No Passport For Britons Refusing Mass Surveillance

UpnAtom writes "People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed, and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to — will be denied passports from March 26th. The Blair government has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons. Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe — more so even than Sweden. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British government to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea."

This is news?

[Anne Thwacks]

As a UK resident, all I can say is "that is what we have come to expect from this government". It seems they thought George Orwell's 1984 was a manual on how to govern.

However, we do have one advantage over North Korea: Blair has less credibility than Kim Il Jong. And unlike most facist governments, they can't get the trains to run on time either.

Europe very different than US

[CitX]

People in the US value their privacy and expect more of it than in Europe. I've lived in London and Paris for a time and both cities are full of surveillance. Even the French now data mine public transit. I've never been to Scandinavia but I can tell you that there is a totally different attitude about it there. More people accept and even want cameras etc...on every light pole. transactions are monitored and mined more there. That is why banks use data centers in Europe to store information. All Interpol tracking is done their, that is why pedophile rings are always busted from Europe. The are far more Orwellian societies.

Re:What does the average citizen get from this?

[inviolet]

All it will do is make it easier for the government to find SOMETHING on you if they ever want to.

Well said.

Indeed, I have to wonder what the hell they're thinking over there...? Are all Britons living in daily fear of ogres, such that they'll ask for these kinds of measures? Is this a long-term consequence of Socialism, making adults demand to be treated as children? Is it something in the water supply? I mean, WTF?

Where's V When You Need Him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Just watched "V for Vendetta" on cable last night. Turned on the computer, went over to slashdot, and this is the first story I see. Spooky.

Re:What does the average citizen get from this?

[pilgrim23]

If you live in a society that lives by the credo of "Stay in line, this is your number" and where the most common expression is "May I see your Papers Please?" you accept the paranoia of those in charge as an immutable natural law and go on from there. So how to live with it? Protest or work against it? -easy way to get a larger file, that.
No, the best way is to always smile, say "Yes Sir" and do exactly as you please while APEARING to be a common little proliterait. I once knew a janitor who told me that every time he had a kid born he applied for and recieved at least 20 social security cards. The pencil pushers are used to the paperwork and just roboticlly fill in the correct blanks. This way, he had at laset 5 his kid could use, 2 or three he could use, and he could sell the rest. I always thought this fellow a smart man; trading paranoia as a commodity. Spys call it a "legend"; Building up a absolutley solid ID that is totally different from you. I would suggest anyone itnerested in freedom investigate open literature on how this is accomplished. f you are unwilling to stray that far from the matrix, try this: Always lie, always typo, always answer with a smile and a mis-spelled name. such mistakes are expected, forgiven and never result in problems for you but if ENOUGH do it, the monkey wrench colides with the machinery in such a way as to render the whole thing disfunctional,. Do your part to show the insult to individualism and freedom it truely is.

Re:And like Americans and frogs

[hedwards]

I really don't agree. I realize that around here it is popular to bad mouth America,
but I really cringe when I wonder what would happen to the UK if they were subjected
to the same level of terrorism that the US was with September 11th. Not to be too
condescending, but the tube bombings were really nothing in comparison to the numbers
killed in the WTC.

If they are already going to give up all their rights for something relatively small,
I genuinely wonder what is going to happen when a larger terrorist action occurs.

Yes, the politicians here in the US pretty much sold us out to the highest bidding
security company and a group of dolts that believe not only in Armageddon, but that it
is coming in the next decade. But, the political tides here always sway back. Due largely
to the same forces which make it difficult to make any real meaningful changes to fix
social issues.

Re:Europe very different than US

[LynnwoodRooster]

Of course, Wal-Mart only has data on what you do with Wal-Mart, not what you do with Costco, Best Buy, your mortgage lender, etc.

the only time I've really felt scared of the authorities was when I visited the US.

Then I'd say our authorities have done their job. You should be afraid of our ICE, our police, our enforcement arms.

And before someone whips out the quote "Governments should be afraid of their people!" that applies to the elected, legislative body. In this case, enforcement arms - police, ICE, and the like - should instill a little fear... Often times the threat of action by the authorities will halt criminal activities.

Not saying you PERSONALLY were doing anything illegal. But if you're a bit afraid of our enforcement/police agencies, then I'd say good for them...

Re:Europe very different than US

[Tony Hoyle]

btw. orwellian? That implies wrong motivation.

In an hour or so (I start at about 11.30pm) I'm off onto the streets of our fair city (voluntary, no less). I carry a radio that's linked to every nightclub, ever shop, night worker, plus the camera centre. There are about 150 cameras in the city centre... at any time I can make a call to get one or more of them pointed in my direction.

That's not orwellian. Anyone can do what they want... we don't even stop people fighting each other provided nobody else is involved and it's only fists (any sight of a knife and the police are there usually in under 30 seconds.. no guns here so it's not an issue). Stuff happens when people are drunk.. it's no big deal.

It's all about two things - protection - everyone has a right to go out and enjoy themselves without nutters getting in the way and trying to mug them or something - and perception - even though the city is *very* safe at night it's good to have people in high-vis wandering around because people feel safer, and they enjoy themselves more.

Orwellian implies something completely different - that it's used as a means of control. Discounting the fact that it would be nearly impossible to control 250,000 people in one place it implies some kind of conspiracy - and there's simply no evidence of that. The structures aren't even there.. local government usually only pays lipservice to central government... the police are independent again... in reality the way the setup is in this country you couldn't even setup a totalitarian system if you wanted to (as a last backstop the army is allied to the queen not the government and she has the power to forcibly remove them.. it's never get that far though).

Re:What does the average citizen get from this?

[VJ42]

making adults demand to be treated as children?

I don't know if it's anything to do with socialism, but the adult population in this country (the UK) is substantially infantalised. No one is willing to accept responsibility for anything any more, everything is always someone else's fault; and it's usually one of a few narrow groups: "the government", "the media" or "do-gooders\Political correctness". Never "me", everyone thinks that they are totally helpless to change anything, and of course Big-brother takes advantage of this apathy. Personally, I'm working on leaving the country like a coward. I can still get to Eire without a passport, and they currently have a booming economy. Hopefully before that time comes we will have replaced this labour government, and ID cards will be no more (all major opposition parties have pledged to scrap ID cards and the associated database).

Re:"Sorry, you can't leave."

[blowdart]

There's a special arrangement between the UK and Ireland which means you don't need a passport to travel between the two countries. Even now. Getting into the UK from any other EU country does take a passport or a national identity card

I'm in the process of applying for an Irish passport, as I was born in Northern Ireland. I won't be renewing my UK passport this time around.

Re:This is news?

[bfree]

Is the ongoing threat of far right political parties in Europe (the BNP, Le Pen, etc) the reason why Europe's socialist governments sink so much money into subsidizing their rail systems, whereas the United States has no need, and therefore couldn't care a whit about poor Amtrak?

Take maps of greenhouse gas emmissions [unu.edu], signatories of the Kyoto protocol [wri.org] and a comparison of petrol prices [see-search.com] and maybe you'll come up with a different reason.

Re:This is news?

[Spad]

That's cute, you think the current British government gives a flying fuck about protests, or indeed, what "the people" think.

Re:This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally wrong. 1 million people marched through central London before we joined America in a futile idiotic war against Iraq. If we actually had democracy that meant something (News Corporation based democracy does not count) you would think Tony Blair would admit that he was wrong (we were right) about the war in Iraq which was started, we were told, because of weapons of mass destruction.

Governments now lie cheat and create more and more laws that are totally unrelated to my life every single day. Why on earth does it matter if I take more than a certain amount of liquid on a plane - I refuse to believe this drivel that we are all about to die because of terrorism. Maybe we need security services to work how they used to, silently and without intrusion into our lives.

There is no alternative to the morons in charge apart from a Conservative Party in a good position because they have no actual policies yet (just Clinton-style-media-savy-content-free-I-played-foo tball-working-man-is-my-friend-bullshit). I want to believe a Conservative Party that believes in being conservative, however governments in this country seem to always end up so full of the belief that centralising control (I the cabinet minister MUST be the one who knows best!) makes things work better; look at the 100% increase in NHS spending netting a 7% increase in output for how well this works!

Does ANYONE apart from the government want these ID Card - passport mashups? And then there is the next phase full £50 billion worth of ID Cards that no-one wants!

Grrrr really angry! Might have to emigrate... oh sorry not until I hand over all my personal details! Nice.

Re:And like Americans and frogs

[VJ42]

The point of terrorism is just that, to cause terror, not necessarily deaths. With the IRA, we never knew if a bomb would go off in our city for 30 years. They kept a lot of people scared for a long time. Al Quieda are no where near the league that the IRA was in. As a terrorist organisation, the IRA was very successful, Al Quieda has not been. During the recent Northern Ireland elections I've still been cautious and alert for IRA splinter group (such as the "real" IRA) activities; I haven't given a second thought to Al Quieda cells, everything I've seen and heard about them shows that they are both inept and that the security services seem to overplay their significance (almost all arrests seem to end with the vast majority of people being released).

Re:This is news?

[TobascoKid]

We will be a Nation of Suspects, watched.

We already are a nation of suspects, being watched. All the recent alarm bells about "sleep walking into a surveillance society" have been too little, too late. The UK is a already a surveillance society, that we slept walked into. Now it's just a matter of degree.

Re:What does the average citizen get from this?

[makomk]

I once knew a janitor who told me that every time he had a kid born he applied for and recieved at least 20 social security cards. The pencil pushers are used to the paperwork and just roboticlly fill in the correct blanks. This way, he had at laset 5 his kid could use, 2 or three he could use, and he could sell the rest. I always thought this fellow a smart man; trading paranoia as a commodity. Spys call it a "legend"; Building up a absolutley solid ID that is totally different from you. I would suggest anyone itnerested in freedom investigate open literature on how this is accomplished.

One of the points of this whole exercise is to stop this sort of activity, by using biometric data to ensure that each person has only one identity - their own (whatever that may mean). So if this works, you can say goodbye to that idea...

and why not?

[oohshiny]

If a person in country A wants to travel to country B, then country B is certainly justified in demanding assurances from country A that that person is not going to cause problems in country B. It is reasonable, therefore, that country A does a detailed background check and documents that background check; that can be either part of the passport application or part of a separate visa process. Furthermore, the nature and depth of that background check is largely determined by the requirements of country B. These requirements pretty universally include sufficient financial resources and an unblemished police record.

So, yes, the UK looks like it's turning into a surveillance state, but that's an internal matter in the UK, unrelated to either national IDs or the issuance of passports. Requiring background checks in order to travel to other countries is justified and unrelated. UK citizenship does not confer the right to travel to other countries, and other countries who consider the UK background checks unnecessary can still choose to admit you without a passport (like the nations of the EU do, for example).

It is our duty

[symbolset]

To get as much bad data into their database as we can.

what 99% of you fail to realize...

[c6gunner]

A passport is a request by your government for foreign nations and domestic agencies to safeguard your passage and extend you basic courtesies based on your nationality. By extension, they are also an assurance by your government that you will not abuse these privileges or in any way harm your host nation. How can your government make such an assurance if the only data they have on you is your name, address, and date of birth?

Re:This is news?

[MrSteveSD]

If you UKers really cared about it, you'd go into the streets and protest.

Depends what streets you are talking about. If you mean out of the way streets that the media would not be very interested in, then yes. If you are talking about protesting within a kilometre of Parliament, then no. Protests have effectively been made illegal outside parliament and no satisfactory reason has been given. I suspect the real reason is the million strong anti-war march that occurred. That rattled them and they do not want a repeat performance. You can apply to protest, but they give you all kinds of conditions such as you can only have a small group, your placards can only be so big etc etc. Basically the kind of mass protests we have seen in the past will be no more. Not so long ago, a young woman was arrested for simply reading out the names of dead soldiers outside parliament, so they really are enforcing it.

You have the power, you elected those people.

Well only 35% or so actually voted for Labour, but due to the crazy "first past the post" system, they won. The problem is that many peoples votes count for nothing if they live in the wrong area. Labour once promised to change the system, but have gone quiet about it.

The other problem is that privacy issues are not really protest material, although they should be. The best we can hope for is lots of negative coverage about it in the press, and other parties coming forward opposed to the measures.

Re:This is news?

[Flavio]

While I understand your point about feeling the "vibrant essence of life itself", it's one thing to take a trip to Bolivia, and it's another thing to have this experience every day of your life.

I've lived my whole life in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and while conditions here are nowhere near what you've described, the general population's lack of commitment and accountability eventually gets to your nerves. What impressed me most is this part of your comment:

Here in the US, people seem to have what I call a hysteria of action. If something bad happens to anyone , Sometime Must Be Done, so that nobody ever has to suffer ever again. If a child dies in a shooting, all guns everywhere must be registered and locked up. If somebody gets food poisoning, we must institute totally new rules and procedures about handling food. If somebody dies in a car accident, we have to put air-bags on the roofs of all new cars. If somebody dies of a rare, expensive disease, we must establish a new non-profit so that nobody ever need suffer this disease again. If something bad ever manages to happen again, it was because somebody was lazy, not doing their job, and they must be fired. America is a paradise, and if bad things happen, it's somebody's fault for not doing their job.

I greatly admire The Something Must be Done philosophy. It suggests a degree of discipline that pushes society as a whole to improve itself, act on its problems and not try to excuse itself as a victim of circumstances. It shows people value personal responsibility and back their feelings with real actions. And while in some aspects this may be an idealization, it shows a set of values which are lost on the general Brazilian culture.

Re:U.S. instituted you-can't-leave list last Janua

[the eric conspiracy]

That is not correct - this proposed rule only covers public carriers and I think was limited to air and sea, so you are free to leave by car or foot and maybe train. Also as far as I can tell it was never actually enacted, so it may not actually be in force at all. And the rule was proposed for January 2007.

Re:This is news?

[Goalie_Ca]

I think the OP was trying to make the comment that people have knee jerk reactions. A lot of the reactions are stupid and the priorities have been inverted. These things have caused a lot of problems on their own. Politicians like to make pronouncements about how they'll fix the system. Almost 100% of the time this is just propaganda because what they really believe or what the experts really support "doesn't have a nice ring to it". Security is an obvious one. People are giving up freedoms with no real benefit. Billions and billions have been spent (trillions if you count Iraq) in the name of security and freedom. Lawyers have a lot of blame to take as well. If you fart in your neighbours general direction you could end up in court and successfully sued. The law system is broken. Justice is not often just. The massive beaurocracy has evolved as a defense to this. No one is responsible for anything because they can all hide behind this massive organization. Government works like that.

Re:This sceptred isle

[the eric conspiracy]

Well, I've been around long enough to remember almost everything that is happening now from having happened in the past at least twice. During WWII there were plenty of abridgements of what most Americans believe to be due process. During the "Red Scare" ditto. It used to be illegal to be a member of the Communist Party. And of course during the Nixon administration there were plenty of problems. Now post-9/11 we see the same mistakes again. Eventually the pendulum will swing back, mostly because some serious abuses will be discovered.

What disturbs me most about all this is the failure to learn from past mistakes, and the possibility that it will take more time than it should for the reversal to begin. And of course maybe someday the reversal won't happen. That's when the Republic will be over.

Re:Thank Canada

[nihaopaul]

as a British citizen but luckily not a resident, this is totally fucked up, luckily i live in china where the government is a lot nicer with a few less cameras. i'm glad that all my bank accounts were closed down by 'bank policy' when not touched in 4 years, i'm glad i never paid national insurance, i'm glad i left england 9 years ago, i'm glad i have no property, I'm glad i never got a drivers license, i'm glad i left the British public ed-ju-mi-cation system.

now, i will however donate to a cause to "take out" Charles Clark and those that are pushing for this... I've a PayPal account and i'm not afraid to donate!

Re:What the fuck happened to UK?

[vidarh]

At least you don't get photographed and fingerprinted on entry and exit when visiting the UK. Nor when visiting China, for that matter - I found it rather amusing that my recent first and only (so far) visit to Beijing involved far less hassle with border control and customs than my regular visits to the US.

They hardly even bothered to look at me when I arrived at Beijing, contrary to the silly questions, finger printing, photography, scanning of my passport and close looks at my picture whenever I arrive in the US. At least the US visa waiver form is a neverending source of amusement (of course I would certainly tick "yes" on the form if I had committed genocide or planned to commit crimes in the US and hand those forms to the nice border police man to make sure he knows about it...).

Re:Don't like it? Leave! Germany wants terrorists!

[zoney_ie]

At present you can travel without passport from UK mainland to Northern Ireland (if you don't fly Ryanair). From there you can cross the border to the Republic of Ireland without a passport. You can live and work there freely if you are a UK subject (you'll possibly need ID to prove this if your prospective employer doesn't believe you, or the immigration people get onto you - very unlikely - they are ill-equipped), and so you can stay long enough to get citizenship. UK and Ireland haven't signed the EU agreements on cross-border pursuit by police due to how shall we say, regional sensitivities.

Problem solved.

If you're from NI or your parents/grandparents are Irish, even easier, just get an Irish passport.

An interesting thought from an Irish perspective

[Joh_Fredersen]

Ireland and the UK share a free travel area, exclusive of the Schengen agreement [wikipedia.org].

It is a well accepted fact here in Ireland that if the UK introduces mandatory identity cards, the Republic of Ireland would have to follow suit in the interests of maintaining the privileged position we have with respect to travel to the UK. The British are by European standards quite paranoid about border control but, Irish and UK citizens can travel within the UK & Ireland sans passport. This free travel area with the UK is of enormous benefit to the Irish economy, clearly.

Thus if the Blair/Brown government does indeed start to place tough requirements on obtaining a UK passport this means that defacto such a system will be introduced in Ireland, in order to guarantee Ireland can maintain it's privileged access to the UK border

The Irish government would no doubt claim that they *have no choice* and that, of course it's not their fault... it's Tony Blair's fault.... if we, the Irish government don't spy on you to British standards... we might have difficulty traveling to London and Manchester for our stag parties, football games and occasional golfing sessions...

Solution: Grow your hair, buy a log cabin in the mountains and a shot-gun and go wait for *the day* the "Feds" come calling... trying to take your fingerprints for your "biometric" passport.

Re:This is news?

[Original Replica]

You are so right. This administration has endeared us to the world. The leadership and compassion shown through out the Katrina crisis could only be achieved by a true "man of the people". The careful stewardship of our rights and freedoms is commendable. Those men and women who were wounded in battle have been given the very best of care and respect by the government they serve. /sarcasm
It is because I love my country that I so despise our current president. Stop listening to speeches and start looking at the consequences of actions. Our rights, credibility and morale are gone to shit, while oil companies and military contractors are wealthier and more powerful than ever. I'm not saying that the terrorists should have been ignored or appeased, but fighiting terrorism has become a smoke screen for profit and power grabbing.

Re:Muslims

[the_womble]

at least what they pitch to their fundamentalist "Christian" core constituency

Thanks for putting "Christian" in quotes.

As I said to a Muslim friend earlier today, most of us regard GWB and his ilk as an embarrassment.

He also does not seem to have read the bit in the Bible about rich men entering heaven (or rather not entering).

More seriously, why is there do Christian left in the US? It is quite evident in other countries - and right wing British governments have found the churches to be a significant source of opposition (particularly over issues such as poverty) - why is that not happening in the US?