Wait, are these British billions? Like, a million millions? That’s…incredible.
And, I’m not sure what you mean by IT. Information Technology? The bad guy from A Wrinkle in Time?
No, Otto, that is what he suggested. Never heard a white guy try to tell ‘yo mama’ jokes?
…and now for something completely different…
Australia excels in originality.
Oh, OK, I wasn’t sure if it was intentional. I’ll just take the woosh and go sit over there, all right?
I read it that way too.
Point of order: it’s the monarch who owns everyone and everything - we’re all subjects of the monarch. The government just behaves as if it does.
And long may QE2 reign - Bigears will be an unmitigated disaster.
Don’t worry Sarah. Even living in these terrifying times, I really doubt that the Australian populace will let this get through. It’ll be just like every other time they’ve brought NID’s to the table, and the electorate have yawned, scratched their balls, and told the sitting gummint to “fuck orf we like things just the way they are thankyouse very much.”
Luckily I’ve finished my tea, or it’d be spewed all over my keyboard.
Still, I don’t get the general repugnance inspired by IDs. Since starting to drive at 16, I’ve had to carry some sort of state-issued ID, and throughout my public life beginning with college, I’ve had to carry various IDs.
a) No, we’ve more or less given up on that, certainly when we’re talking about money. We’ve given in to the foul abomination that is the American billion. :: barf ::
b) Yes, information technology.
Well it goes without saying that when terrorists discover the awesome destructive potential of monkeys riding explosive tipped rockets ID cards will have to become the size and shape of legionary shields and be made of depleted uranium. Charles Clarke assures me that the eventual cost of such a card will not rise above the low 6 figures though.
Whichever allows them to blend into the unsuspecting populance more easily.
I have a friend who is pretty far along the political spectrum (anti-gay, supports ID cards etc).
I asked him if ID cards would be expensive? “Yes, they would undoubtedly cost far more than the original estimate.”
Would they help against terrorism? “Probably not.”
So why do we need ID cards? “To help identify horribly mutilated victims.”
Well there you have it. :rolleyes:
I’m not so much worried about the slippery slope into Big Brother State aspects; my main beefs with the idea are that it’s going to be expensive (it will run massively over budget, no matter how preposterously high the budget is actually set), pointless, probably rather inconvenient and most of all, it’s certain to be a massive, embarrassing fuck-up. As has already been mentioned, the government simply can’t do big I.T. projects.
Did the Pythons do it too? I thought it was a Peter Cook/Dudley Moore sketch.
I hate ID cards because of the cost too. Hell, if they want a big new project to waste tons of money on, I’m sure I can think of something better. A DI card - a personalised message for every citizen from beyond the grave. Free copies of Life of Brian and the entire Blackadder for every citizen. A huge weekend-long street party in every city, subsidised by the government, that every citizen is compelled to attend and pay £90 for. Free personalised beer! Almost anything would be more worthwhile than this!
As I said, it’s not that the government can’t do big I.T. projects, but that no-one can do big I.T. projects as long as the aims and objectives are unfocused. Governments are prone to this sort of mess because those ultimately in charge of the projects, the Politicians, keep mucking about with the specifications, the aims and those in charge. Chiefly because they don’t understand what they’re trying to do and they’re paying wads of cash to consultants who have it in their interests to ensure that the aims and objectives remain unfocused. That way maximizes the money spent and no-one can ever pin subsequent failure on any one particular person.
But once you add deliberate political spinning into the mix you are practically guaranteed failure. That way no-one has a clue what’s supposed to be achieved. This is exactly how the ID card is shaping up.
Others in this thread have asked what’s the big deal? We already have plenty of IDs, who cares about another one? The huge difference with this scheme is the intention that this should be the ultimate all-purpose, universal ID. That means the ID that your bank or doctor wants to see is the same one that the ticket collector at the railway station wants to see, or the policeman at the roadside check, or your employer at the job interview. Do you trust or want them all to be sharing the same info on you? Because that’s what’s going to happen.
As a single, all-purpose ID it introduces an obvious all-eggs-in-one-basket scenario. Once that ID is compromised, be it stolen or lost or cloned, that’s you shafted from all directions. Any criminal with their hands on it has total access to every aspect of your life and you effectively become a person with either no identity or someone who has a criminal identity. Either way you’re going to feel what it’s like to be an outcast non-person with no rights.
And that’s even before we look at the abuses that become possible with an all-purpose database holding everyone’s ID. It quite simply is a government’s wet-dream to have that much data to hand that is so critical to everything everyone does. I certainly don’t trust it to not be abused, no matter what anyone says now. I would be gob-smacked if it wasn’t, either with official governmental approval or without.
The ID card scheme does nothing for the benefit of UK citizens and everything for the benefit of government and criminals. The government must know all this, but like it that way. It’s a win-win situation as far as they’re concerned. They get to put a label on everyone to keep tabs on them and get them jittery about losing their now vital ID card. A climate of fear makes it easier to justify further restrictions and controls in the future.
Just how far do you think they’ll push it before people will realise the whole idea was a con from the very start?
Certainly that’s a huge flaw in the scheme, but in practical terms, I think it is more likely to play out so that nobody considers the ID card to be a definitive form of ID; rather than accepting just the card, border controls will want the card and a passport; banks will want the card and another form of ID; probably even government/official bodies will still resort to asking for ID card plus something else like birth certificate. Criminal misuse of the ID card system won’t destroy us all, it will simply render the ID card system worthless.