"Peter Parry" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 21 May 2005 17:32:45 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


The national all-embracing census perhaps - with all those Jedi ... No, I
didn't have the wit to say that but I did write "irrelevant" on the race
question. There was no come-back, sadly.

There will be if you write the same on your registration for your ID
card - £2,000 or a few months in jail.

A doubt that anyone would be sentenced to a few months in jail for not
paying a £2,000 fine - and has all that been decided yet?

You're assuming that there WILL be bent insiders.

There are now, many hundreds of them in the Civil Service. There
were when we last had ID cards,

What was the effect then?


I believe that there still would be ways of amending information on the
proposed ID system. Don't ask me how I know, I don't know, I said I
believe.

Religion has always been a fine substitute for thinking, keeps
millions happy.

Who on Earth mentioned religion? Oh, you have. Hmm ...



I have a son and a daughter in different branches of the civil
service and they despair at the lack of common information about the
people
they deal with, it would make them able to do their jobs more efficiently
if
there were more.

A very good reason for dispatching the idea of a national database to
the dustbin if there ever was one. Given the damage Snivel Serpents

I shan't read on.

cause to people without such a database it beggars belief that anyone
would want to give them more power to cause hurt.

Subjectively speaking (which is all anyone can do) I'd welcome not having
to
key in data or fill in forms or repeat information every time I want to
order something, renew something or book an appointment. But whenever I
take
any of those actions, or receive confirmation,there's always the request
for
confirmation of my details.

As there will be in the future, a national ID system will soon be
subverted.

Somewhere we have to have trust.

Who? Politicians - they are yet to earn any. Snivel Serpents? The
standards of the Civil Service are so abysmal and their record of
incompetence so dire that one would have to be a fool to trust them.
Once upon a time one could assume they were stupid but honest. The
Civil Service had some sort of ethos. Now it is a ragbag of
"agencies" and corruption is so commonplace that in most cases it
isn't even investigated. To get someones record from the Police
National Computer is about GBP150, Social Service files can be bought
for a small packet of the social workers favourite chemicals. Inland
Revenue information is about GBP50.

At the moment there are severe restrictions on the data we can keep on
others, I've just realised that the way I keep some information about
others
is illegal. If they want to get me for it so be it, no-one's hauled me off
yet and there's no reason why they should. If I MISUSE that information
that's a different matter of course.

How many prosecutions have taken place for the daily misuse of
information by civil servants and police officers of the most
sensitive civil database in existence today - the PNC and associated
intelligence databases? Of the very few that have occurred what have
the penalties been?

Lets face it, most people conform anyway, they only want an easy life. I'm
one of the world's oddballs in my lack of conformity and I STILL don't get
into trouble. Do you think I would with an ID system?

No, you just like to think you are non-conformist.

I believe that a referendum has been talked about, which still means that
(probably) a majority of people won't be happy :-)

It may have been talked about, there is no mention of one in the
draft bill and no intention of holding one.

Oh come on! You're surely not suggesting that those freedoms will be
stamped
on?

Of course not - who on earth would think that any government would
make you a criminal for moving an electric point without paying tax
on it. Which government would make you a criminal for having a horse
manure middin? Which government could possibly think of giving you a
criminal record for having your bath water too hot? What stupid
ideas.

Why should the State want to do that?

The state probably wouldn't. Your local MP might, your local council
might. The policeman whose daughter your son is dating certainly
will, the librarian you argued with might well want to.


--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/