20 January 2009 – Strategy 2009 meeting
Most of the January meeting was taken up with discussing possible actions for 2009.
Group actions would continue to be the holding of regular meetings and the weekly street stall. No protest demostrations were currently planned as they tended to be opportunistic in reaction to events.
There would however be possibilities in exploiting the anger of foreign students, particularly Americans, at being used as guinea pigs for ID cards and bringing these concerns to the attention of the US Consul and the Scottish Parliament.
Entitlement Card
We will aim to highlight the direct contradiction between statements in the Scottish Parliament about the Scottish National Entitlement Card, a de facto ID card, and the actions of certain local authorities.
Some councils, notably Borders, had made the 'voluntary' cards compulsory for certain activities, such as obtaining school meals.
Actions
Individual actions discussed included:
- Giving out information, from the stall and direct to family, friends, colleagues, etc; making people aware of the threat posed by ID cards and the underlying database.
- Getting people to join NO2ID and to donate to HQ.
- Writing to MPs and MSPs, warning them that many people may base their vote on loss of liberties.
- Writing to local newspapers, linking ID cards to a local issue.
- Giving talks to other groups, local societies, etc.
- Putting publicity material on personal websites.
- Using the NO2ID Discussion Forum.
- Finding a celebrity to speak on our behalf!