Just a few key-strokes away from a new Orwellian age
In Bell writes in The Herald:
After the child benefit fiasco there was a widespread assumption that the government would “think again” over a national identity card. The existence of a sufficient supply of gall was in question. It was almost taken for granted that humbled ministers would understand “A therefore B”. If you cannot manage one set of records, therefore you cannot hope to manage one giant, interlaced system containing all records.
But not a bit of it. The ID card will proceed, they said, after the usual “review”. Britain, almost as one, merely shrugged. We are forever disgorging passwords into a phone-line, forever having our movements tracked by CCTV, forever disclosing our most intimate information to strangers “for security reasons”. A little bit more couldn’t hurt, not if we’re helping to fight terrorism. Or benefit fraud. Or illegal immigration. Or – what’s this week’s horror?
