They’ll have to learn for themselves, I have enough to do already.

In fact I’ve just been painting the living room, and I’m sat here in paint-spattered jeans, crappy shoes that I’m about to throw out, and yesterday’s pants. Still, I hear that Ferry’s just shat himself, again, so I win.

Now what justification could there be for seeking such a power? Our liberal constitution, with its emphasis on the right to privacy and the sanctity of the individual, doesn’t like it. But people will sigh and join the queue. It’s all so wearyingly inevitable, spineless and craven (and I don’t exclude myself in this assessment).

So welcome to the late arrival of 1984, Britons who never never will be slaves…

By the way, the question about bad governments misusing dodgy legislation is a fair one. Ian Smith’s oppressive security laws have been very useful to the merry government of Robert Mugabe. For example.

i - no one, including the government, you or Polly, have ever convincingly shown what good they’ll do

ii - it is widely accepted, including apparently by Polly, you and the civil servants in charge, that their introduction is likely to be a costly shambles.

iii - what you call the “ideological arguement” - that ID cards are an intrusion by the state, that they give too much power to the state, and that they therefore make citizens too reliant on the goodwill and efficiency of the state.

Of course one might think that those people seeking to introduce the cards should be the ones putting forward an ideological arguement in favour of it. And this was the thrust of Polly’s original article - that we should be in favour of ID cards because we should trust the state: “Those opposed to the assembling of data are mainly from the anti-state, individualistic right” - “There is a sad lack of voices to praise the benign state these days” - “Conspiracy-theory, bad-state rhetoric has become the received opinion”.

This is something she has got right - like most political arguements, this comes down to one’s view of the state. But it is where you are wrong - questioning the usefulness, and especially questioning the ability of the government to actually handle all the information about us in a competent, fair and secure way, are all arguements from ideology.
The state is NOT competent nor fair nor secure enough to be entrusted with such huge amounts of personal data - how is this not an ideological arguement?

And as for the idea that we simply can’t object to this because there are “far more dangerous existing technologies that supposedly ideological objectors have no objections to”. Well, I suspect that:

i - actually there aren’t that many you could name. Most of the ones in your original post for instance are ludicrous as comparisons - Night vision goggles? are you for real?

ii - the few that do exist are mainly used in a limited, specified way for clear and generally stable purposes - eg the DVLA database

iii - where they are not, then the same people who object to ID cards DO oppose them - eg Blair’s decision to reverse the Wilson doctrine.

But it’s the weekend and I have emus and humans to photograph so I’ll tidy up your comment later and I might even have a stab at replying to some of your specific points.

To deal with two more general things:

You’re right to condemn vagueness (though I wish you’d taken the same line with your Euston coauthors, among others).

I think if you asked at least one of my co-authors about that then they would roll their eyes, shake their heads, and rub their faces with their hands. You should try composition by committee some time: it’ll destroy your will to live.

The main point of my original post was to attack what I call the “Did Magna Carta die in vain?!” objections to ID cards. To reduce my case to its crudest components (for the sake of people like alabaster who can’t read whole paragraphs):

• Ideology is bunk.
• English law is not ideological.
• In countries where ideology is thought to matter the government issues ID cards.
• There are perfectly good non-ideological anti arguments.
• If there were an ideological argument it would apply equally to far more dangerous existing technologies that supposedly ideological objectors have no objections to.

I sympathise completely about the bullet points thing. I think it’s less the fault of WordPress itself that it is my customization of the default look-and-feel. Sorry about that. If it’s any consolation it actually makes it a pain for me to comment on my own blog.

Of course these are mostly aspects of a single general problem, most simply stated as “collecting everyone’s personal data in a big database creates new risks which the scheme does nothing to mitigate, without any compensating advantages”.

I’m not really sure what you mean by this bit, by the way:

concrete reasons why [CCTV cameras and ID cards] would and do improve their everyday lives, reasons that those living under the totalitarian regimes of our neighbours France and the Netherlands have proved in the field

How are the lives of people in France and the Netherlands improved by CCTV and ID cards (because we are taking part in a war on vagueness, by the way, please give specific and concrete examples)?

I’m not really sure what you mean by this bit, by the way:

concrete reasons why [CCTV cameras and ID cards] would and do improve their everyday lives, reasons that those living under the totalitarian regimes of our neighbours France and the Netherlands have proved in the field

How are the lives of people in France and the Netherlands improved by CCTV and ID cards (because we are taking part in a war on vagueness, by the way, please give specific and concrete examples)?

I wasn’t really interested in the American Libertarian position on ID. It was the idea that ANY libertarians would be ok with them as long as they passed a majority vote that i found rather touching.

And, tho I may be wrong, I can’t really conceive the person who could be ok with ID cards without having essentially a “green light” view of the state and its powers - in which case they have no relationship to libertarianism, Big or small l.

Of course there’s always soi-disant “libertarian socialism”…

My support for the LP on my blog is derived from a will to support the local LP senate candidate for MO. He’s an honest guy and we agree on many thinks of local importance. However, we disagree on many things of national and international importance (hence the Euston Manifesto tag in my blog; hardly the sign of a diehard Libertarian).
As it is, a lot of big ‘L’ Libertarians in America aren’t bothered much by the ID question. Their distaste for a ‘National ID’ in the US is really based on historical principle rather than a belief that it will actually limit their freedom. An ID is essential in the US already. Whether in the form of a Driver’s License or Social Security # you can’t do a lot without them. The state has basically created a National ID of sorts by default. Simply by passing enough legislation to make the owning of one essential. They even tried to make owning an ID essential to vote, but that was considered to be unconstitutional.

Even if ID cards could be proven to be useful for something trivial, the cost is way too prohibitive to show any value for money. Since it is somebody else’s money anyway (namely ours), it doesn’t matter.

The concept is also abhorrent because it stems from a complete change in the relation between the citizen and state, where the latter feels quite justified in considering us suspects by default.

That is well before we start talking about the implications for individual privacy.

It is a fact that most information about us exist in one way or another, but most of it is voluntary and most importantly, disseminated. That is an important safeguard which is completely overlooked by la Toynbee (but she is a dipstick), because if a mistake is made, or if your central record becomes corrupted (these are not assumptions, because we all know it will happen, we just don’t know how often and how much), who do you think will be believed ?

Maybe this explains why -

“I wasn’t claiming to understand this strange situation. Quite the opposite: I was inviting Mr E (or anyone else) to explain it to me…I know naff all about common law rights”.

Contrast this with what you originally said:

“And I haven’t even mentioned Mr E’s catastrophic failure to understand the nature of English law: “framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”, “[enshrines] fundamental human rights”. It’s ironic that he should wheel out such lame and ill-informed rhetoric since one thing states that don’t have ID cards do tend to have is a legal system based on common law.”

Sorry about mis-interpreting your point there. I had thought you were attacking Mr E for stupidity, whilst implying that, in contrast to your “ill-informed” target’s “catastrophic” ignorance, you understood the common law in a way he never could.
Now I realise you were making a reasonable, non-judgemental request for enlightenment on the subject.

On another subject, did anyone else reading this thread find the post from incitatus indescribably amusing?

“The straightforward answer is to have a referendum on the ID card and the use of CCTV for surveillance*. It should appease the libertarians among us if policies like this past a majority vote”

apparently he himself is a libertarian…

“I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with the common law thing, but I presume you mean that the guarantee of our freedom is not the law being “framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”, but our common law rights.”

You presume wrongly. I was pointing out that, generally, English law is not built on a fundamental code, of human rights for example, but on custom and precedent. What’s interesting (to me at least) about this, is that countries where law is built around a code do have ID cards, and those that don’t don’t. I wasn’t claiming to understand this strange situation. Quite the opposite: I was inviting Mr E (or anyone else) to explain it to me, especially as it rubs up against supposedly principle-based arguments against ID cards.

I know naff all about common law rights, but your invoking specific cases to make your argument about English law (against a claim I never made, but you wish I had) neatly illustrates my point about the character of our legal system.

Therefore Mr E’s comments are correct - laws should be “framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”

They would be if that’s what he had written. He said “laws are framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”. On the whole, I’d say that, in this country, they aren’t, or at least that this isn’t the primary concern of lawmakers currently. We tidy up the mess afterwards. (I also happen to think that that is a bad thing.)

“This is why your dismissal of the “what if a bad government took control?” arguement is so half arsed. It’s fucking mad for a Government to tell us we need ID cards, and to begin the process of introducing them, without having given us any indication of what the Act controlling their use will say.

Actually discussing this might have been a smidgen more interesting than sounding off about things you half understand, while throwing around long words to sound impressive.”

From what I have been following of the debate about this, the contents of the act controlling ID cards seem to have been central to most of the intelligent discussion on the matter. I wish all the discussion centred on this. Indeed, the last time there was a dust-up at PooterGeek about it that was the sole topic of discussion, so I have already discussed this, at tedious length and with a bottle of nice wine at stake. If you can’t be bothered to use the search box I provide then I’m not going to do it for you.

As for the “long words” thing, anyone who read my original post properly (not you) or any of the many posts I’ve written here about the use of the English language will know that’s just crap. Short enough for you?

do you want to expand on this?

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make with the common law thing, but I presume you mean that the guarantee of our freedom is not the law being “framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”, but our common law rights.

That’s a pretty outdated view - it was true in the 19th century, but it definitely isn’t today. think of cases like Rossminster, or Liversidge v Anderson, where common law rights were not held to be enforceable in the face of statute, and the judgments both gave wide latitude to the Executive.

This is of course pretty obvious - common law could never protect anyone against an Act passed in Parliament, and things such as ID cards and the NHS database will inevitably be accompanied by Acts dictating how they may be used. Even the Human Rights Act isn’t much defence, given that Article 8 of the Convention ( right to privacy) can broadly be derogated from as long as the laws doing so are clear enough (cf Malone v UK).

As the judgment in Ex p Fewing made clear, common law can protect citizens when the executive acts beyond its powers, but NOT when the government is acting under positive powers granted to it by statute.

Therefore Mr E’s comments are correct - laws should be “framed in such a way to protect us from future abuses”, by avoiding giving executive bodies broad and sweeping powers - it should confine the powers it gives to being specific and tightly controlled.

This is why your dismissal of the “what if a bad government took control?” arguement is so half arsed. It’s fucking mad for a Government to tell us we need ID cards, and to begin the process of introducing them, without having given us any indication of what the Act controlling their use will say.

Actually discussing this might have been a smidgen more interesting than sounding off about things you half understand, while throwing around long words to sound impressive.

Yes, most of the apparatus of state oppression is waiting to be picked up, but prior use, legaility and legitimisation of prior use effectively kills any proper opposition and allows ready extension. The minor ammendment is a common ploy of officialdom. Oh well! we already have a law to allow us to check your emails, does it really matter if we check your post? Thousands of CCTVs, so what difference does one more in your street make?

And naturally it is all in our own interest, preventing crime etc. What decent person can object to monitoring of our net usage when they are only trying to protect children? Why would a law abiding person have a problem with surveillance? Our privacy disappears in a welter of high sounding justifications.

Not doing anything illegal when I’m having a shit, but I don’t want a CCTV there ta!

Now you have spoiled my illusions by suggesting they are not. Or is that a cunning ploy to put us off the scent…

If they really arn’t aliens then I suppose we’ll have to do something about them then.

Re ID Cards just how would they have stopped the tube bombers?

CCTV doesn’t really grate against my libertarian sensitivities, because it would be near impossible use it in that specifically preemtive manner indicative of the Thought Police. I mean you’d need a hard core, dedicated Gestapo of at least half a million Agent Smiths to monitor all those cameras and make sure the proles were not planning a revolt outside some cornershop in Brixton on a saturday night.

I doubt it very much personally. Although at least two Observer hacks have written emails telling me they like the err, robust approach I have to Polly’s ideas (the pornographic imagery as you know I leave to others).

There’s been a couple of noteworthy responses to Mr Eugenides fisking of Polly Pot’s recent Blairite love-in that, in turn, deserve a response.
Tom, at Let’s Be Sensible, seems to be trying to be, well, sensible in taking issue with M…

When a crown court judge friend of mine tells me that he is dead against ID cards and will not get one, I am starting to think that maybe I am not wrong to be against it myself.

I personally wonder how Toynbee can still be taken seriously by anybody. That aside, if she comes out in favour of ID cards, especially because of the specious and idiotic things (I cannot even call them arguments) she writes, then really it is a bad idea.

While this is certainly true (and only partly for the reason you give: but also because the better HPers are engaged with the outside world, rather than just talking into a bubble of like-minded gun-slinging libertarians and anarcho-capitalists), it is also the case, that, on a reasonable majority of topics, the Harry’s Place people are right, and the Samizdata people are wrong.

So there.

Oh, we don’t worry about that. David Icke already has their number….