For all the ’security’, we are actually no safer
Jenny McCartney writes in the Sunday Telegraph, dismissing the idea that ID cards could help combat terrorism:
So the Government is pushing for a 58-day detention limit for terrorist suspects. It is also intent upon introducing an identity card for every British citizen, including highly personal biometric data which everyone who renews a passport from 2009 onwards will be compelled to supply. Air travellers will soon be forced to give up to 53 pieces of information to the Home Office before travelling. Rail passengers may have their bags randomly screened at selected “high-risk” stations.
If anyone objects to such initiatives, the Government replies in pious style that they are necessary elements in the domestic war against terror. Yet there is no evidence that any of these measures could have done anything to prevent, for example, the suicide-bomb attacks on the London transport system on July 7, 2005.
