Surveillance Britain
Now this could well be just another piece of journalistic over exageration a la the leader in the Daily Mail most days, but then again, the worrying thing is that on recent performance, it might well be true…
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.
A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.
It really is about time that the villagers went to Westminster, carrying flaming torchs & ready use rope because if anyone is really even thinking about trying to impliment this, the lamposts of Parliament Square need to be decorated with the still twitching corpses of all involved, because we stout bulldogs know this already...
Harvey Mattinson, a consultant at the information technology arm of GCHQ, said that the only real value of identity cards would be to help state bodies share information about people.
Hang 'em all. Hang 'em high.
Comments
So what happens when somebody steals a phone and uses it, or is the government planning to make that illegal?
Posted by: Debster | October 30, 2008 10:11 AM
It isn't about crime control, Debster.
Criminals are merely a natural hazard. Peasants are the ones this is aimed at.
Angry peasants kill their supposed leaders. Angry criminals usual only kill peasants. Care to guess who the politicians really fear here?
Posted by: Kristopher | October 30, 2008 5:13 PM
Err it is over guys, this is not the land of the free, it is a western state of a socialist utopia, Im pleasantly suprised thegruppenfuhrer Brown let me move the little money I had left out of the country, I am old enough to remember Hapless Harolds disasterous time at the helm, he limited us to £25 per trip (or was it per year) this served 2 ideals, one kept most spending in the UK and two tried to stop the brain drain. As luck would have it the left have no regard for history at all.
Mr FM, how is this depression affecting China?
Posted by: Chris Edwards | October 30, 2008 10:08 PM
Cell phone companies here in the US require your social security number, despite the fact that it is NOT to be used as a form of identification...
Already happened, folks.
Posted by: Cricket | October 31, 2008 4:22 PM
Cricket: You can still buy a trac-fon and a 1 year card with cash ... no identification needed. Use it for a year, then leave it on a park bench for someone to steal and buy another one.
The cellphone company you use wants your SS number because they are a bunch of nosey-parkers.
Ditch them.
Posted by: Kristopher | October 31, 2008 6:34 PM