Meetings in 2006

4 December 2006 - Strategy meeting

As there were to be elections for the Scottish Parliament and local councils in May 2007, the Edinburgh NO2ID group determined to intensify its campaigning during the run-up to the elections. This was an initial planning meeting when a series of individual and group actions were agreed. All the parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, apart from Labour, have declared themselves against ID cards. In Scotland there is also the question of the Scottish National Entitlement Card, an ID card in all but name, which has been misleadingly represented to the over 60s and the disabled as a simple bus pass.

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25 October 2006 - Brian Monteith MSP (Independent)

Mr Monteith focused his talk on the maintenance of personal liberty and the need to ensure that the power of the state did not overreach itself. He had been astonished that Tony Blair had recently asked all individuals to lodge their DNA data in a central database. More generally, he was alarmed that in our society the fundamental assumption of innocence was slowly being eroded, to be replaced by the assumption of guilt.

With regard to identity cards Mr Monteith was particularly concerned about the linkage of separate databases, thereby putting too much power into the hands of the state. But he was optimistic about the future. Young people were aware of the problems, and they had read Nineteen Eighty-Four. They did not want a controlled society, and as a result they were joining NO2ID and similar organisations.

Mr Monteith had been slightly late arriving at the meeting, due to problems with an unhelpful car-park ticket machine. Amusingly, he was able to refer to this incident within his talk to point up the folly of society relying too much on the wonders of modern electronic technology!

Finally, at this meeting we were very pleased to welcome Geraint Bevan and Richard Clay, both of NO2ID Glasgow.

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28 June 2006 - Colin Fox MSP (Scottish Socialist Party)

Mr Fox was convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party and its justice spokesperson. He said that the SSP was fully aligned with NO2ID, being included in NO2ID's list of supporting organisations and with all six SSP MSPs having said that they would refuse to register for an ID card.

Mr Fox said that the SSP was proud to support the campaign. He had had direct experience of the government's anti-libertarian measures: he, with three others, had in effect been fined £30,000 and suspended from the Scottish parliament for a month concerning the right to protest against George Bush's visit last year. In 600 years of the Westminster parliament no member had been treated so harshly.

The ID card would hit the poorest in society. It would change the nature of the relationship between the state and the individual. It would move towards the presumption of guilt; witness the recent police raid, based on police intelligence, at Forest Gate where 250 police were used to arrest two people, one of whom was shot.

Mr Fox went on to describe the general tenor of politics today. The 7/7 outrages led to the de Menezes shooting, and were used to justify the use of Belmarsh where people are detained indefinitely without charge. A basic problem was poor intelligence but national security was the ace up the government's sleeve. The extradition treaty with the US was not remotely bilateral. Under it people could be extradited from the UK without any evidence being produced, but not vice versa. It was under this treaty that the "Nat West Three" were likely to be jailed for up to two years in Houston before their trial would start. No evidence had been produced for a British court and if they were found not guilty there would be no compensation. Production of evidence was a fundamental part of the Scottish system and it was a long standing principle that a person should be released if no evidence were forthcoming within 110 days of being charged.

Mr Fox quoted the famous lines from Pastor Niemoeller. It was time to stand against these infringements of individual rights.

He was appalled that it was a Labour MSP who was proposing a national DNA database. In England the DNA database had increased in size from half a million to three and a half million cases in the past two years with no difference in the crime detection rate. No fewer than 32% of the three and a half million were black. In Scotland the main emphasis had been on detecting paedophiles.

Mr Fox mentioned the Michael Moore film "Bowling for Columbine" which was about gun usage in the US. People carried guns because they were frightened. Again blacks suffered most from the climate of fear but it was generally overlooked that most murders were carried out by persons known to the victim. ID cards again played on people's fears.

In his first two years in the Scottish Parliament he had been much concerned with ASBOs. These were often put on damaged young men. The claims for ID cards were unrealistic. They would be counterproductive.

It was not computers that solved crime, it was cooperation on intelligence between communities and the police. Hence the state/individual relationship was important too in this regard.

However, should the police be entitled to know every address one had ever had, every car? The card could have much information recorded that one did not necessarily want others to know. The state was not benign - it was there to preserve the status quo. For example Mr Fox had recently been on a protest at Aldermaston where he had been filmed by the police.

The SSP would collaborate in nonviolent protest as for the poll tax.

Noncooperation generally would cause the downfall of the system. The people wanted security and protection and would not tolerate dictatorship. What was wanted was democratic accountability in all aspects of the state.

There followed about 40 minutes of wide-ranging discussion. Points raised included:

• the difference from the poll tax was that that onset was sudden; the ID card was an insidious drip, drip
• the Scottish Parliament had said that they would not require use of the ID card but this seemed to be changing
• the ID card had been proposed many times; this was the most prescriptive form
• in England one could be jailed for nonpayment of the poll tax; not so in Scotland
• the bus pass carrying an NHS number was a good example of function creep
• treatment of immigrants, for example the attempted deportation of a Thai from Shetland, was another example of draconian treatment of individuals
• it was important to get the general population engaged in the debate

Pastor Niemoller: "First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

12 April 2006 - Kenny MacAskill MSP (Scottish National Party)

Mr MacAskill had recently returned from the US. He said that despite increased vigilance at airports and border controls, which included compulsory fingerprinting and iris scanning, this had had minimal effect on illegal immigration. He supported use of a simple cross-border ID card, for example to allow freedom of movement around the EU under the Schengen agreement, and he had been in situations where it would have been convenient to have had a formal photo ID.

However he was opposed to the government proposals on three main grounds:

• economic: the system would be very expensive with no discernible benefits;
• security: demonstrably such a system did not work in the US for immigration; the 9/11 and the 7/7 terrorists were already in the respective countries, most of them legally
• civil liberties: the system gave the state greater opportunity to pry into the life of citizens.

25 January 2006 - Mark Ballard MSP (Scottish Green Party)

Mr Ballard said that, in view of this particular audience, he would avoid the subject of why ID cards were a bad idea and would concentrate on the more political aspects of the scheme, such as why they were being proposed at this time. There had been simple ID cards during WWII but these had been abolished in 1952 as being un-British in peace time. However there had been continual proposals to reintroduce them as a universal solution to solve a problem of the time, for example to deal with football hooliganism during the 1980s.

Now they were intended to combat illegal immigration, benefit fraud and identity theft. A prime reason had been an attempt to outflank the Conservatives on crime prior to the 2005 election. The proposals were introduced in an atmosphere of moral panic, not because there was a special need.

In the summer of 2005 Labour had a majority of only 31. To gain this majority the Home Secretary had been forced to concede that there would be no compulsion to show a card on demand. The whole concept would not work if it were not compulsory.

There had been much debate about costs. The government line was that costs should be confidential, which was a nonsense. The Lords had voted this week that entering a personal record on National Identity Register (NIR) should be voluntary. The Scottish Green Party had made a motion, gaining cross-party support except from Labour and Lib Dems, asking to what purpose the NIR would be put in Scotland.

Labour party members were not particularly enthusiastic about ID cards. It was IT companies, especially EDS, who were the most active proponents. See "Corporate Identity" on the Corporate Watch website (http://www.corporatewatch.org/) for information about these companies. It was EDS which had produced the disastrous Child Support Agency system. Another company was pursuing iris recognition using technology which was not yet developed, on the assumption that it would be ready when it was required.

The whole ID technology enterprise was comparable to the Scottish Parliament building project - it had become a matter of pride and prestige divorced from its intrinsic value.

The biometric systems being proposed were the most advanced in the world. The requirements kept changing. Both were a recipe for technological disaster.

The speaker's forecast was that to get the scheme accepted there would have to be so many concessions that the resulting scheme would be useless. Even for those who wanted a compulsory ID card, this would be the worst of all possible schemes.

[See also "IT industry prepares for the worst over ID cards" by Mark Ballard.

There followed about 45 minutes of wide-ranging discussion. Points raised included:

• comparison of Entitlement cards and ID cards
• need to show cards gives government more control over citizens
• can we be sure future governments will be benign?
• fingerprints and irises change over time
• concentration on costs is wrong; it should be on civil liberties
• what happens when there are errors in the NIR?
• the Scottish Parliament can opt out of certain uses but Westminster can override if it deems fit
• most of the bill is concerned with the NIR rather than the ID card itself
• it would not restrict terrorism as most terrorists (Muslim and IRA) have been UK residents
• the recent DNA case shows lack of respect for privacy
• the biometric data could be on the card itself, with no need for the NIR
• where is the clamour for an entitlement card?
• many will refuse to register, as for the poll tax
• the presumption of innocence is changed by the need to show a card