[no2id-supporters] NO2ID Newsletter No.52

Thu Aug 17 15:42:48 BST 2006

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    NO2ID
    NO2ID Supporters' Newsletter No. 52 - 17th 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)

      WE MUST PRESSURE ALL POLITICAL PARTIES TO ABOLISH ID CARDS/NIR

This week David Cameron has released the Conservative party's 
'mini-manifesto'[1]. Item 6 clearly states: "Abolishing ID cards if they 
are introduced." NO2ID would like to see the leaders of *all* the 
opposition parties make such statements - some already have - but we 
don't imagine for a minute that even this would guarantee success. On 
the Parliamentary front, it will be in large part about how high up the 
political agenda we can get 'ID cards' by the time of the next general 
election. And then how clearly the electorate vote for abolition or 
against the surveillance state.

A positive thing to do right now, if you have a Tory MP, is to use 
http://www.writetothem.com/ to draw their attention to this particular 
mini-manifesto promise, and point out that this is one issue about which 
you as their constituent are passionately concerned. This first step 
should at least start the issue registering on the Conservative party 
consciousness* but if you feel like adding some detail - e.g. "My key 
concern is that the National Identity Register, i.e. the highly invasive 
database behind the cards, is abolished too", or, "If you are going to 
abolish ID cards, then do I have your assurance that a Conservative 
government would therefore repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006?" - then 
please do.

At this stage it is not worth taking an accusatory or negative approach 
- e.g. "Why should we trust you?" - when the point is to get politicians 
thinking that abolition and repeal is the right way to go. And for those 
of you with non-Tory/non-Labour MPs, there's merit in pointing out 
Cameron's latest promise and asking their party's position. A 'bidding 
war' could get interesting...

* MPs do take note of how many letters they receive on each issue, even 
if they don't always respond.

References:

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_08_06_cameron.pdf

      What's next?

        Local groups & the new passport processing centres

Following our appeal for volunteers to set up NO2ID groups near the 
passport processing centres we heard from volunteers in a few of the 
areas including Shrewsbury, Leicester and Barnstaple. 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.

        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 Shrewsbury

We now have a local group in Shrewsbury, West Midlands. For more 
information contact Dr Rob Findlay at (shrewsbury at no2id.net). A full 
list of groups can be found at www.no2id.net/localGroups

        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.

        Cambridge NO2ID - Student volunteers needed

Cambridge NO2ID is preparing to spread the word about government ID card 
legislation to students arriving for the new term at both Anglia Ruskin 
University and the University of Cambridge. If you're studying at either 
University, and would like to help publicise NO2ID to your fellow 
students, please contact cambridge at no2id.net as soon as possible (and 
preferably before term starts).

        4th September NO2ID Shrewsbury Initial Planning Meeting

Monday 4th September 8.15pm at the Inn on the Green, Bank Farm Road, 
Radbrook Green, Shrewsbury, SY3 6DU. The pub is next to the Radbrook 
Green shopping centre, and there is plenty of parking. The function room 
has been booked - inside the pub and turn right. See 
(www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=52.6968&lon=-2.7754&scale=5000&icon=x). 
For more details contact shrewsbury at no2id.net

        Saturdays throughout September - Highbury NO2ID stall/leafleting
        - volunteers needed

Highbury NO2ID is trying to run a stall / hand out leaflets on each 
Saturday during September in order promote the 'Renew for Freedom' 
campaign before the 1st October passport changes.  Anyone in the North 
London area who can help out for an hour or so should contact Caroline 
Day at (highbury at no2id.net). The dates planned are Sept 2nd, 9th, 16th, 
23rd.  Times: 11pm to 2-3pm ish. Place: Highbury & Islington tube station.

        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.

        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.

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      What just happened?

        Waltham Forest council vote against ID cards

Last month, a vote in Waltham Forest to oppose ID Cards and affiliate 
with NO2ID passed comfortably with the Conservatives siding with the 
LibDems against Labour opposition. See 
http://chingfordandwglibdems.blogspot.com/2006/07/council-says-no-to-id-cards.html 
and the council minutes at
http://www1.walthamforest.gov.uk/moderngov/ieListDocuments.asp?CId=335&MId=1515&Ver=4&J=4

        Youth Against ID website launches

The Youth Against ID website is now up and running at 
www.youthagainstid.org . It's the place for young people and students to 
meet others concerned about ID cards and the NIR and to get information 
and news on anti-ID card events and campaigns.

        Scrambling for Safety 8

On Monday (August 14th) the Scrambling for Safety 8 conference was held 
at University College London. The conference looked at worrying new 
powers in Part III of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 
that came into force in 2000. Slides of some of the speakers are 
available at the foundation for information policy research (fipr)'s 
website and there are plans to post up videos of the speakers. At the 
event was Lord Phillips of Sudbury, who has given up his seat in the 
House of Lords to fight "crap legislation" such as RIPA and the Identity 
Cards Act.
See http://www.fipr.org/sfs8/index.html

        ID Card themed short film

A short graduation film, 'In the Name of Security', set in 2009 and 
exploring the subject of ID cards has been published to the web. The 
film's director said: "I wanted to make a film that was provocative and 
would encourage debate on an issue that I feel is extremely important: 
mandatory ID cards".
See the film at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9fSLlJQRKU (broadband 
internet connection required).

        Video shows that ePassports can detonate explosives

Amidst the heightened security measures imposed at UK airports last week 
restrictions were placed on what passengers could carry on to flights. 
Items such as liquids and electronic devices were not allowed in hand 
luggage because the authorities claimed they could be used to blow up 
planes. One item that was allowed was passengers' passports, including 
the new ePassports that contain an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) 
chip. Interestingly however security analysts Flexilis have demonstrated 
that such passports can be used to detonate explosives. In their 
findings the group said: "it may be possible to determine the 
nationality of a passport holder by 'fingerprinting' the characteristics 
inherent in each country's RFID chips.  Taken to a logical extreme, this 
security vulnerability could make it possible for terrorists to craft 
explosives that detonate only when someone from the U.S. is nearby". The 
group have released a video that demonstrates their findings.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XXaqraF7pI and 
http://www.flexilis.com/epassport.html

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      "ID" in the news

        'Crap' comms, ID legislation can still be beaten - The Register
        16/8/06

The former Lord Phillips of Sudbury, civil liberties campaigner and 
opponent of ID Cards, got sick of passing "crap legislation" while 
sitting in the House of Lords, but thinks he can still help clear up the 
mess. "On ID Cards, the battle is not lost, the battle is there to be 
won," he said. The rallying cry is the first indication of how Phillips 
might spend his time since he took the unprecedented step as a life peer 
by giving up his seat in the House of Lords last month.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/16/ripa_id_sudbury/

        Consult and communicate better, scientists tell government -
        eGov monitor 16/8/06

Concerns raised by Professor Angela Sasse (UCL Computer Science) about 
the government's approach to ID card technologies have been highlighted 
in a report published by the Science and Technology Committee. Outside 
the inquiry, she has warned of the vulnerability of a single database 
holding personal data for the entire population, and of the 
interoperability problems in store if the government does not decide 
definitively which departments will be plugged into the system.
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/7211

        Merseyside schoolchildren are being fingerprinted - 16/8/06
        Liverpool Daily Post

Schoolchildren across Merseyside are being fingerprinted in the 
classroom, it was claimed last night. Five schools in Liverpool, 
Knowsley, St Helens and Warrington are said to be among hundreds in the 
country to use a new biometric system.
http://tinyurl.co.uk/a09o

        E-Passports Issued Despite Security Concerns - Newsfactor
        magazine online 15/8/06

Privacy groups have raised concerns that the e-passports are vulnerable 
to remote scanning, which would allow pirates to copy the holder's 
details and create bogus travel documents. Such fears were heightened 
earlier this month when a German computer security expert demonstrated 
at a conference in Las Vegas how to crack the RFID chip and clone the 
new passports.
http://tinyurl.co.uk/z9bt

        Government loses 24,000 ID passes - The Scotsman 14/8/06

More than 24,500 government security passes giving access to military 
sites and sensitive Whitehall offices have gone missing in the past 
three years.
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1180692006

        Brown to let shops share ID card data - The Observer 6/8/06

Gordon Brown is planning a massive expansion of the ID cards project 
that would widen surveillance of everyday life by allowing high-street 
businesses to share confidential information with police databases. Far 
from intending to dump ID cards once he is in Downing Street, Brown is 
quietly studying how biometric technology - identifying people by unique 
markers such as fingerprints and iris patterns - could be expanded over 
the next 20 years to fight crime.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1838363,00.html

        Hackers Clone E-Passports - Wired News 3/8/06

A German computer security consultant has shown that he can clone the 
electronic passports that the United States and other countries are 
beginning to distribute this year. The controversial e-passports contain 
radio frequency ID, or RFID, chips that the U.S. State Department and 
others say will help thwart document forgery. But Lukas Grunwald, a 
security consultant with DN-Systems in Germany and an RFID expert, says 
the data in the chips is easy to copy.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71521-0.html?tw=rss.index

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

You can help us by:

        1. Encouraging 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

        2. Helping to spread our message

Tell your friends and any organisations that you belong to about the 
NO2ID campaign and that you are supporting it. Most people are scarcely 
aware of the government's ID database project, and few understand the 
dangers. Feel free to redistribute this newsletter to acquaintances.

* We also maintain a list of things you can do on our website at 
http://www.no2id.net/getInvolved/other.php
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Publication details: © NO2ID 2006 - This document may be freely 
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NO2ID, Box 412, 19-21 Crawford Street, LONDON W1H 1PJ

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