[no2id-supporters] NO2ID Newsletter No.51

Thu Aug 3 16:50:38 BST 2006

You've received this mail by opting-in to the "ID cards news" list, run 
by The no2id Coalition, http://www.no2id.net/

The list information page is 
http://www.no2id.net/mailman/listinfo/no2id-supporters , from which you 
can change your subscription options.  Any problems and you can mail the 
listmasters, on listmaster at no2id.net

    NO2ID
    NO2ID Supporters' Newsletter No. 51 - 3rd August 2006

*Contacting us:* Call or email the office - 020-7793-4005 or 
(office at no2id.net). Please do not reply to this email. (The from address 
is the not a working email address)

      LOCAL GROUPS NEEDED NEAR ALL 69 NEW PASSPORT PROCESSING CENTRES

The government's combined ID card/Biometric passport scheme is still 
rolling along with the announcement last week of an almost 30% passport 
price hike (£51 to £66) from October 5th. This will be the second price 
increase in under a year - representing a 57% increase since November 
2005. From October the UK Identity and Passport Service (UKIPS) will 
also be introducing face-to-face interviews for first-time adult 
applicants at a network of some 69 processing centres across the 
country. These processing centres will form part of the network 
eventually intended to enrol the entire population onto the National 
Identity Register (NIR). To campaign effectively against ID cards and 
the National Identity Register it is essential that we have local groups 
in each of the 69 towns that will host these centres. Below is a list of 
the location of all 69 centres. If you live in one of these locations 
and there is not currently a local NO2ID group in your area then please 
consider helping us by setting up a local group.

The 69 passport centres will be in:

Aberdeen, Aberystwyth, Andover, Armagh, Barnstaple, Belfast, 
Berwick-upon-Tweed, Birmingham, Blackburn, Boston, Bournemouth, Bristol,
Bury St Edmunds, Camborne, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Coleraine, 
Crawley, Derby, Dover, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh,
Exeter, Galashiels, Glasgow, Hastings, Hull, Inverness, Ipswich, Kendal, 
Kilmarnock, Kings Lynn, Leeds, Leicester,
Lincoln, Liverpool, London, Luton, Maidstone, Manchester, Middlesbrough, 
Newcastle, Newport, Newport, Northallerton, Northampton,
Norwich, Oban, Omagh, Oxford, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, 
Reading, Scarborough, Sheffield, Shrewsbury, St Austell,
Stirling, Stoke on Trent, Swansea, Swindon, Warwick, Wick, Wrexham, 
Yeovil, York.

If you can set up a local group in one of these towns then please 
contact us at (office at no2id.net). A local group can start with just one 
person but we will help you to grow.

      What's next?

        NO2ID Beermats

Newcastle NO2ID have a few hundred NO2ID beermats for sale at £15 per 
100 including  postage and packing - send cheques made payable to NO2ID 
to North House, 17 North Street East, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8DF.

        New Local Group in Chesterfield

We now have a local group in Chesterfield in the East Midlands, for more 
information contact Vincent Smile at (chesterfield at no2id.net). A full 
list of groups can be found at www.no2id.net/localGroups

        Parliamentary Committee Report - 4th August

The Select Committee on Science and Technology will tomorrow (4th 
August) publish its report on 'Identity Card Technologies: Scientific 
Advice, Risk and Evidence'. The report is expected to be critical of the 
government's ID card scheme because not enough details have been released.
The report will be available from 
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmsctech.htm

        5th August - Leeds NO2ID at Unity Day event

Saturday, 5th August in Hyde Park, Leeds at the annual unity day event. 
Feel free to join us there if you'd like to pick up some leaflets to 
hand out in your locality, and for a get together chat over a cold 
lemonade. If you've never been to Unity day, it's a great event, with 
live music,
circus skills, kids events, loads of stalls and stands etc. More info 
here: http://www.unityday.freeserve.co.uk/

        8th August - Glasgow NO2ID Meeting

Tuesday 8th August at 7:30pm in Mono. If Mono is unsuitable on the 
night, we will instead go to Laurie's across the road. More details at 
(www.glasgow-no2id.org.uk/meeting.html). All are welcome!

        9th August - Manchester NO2ID - Victoria Station Flyering

Wednesday 9th August, 5:30pm at Victoria Station. NO2ID will be flyering 
at Manchester's third mainline station, for an hour or so. See 
http://manchester.no2id.net for more information.

        12th August - Manchester NO2ID - Salford Day of ID Register
        Opposition

Saturday, 12th August, 12:30pm at Salford's Broadwalk Library for a 1pm 
start (look for NO2ID T-shirts). We'll be spending a Saturday afternoon 
raising awareness in Salford. We'll be splitting into groups of two or 
three people and targetting the entrances to Salford's shopping centre.

        16th August - Manchester NO2ID Meeting

Wednesday 16th August, 7:30pm in Room 3 of the Friends Meeting House on 
Mount Street, on the far side of the library from St. Peter's Square. At 
the meeting, we will discuss the progress of the Manchester NO2ID 
campaign and future events we can undertake to spread the word. You can 
see our previous minutes at 
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/manchester/2006/07/345975.html 
and an agenda for the meeting should be published in advance. Everyone 
is welcome to this meeting, which will conclude by 9pm.

        14th August - "Scrambling for Safety 8" meeting about internet
        surveillance

Monday 14 August 2006, at the Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, South Wing, 
UCL, Gower St, London WC1. The UK Home Office is currently consulting 
over plans to give the police powers to require the production of 
decryption keys and of plain text. They have also produced a draft code 
of practice on government access to "communications data" - phone 
numbers and e-mail addresses contacted, web sites visited, locations of 
mobile phones, etc. 'Scrambling for Safety 8' will bring together 
representatives from government, industry and human rights organisations 
to discuss these consultations with interested members of the public. 
This is the only such meeting during the consultation period, it is free 
to attend but space is limited. For more details go to 
(http://tinyurl.co.uk/2utt). Come along and make sure your voice is heard!

        August  - Inverness NO2ID Campaign stall

NO2ID Inverness will have a campaign stall at various locations in and 
around Inverness throughout August:
11 August Tain Gathering, 12 August Inverness High Street, 13 August 
Abernethy Games
20 August Nairn Games, 21 August Crieff Games, 26 August Inverness High 
Street
27 August Glenurquhart Gathering, Drumnadrochit, 3 & 4 Sept Glamis 
Castle Country Fair
See http://www.no2id-scotland.net/local/inverness.html

        August & September NO2ID Cambridge Campaign stall

Cambridge NO2ID will be running street stalls outside the Guildhall, 
Cambridge, on the following dates, from 10am onwards: Saturday 12th 
August, Saturday 2nd September, Saturday 23rd September. 
Location:(http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=cb2+3qj&ie=UTF8&ll=52.204786,0.119251&spn=0.003971,0.012167&om=1). 
Drop round to collect a badge and car sticker, or just to say "Hello". 
Volunteers to help run the stall also welcome. Contact Andrew Watson via 
cambridge at no2id.net, or on 07710 469624.

        12th September NO2ID Volunteers Meeting Central London - 'The
        European Dimension'

Tuesday, 12th September at 7.00pm in the Brockway Hall at Conway Hall, 
25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 (nearest tube: Holborn). All are welcome 
to NO2ID's next regular volunteers' meeting. The meeting will be on the 
theme of ID cards and the EU. The meeting is free to attend but we will 
be asking for donations to help cover the cost of the room hire.

*Saturdays 1pm - 3pm - NO2ID Edinburgh Campaign stall*

A campaigning stall is held three weeks in each month to raise public 
awareness of the Identity Cards scheme, collect donations and entries 
for our petition, and also to increase membership of our group. The 
usual location is the east end of Princes Street, opposite the Balmoral 
Hotel See http://www.no2id-scotland.net/edinburgh/.

        1st October - NO2ID Comedy fund raiser gig - "Who do you think
        you are?" at the Hackney Empire

Tickets will be available soon for NO2ID's comedy event. Acts include: 
Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Andrew O'Neil and Lucy Porter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

      What just happened?

        Cambridge NO2ID news

Andrew Watson of NO2ID Cambridge reports:
Cambridge NO2ID kicked off the summer campaigning season with a stall at 
Cambridge's Strawberry Fair on 3rd June, signing up 785 new NO2ID 
supporters in a single day. Photos of the stall are here: 
(http://www.gnutters.org/no2id/). Since then, we've been holding a 
street stall every third Saturday in the city centre to collect more 
supporters and publicise the "Renew for Freedom" campaign.

        NO2ID Edinburgh and its non-partisan meetings

John Welford of NO2ID Edinburgh reports:
Here in Edinburgh we have this year been diligently putting into 
practice the NO2ID claim to be a non-partisan campaign.  Back in 
December we fired off six emails to representatives of the main 
political parties in the Scottish Parliament, inviting them to find an 
MSP willing to come and speak at one of our future meetings. So far this 
has resulted in three excellent speakers and three excellent meetings, 
with MSPs from the Scottish Greens, SNP and the Scottish Socialists.

This exercise has been much more encouraging than might have been 
anticipated. For although all the speakers obviously arrive with their 
own distinctive and quite differing political agendas, it has been 
thoroughly heartening to observe in practice just how middle-of-the-road 
the NO2ID position currently is across the broad political spectrum - 
and indeed how strongly supported it is.  Other groups might like to try 
something similar.

At the same time it cannot be denied that some individuals will at times 
be uncomfortable with our non-partisan position, and will not initially 
be very keen on listening to someone coming from an opposing political 
position.  But in practice such a disadvantage is heavily outweighed by 
the many advantages, and it is clear that our non-partisan position is 
giving us a considerable "strength in numbers" which should be grasped 
with enthusiasm.

Finally, we have tried repeatedly to encourage a Labour MSP to attend a 
meeting, but they seem to be remarkably shy creatures these days. We 
have not given up hope entirely...
See www.no2id-scotland.net/edinburgh/

        Blair brands single issue pressure groups "a malign tyranny"

Last week Tony Blair addressed Rupert Murdoch's News Corps in Pebble 
Beach, California. Blair's speech about leadership laid out his thinking 
on world affairs and the forces that leaders like him must fight. Blair 
said: "NGOs and pressure groups with single causes can be benevolent but 
can also exercise a kind of malign tyranny over the public debate." What 
led him to this conclusion? Perhaps its his surprise at fact that not 
everyone shares his vision of a numbered, fingerprinted and surveilled 
society. Blair hinted at his thinking when he said: "It is, to me at 
least, almost incredible that the proposal to introduce an identity 
register in the UK should be so extraordinarily controversial. But it 
is." Yes it is, in fact some people believe that Blair's vision is, 
well, a malign tyranny.

        EU proposals to allow the fingerprinting of children at birth

Statewatch last week reported details of EU Council discussions 
regarding what age the fingerprints of children can be compulsorily 
taken for EU passports. A report from the EU Council Presidency at the 
end of June (EU doc no: 9403/1/06) states that: "Scientific tests have 
confirmed that the papillary ridges on the fingers are not sufficiently 
developed to allow biometric capture and analysis until the age of six." 
However the document goes on to propose that fingerprinting and storage 
of a digital facial image (for use with facial recognition systems) 
should be compulsory from 12 years of age but below that age it states: 
"storage is permissible if provided for by national legislation". Tony 
Bunyan, Statewatch editor, said: "The decisions are being made in secret 
meetings based on secret documents - people and parliaments are to have 
no say in the decision." This is once again an example of policy 
laundering. Decisions are being made by an EU committee composed of 
representatives of the 25 EU governments. These decisions are then 
touted by the governments as "international obligations" or the like.
For more details see 
www.statewatch.org/news/2006/jul/08fingerprinting-children.htm

        Dutch Campaign

The Dutch anti-ID campaign MMI is urging people to renew passports 
and/or IDs before 18 August. The Netherlands will be introducing chips 
into passports and IDs from 26 Aug.  MMI's special campaign page on this 
) includes a link to Renew for Freedom and the following: 

"Because passports and identity cards are also used as an internal 
passport in order to gain access to work, healthcare, education, social 
benefits and so on, anyone who objects as a matter of principle [to 
having their biometrics taken] will be under threat of exclusion from 
society.  That also breaches international treaties.

Because of the big financial and political interests involved, the 
authorities are unlikely to provide any leeway for conscientious 
objectors. So we will have to do that ourselves, also as a way of 
supporting each other. The best way of doing this seems to be to set up 
a foundation which, independently of the authorities, will look after 
the interests of conscientious objectors."

In Britain, the government is trying to bring in a national identity 
card with biometrics, a personal number and a central database. The 
campaign group NO2ID, which is fighting these plans, is working on a 
fund for opponents and for those who may be prosecuted in future for 
refusing to comply.  We can do the same in the Netherlands."

See www.id-nee.nl/English.html and 
www.id-nee.nl/paspoortaktietegenchip.html (in dutch)

        Poll shows majority against ID cards

An ICM poll commissioned by NO2ID in July shows a majority of people 
opposed to the introduction of ID cards. NO2ID has commissioned ICM to 
ask the same question at various points over the last year. The latest 
poll shows that 47% of the 1002 people asked think the introduction of 
ID cards would be a good idea, 51% think they would be a bad idea. The 
same poll in February showed 52% in favour, 45% against and in November 
last year 50% in favour and 48% against.
The full data set and question asked can be found at 
http://tinyurl.co.uk/h29w

        US: New documentary looks at ID cards

Hollywood producer Aaron Russo released a new documentary 'America: 
 >From Freedom to Fascism' in the US last week. Russo produced hits such 
as 'Trading Places' and 'The Rose' but has now turned his hand to 
documentary making. Amongst other things the film looks at ID cards and 
the surveillance society.
See http://www.freedomtofascism.com and an extended trailer at 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1616088001333580937
------------------------------------------------------------------------

      "ID" in the news

        ID cards 'in Labour's manifesto' - BBC News Online 3/8/06

Prime Minister Tony Blair has insisted that identity cards will form a 
"major plank" of the Labour Party manifesto at the next General 
Election. Mr Blair's pledge, which comes despite the fact he will step 
down before then, was made in his monthly news briefing. He was 
responding to recent delays in the identity card scheme.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5242300.stm

        False ID 'escalating' among under-18s - Morning Advertiser.co.uk
        2/8/06

A leading bar operator has warned that the use of false ID cards is 
escalating. Ultimate Leisure executive chairman Mark Jones said: "It has 
increased dramatically since the new Licensing Act came in. We are 
having to ID virtually everyone before we allow them into our premises."
http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news_detail.aspx?articleid=17998

        Gordon Brown will drop ID cards scheme, PAC chairman predicts -
        Public Servant 31/7/06

The Labour Party would face 15 years of damaging Commons' criticism if 
it pushed ahead with the controversial national identity cards 
programme, writes Dean Carroll. Chairman of the public accounts 
committee (PAC) Edward Leigh told Public Servant he thought Gordon Brown 
would drop the scheme when he became Prime Minister.
http://www.publicservant.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=290

        State snoopers compiling sinister photo database of your home

Conservatives today sounded the alarm at a new database of every home in 
the country being rolled out by stealth by Government inspectors. Every 
man, women and child -- and the home they live in -- will soon be logged 
and recorded by the state, with photos to match.
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.press.release.page&obj_id=131203

        Ivorian ID scheme sparks clashes - BBC News Online 23/7/06

In Ivory Coast at least one person has been killed and several injured 
in the southern town of Divo. The clashes were sparked by a UN-backed ID 
scheme, part of preparations for presidential elections later this year. 
The scheme will issue identification cards to some 3.5m unregistered 
people to enable them to vote.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/5208776.stm

        Fingerprint security at day nursery - Northampton Today 21/7/06

A nursery in Northamptonshire has installed a hi-tech fingerprint entry 
system to create an even safer environment at the centre. Hardingstone 
Day Nursery is using sophisticated technology, usually seen in military 
bases and government buildings, to admit parents and carers on to its 
premises as part of a £7,000 package of security measures to protect 
staff and children.
http://www.northamptontoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=255&ArticleID=1643669

        Biometric passports can be scanned from 20 metres - NewsRoom
        Finland 20/7/06

Finnish daily Keskisuomalainen cited tests carried out in the US showing 
that the data contained in biometric passports, to be introduced in 
Finland in August, can be hijacked from a distance of up to 20 metres. 
It was discovered in the US test that the data could be read by an 
unauthorised third party when the chip in a passport was being scanned 
by an official agent. Kari Rajamäki (soc dem), the Finnish interior 
minister, told reporters that any potential data security issues would 
be addressed. "If there are any problems with the Finnish passport 
[type], then they will certainly be addressed," he said.
http://newsroom.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=13204&group=General

(Please send me any items of interest you encounter - 
Editor(newsletter at no2id.net) )
------------------------------------------------------------------------

      What you can do

You can help us by:

        1. Getting involved with/setting up a local group

A local group will start with just one person but we will help you to 
grow. Organise leafleting, a stall or a public meeting to educate the 
public about the database that lies behind the proposed ID card scheme. 
If you interested in setting up a group contact us at office at no2id.net 
for more details. If there is already a group in your area then contact 
them to get involved.
See http://www.no2id.net/localGroups

        2. Encourage friends/family to renew their passport now

The ID Cards Act turns your passport into a one-way ticket to control of 
your identity by the government. In October the price of a passport will 
by nearly 30% to £66. If you renew your passport now you can buy ten 
years of freedom for £51. Encourage others to do the same and promote 
our renew for freedom website http://www.renewforfreedom.org

* We also maintain a list of things you can do on our website at 
http://www.no2id.net/getInvolved/other.php
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Publication details: © NO2ID 2006 - This document may be freely 
redistributed in one-to-one communications or physical copies as long as 
it is reproduced in its entirety including this notice. It may not be 
mass-mailed without the prior permission of NO2ID.

NO2ID, Box No.412, 78 Marylebone High Street, LONDON W1U 5AP
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.no2id.net/pipermail/no2id-supporters/attachments/20060803/badb3123/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 8757 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.no2id.net/pipermail/no2id-supporters/attachments/20060803/badb3123/attachment.jpeg>