24 March, 2005: Bobbing for publicity

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So, a couple of bits of self-publicity. Firstly, the Cambridge Evening News did a nice piece on Cambridge No2ID with a picture of us on Monday. There was also a second piece -- not in their on-line edition -- with lots of comments from Andrew Watson. The most amusing part of this was that the chap writing the piece couldn't find anyone in favour of ID cards to talk to, and asked us for suggestions. We pointed him in the direction of Anne Campbell, but presumably she declined to say anything.

The ID Cards Bill was in the Lords on Monday; unlike the MPs, the peers seem to have spotted that the Bill is a bit of a catastrophe-in-the-making. The remarks of the Earl of Erroll were particularly notable in this regard. On the dangers of the National Identity Register, he asked,

What about leaks of information? Anyone believing that everything is safe nowadays and will not be leaked must be joking.

Finally, the register will become a prime terrorist target. Can you imagine the value of infiltrating someone on to it? There have to be mechanisms to switch ID. There are witness protection programmes, transgender reassignment, and agents in the field whose true identity must be concealed. Terrorists could have perfect access to the register.

This is not a new point, and it has been made here and elsewhere before. On this subject, the Daily Telegraph today published a letter from myself and others on the question of biometrics and witness protection. It's good to bring this to the attention of a wider audience.

So, I mentioned ID cards, and as a result you get to see holiday photographs:

Sea Green

Update: oh, the other thing I meant to mention here is that Monday's Cambridge Evening News had the front-page headline,

TORY BLITZ ON GYPSIES

I had not appreciated that it was Conservative policy to invade France, build airfields there, and dive-bomb southern England. I shall await their election manifesto with renewed interest.


Copyright (c) 2005 Chris Lightfoot; available under a Creative Commons License.