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Latest diary entries by Ben_Norman tagged with "id cards civil liberties george orwell police students"
By Ben_Norman
on Tue, 5th Feb 2008 at 16:23
Government plans for Student ID Cards
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Benjamin Franklin (1759)
Imagine a country where it is compulsory to carry identity cards, a country where the police can stop and search at will and can hold suspects for ninety days without conviction. Imagine a country where the right to protest is abolished, where every aspect of one’s life is held on vast government databases, where the right to fair trial by jury is suspended and where suspects can legally “disappear”. In this country being presumed innocent is a lost luxury. This is not a description of Belarus, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or any other dark corner of a foreign field. It is not a nation on the infamous “axis of evil” or denounced by our politicians, for it is a vision of Britain. This Orwellian vision of the future is no longer confined to fiction, and it is not a wild prediction of the distant future it is the state of things to come in 2009. An official Home Office document, leaked to both the Conservative party and selected media, has revealed that the government are planning to use the student loan system to introduce the controversial identity card scheme as early as 2009, a scheme viewed by many as the greatest assault on our civil freedoms since the Second World War. The document states "We should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan, etc." This will mean that students applying for loans will be forced to hold identity cards, containing their biometric details and costing £100, if they wish to get basic levels of funding or even open a bank account. Whilst our welfare state has never been perfect it is abhorrent for individuals to have to sacrifice their liberty in order to participate in society.The opposition have responded by denouncing these plans as a form of “blackmail.” Shadow immigration minister Damian Green called the plans "straightforward blackmail to bolster a failing policy". Green stated, "this is an outrageous plan. The government has seen its ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth." The National Union of Students have also been swift to speak out against these proposals, Vice President Ama Uzowuru stated that it is “extremely disappointing that the Government is planning to use students as guinea pigs for this scheme by forcing them to take on ID cards in order to apply for a loan.”
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By Ben_Norman
on Tue, 5th Feb 2008 at 16:23
Government plans for Student ID Cards
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Benjamin Franklin (1759)
Imagine a country where it is compulsory to carry identity cards, a country where the police can stop and search at will and can hold suspects for ninety days without conviction. Imagine a country where the right to protest is abolished, where every aspect of one’s life is held on vast government databases, where the right to fair trial by jury is suspended and where suspects can legally “disappear”. In this country being presumed innocent is a lost luxury. This is not a description of Belarus, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or any other dark corner of a foreign field. It is not a nation on the infamous “axis of evil” or denounced by our politicians, for it is a vision of Britain. This Orwellian vision of the future is no longer confined to fiction, and it is not a wild prediction of the distant future it is the state of things to come in 2009. An official Home Office document, leaked to both the Conservative party and selected media, has revealed that the government are planning to use the student loan system to introduce the controversial identity card scheme as early as 2009, a scheme viewed by many as the greatest assault on our civil freedoms since the Second World War. The document states "We should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan, etc." This will mean that students applying for loans will be forced to hold identity cards, containing their biometric details and costing £100, if they wish to get basic levels of funding or even open a bank account. Whilst our welfare state has never been perfect it is abhorrent for individuals to have to sacrifice their liberty in order to participate in society.The opposition have responded by denouncing these plans as a form of “blackmail.” Shadow immigration minister Damian Green called the plans "straightforward blackmail to bolster a failing policy". Green stated, "this is an outrageous plan. The government has seen its ID cards proposals stagger from shambles to shambles. They are clearly trying to introduce them by stealth." The National Union of Students have also been swift to speak out against these proposals, Vice President Ama Uzowuru stated that it is “extremely disappointing that the Government is planning to use students as guinea pigs for this scheme by forcing them to take on ID cards in order to apply for a loan.”
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