| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Voyeurs Anonymous" |
| Date: |
02 Jul 2005 10:04:07 AM |
| Object: |
Nobody has nothing to hide |
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic rights
Muriel Gray
Saturday July 2, 2005
Guardian
Years ago, we lived next door to a delightful old bachelor called Charlie.
In his 60s when we met him, he told us he'd been an RAF pilot in the war,
had never married and was spending his nest egg by constantly touring
Scotland on luxury coach trips on which he invariably befriended coiffured
ladies.
It was only on his deathbed that he told our flatmate his name was not Charlie.
The fighter pilot tales were true, but he had been married with two daughters
and, in a disquieting parallel with King Lear, had been so appalled by their
behaviour during his wife's illness and after her death that he fled, changing
his identity to ensure that they would never find him to lock him in a home
and steal his money. He died peacefully under his invented name, having had
10 years of joy and freedom.
I also recall Mary (let's call her that), who worked in television production
in London, but came from rural Ireland. It took years to come out, but she
eventually revealed to trusted friends that she lived under an assumed identity.
Two male family members had sexually abused her since childhood, which her mother
refused to believe. When she left she knew the entire family were searching
for her with a vigour that included private detectives. The fear that they
would find her and make themselves part of her future children's lives was too
terrible to contemplate. Life as someone else was a chance to start again,
a chance she grabbed with huge courage.
The reason for recalling these cases is that in the continuing debate over the
government's baffling adherence to its insidious identity card scheme, its defence
boils down to one cliche: if you're innocent you have nothing to hide.
This is not simply an outrageously stupid statement, but also plain wrong.
Charlie and Mary were entirely innocent but they had plenty they wished to hide.
The argument for and against compulsory ID cards has so far focused mainly
on the delicate relationship between state and citizen, concentrating on
the very real potential for the government to betray our trust and covertly
use the information for its increasingly barking mad purposes.
What has been ignored, however, is that the inevitable commercial and practical
implications of a compulsory card will have consequences just as far-reaching
as the MI5 man being able to idly scan your hospital appointments to see when
your warts were burned off.
There is no question whatsoever that, should compulsory cards be introduced
and their production required to access government services, commercial services
will immediately follow suit. Regardless of Charles Clarke's weak assurances
on the card's limited application, we can be sure that it will quickly become
impossible to book a hotel room, hire a car, open a bank account or make any
kind of significant commercial transaction without producing the card.
Currently, you or I can open a bank account under any name we wish. We can
procure a credit card under that name. We can have gas, electricity and
telephone lines brought to our home and pay for them under that name.
We can book into a hotel as Donald Duck or travel round our own country
by air or train as Pocahontas, all of which will be rendered impossible when
the commercial sector decides to exploit a scheme that ensures customers
can hide nothing.
Never again will a couple book into that Cornish hotel as Mr and Mrs Smith
and fail to show for breakfast. The staunch defenders of the ID scheme
question why one would wish to fabricate such deceptions, but the reason is
that the enigmatic stranger is a keystone of the British notion of freedom.
The romantic ideal that anyone can be who they wish to be is so stitched
into our mythology and literature - from strangers on trains to millionaire
philanthropists posing as paupers and ambitious youngsters escaping class
restraints by altering their identity - that its loss would be a tragedy.
The "innocent have nothing to hide" cliche implies that it is only the guilty
who wish to deceive, to be deeply secretive, when in fact the innocent also
have plenty of valid reasons to wish to do so.
Since it will be the commercial demands for the proof of identity that will
bring about the practical and daily curtailment of freedom, the government
will be able to hold up its hands in mock horror and say: "But we never
insisted you show your ID card to join a health club or buy a TV set."
Yeah, right.
Ironically, criminals will be ably assisted by the ID card, which they will
doubtless forge with great skill. Meanwhile those of us who like our secrets
kept will be exposed by market forces when they bully us to conform. The
innocent have much to hide. It's called a private life.
.
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| User: "SyVyN11" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
02 Jul 2005 10:56:17 AM |
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"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for national ID
cards.
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| User: "Larry Hewitt" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
02 Jul 2005 06:32:48 PM |
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"SyVyN11" <711robhorine@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:BOyxe.16305$eM6.15140@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic
rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for national
ID
cards.
So many lies.
The US Real ID Act (HR 418) was introduced in January 2005 by conservative
repuglicon James Sensenbrenner as the sole sponsor with 140 mostly
repuglicon co-sponsors. Liberal democrats in the Senate kept the bill from
being enacted after a virtually party line vote in the House approved it. So
conservative repuglicons, including the entire House leadership, arranged to
have the bill attached as a rider to must pass funding legislation for the
Iraq war in May.
Larry
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| User: "Miles Long" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
02 Jul 2005 02:08:00 PM |
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SyVyN11 wrote:
"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for national ID
cards.
Actually, no. In light of your poorly constructed sentence I beg to
differ, it is liberals who insist on national education for all. <laughing>
Miles "Hooked on Phonics" Long
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| User: "SyVyN11" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
02 Jul 2005 02:08:43 PM |
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"Miles Long" <Miles@home.net> wrote in message
news:4f74b$42c6e513$4069ee8e$20040@msgid.meganewsservers.com...
SyVyN11 wrote:
"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic
rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for national
ID cards.
Actually, no. In light of your poorly constructed sentence I beg to
differ, it is liberals who insist on national education for all.
<laughing>
Miles "Hooked on Phonics" Long
despite your attack on my spelling and grammer, show me where my statement
is factually wrong.
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| User: "robw" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
03 Jul 2005 07:58:10 PM |
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Show where it is correct.
"SyVyN11" <711robhorine@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:%CBxe.15054$pa3.9044@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
"Miles Long" <Miles@home.net> wrote in message
news:4f74b$42c6e513$4069ee8e$20040@msgid.meganewsservers.com...
SyVyN11 wrote:
"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic
rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for
national
ID cards.
Actually, no. In light of your poorly constructed sentence I beg to
differ, it is liberals who insist on national education for all.
<laughing>
Miles "Hooked on Phonics" Long
despite your attack on my spelling and grammer, show me where my statement
is factually wrong.
.
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| User: "robw" |
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| Title: Re: Nobody has nothing to hide |
03 Jul 2005 07:57:40 PM |
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Where?
"SyVyN11" <711robhorine@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:BOyxe.16305$eM6.15140@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
"Voyeurs Anonymous" <VoyeursAnonymous@georgewbush.com> wrote in message
news:11cdb77sjojso68@corp.supernews.com...
Nobody has nothing to hide
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5229665-107865,00.html
Identity cards will deprive the innocent of one of their most basic
rights
thing is that in america it is liberal that advance the need for national
ID
cards.
.
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