming from them. About anything much. It's very depressing sometimes because they have the energy and I get so tired sometimes. So very very tired.

I hope you're not alone among your demographic shelly. I really do. Because we can't do it all.

have to say some of us in the 30-death's door catagory care too...

we've just got hard work trying to convince other people in our generation to stop being so apathetic... sadly we're a generation of thatchers children, who care for number one, and are more into capitalism, consumerism.

but we're still fighting the good fight

I think it's difficult, as time wears on, for younger people to think critically about such things as surveillance because we've grown up with it. I honestly don't remember ever going to my town centre and not seeing CCTV cameras (I used to live IN my town centre, when I was a kid, and there were cameras almost on the doorstep).

Since I was a young teenager, every bit of information I've given to someone 'official'- and to companies or stores- has had the potential to be put on databases or records. If it's not recorded it just didn't happen (your own memory, obviously, being an unreliable witness to your own existence).

And now it's going further, I think that many people are just plain used to it. I think, however, that the rate of accelleration on surveillance will shock people out of their apathy as they start to realise the effects. Although in saying that, I should also point out that lots of my friends (younger and older) are against ID cards once they know what's going on. Most people don't believe that the political decisions they see on TV affect them very much, or that there's nothing they can do about them because the media is telling them that they are wrong to disagree with those decisions (or the government is, or both, depending on the topic).

This is why I get so bothered about future generations: because you can't protect something that you never held long enough to value it.

this is the problem really, as i've talked to a lot of my friends and they mainly say

"we disagree, but whats the point, there is nothing we can do about it"

which seems mental, and i've said, that within the current system, i've written letters to mp's (about id cards and NIR and other matters), and most of the time people tell me its pointless .

the point i have been trying to make to them is that at present the political system in this country means that writing letters to your mp should make a difference, after all they are there to REPRESENT the people.

i've even had big discussions about the role of the government, and it amazes me that a lot of people in my generation don't see that the government is there to SERVE the public.

Me too, shelly me too. It'll all happen before they've a chance to realise what's going on and soon there may be an entire generation who never knew it any other way.

Something else we baby boomers grew up on was Sci-Fi horror stories. TV shows in the Sixties were full of warnings about computers taking over and controlling your mind and what you did and could do. Doctor Who regularly featured such storylines.

Kids today probably think, 'ooooh, how kule.'

Sometimes I get so weary that I fall into thinking, you know what? I have no kids so go ahead. Go ahead and sleep walk into a surveillance state because I'm not going to have to live with it for nearly as long as you are. It's your problem, your funeral, your drab existence living the way a malign government of the future dictates that you should live.

Sometimes, it's like I fell asleep watching a sci-fi show 40 years ago and woke up and discovered it was all coming true.

Keep on going at your friends our shel! They don't listen to us oldsters. Mind, that might be those funny earpieces most of the young people seem to wear today. Do they all have hearing problems, or something

Oooooh, I just did a smiley thingy wotsit yellowy thing. Didn't know I could!

Don't feel quite so old now!

Cheers to Shelly and Lawlsie!

From what you say, sounds like I'm of a generation in between you two.

I worry a lot about what growing up in a world with more surveillance than I knew at first does to young people - good to know that some of them are aware.