White Rose is a protest blog collective focusing on civil liberties in the UK.
It was set up to point a finger at the erosion of personal freedom in the UK.
Government's active measures introduce new means of control such as identity cards and surveillance cameras, the passive measures such as weakening of double jeopardy and presumption of innocence.


The arguments
The resistants
Gabriel Syme and Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net to rally the Anglosphere behind the UK.
White Rose contributors are those bloggers and non-bloggers who oppose restrictions on personal liberties.

To find out how to become a White Rose contributor, please go here.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
UK ID Card Battle Heats Up
Gabriel Syme (London)
(0)   Identity cards

Wired writes that Britain's House of Commons this week moved forward with plans to create a new national ID card, but a sharp reversal in support for the controversial measure signals a rocky road ahead.

British lawmakers voted in favor of the bill on Tuesday by an unexpectedly thin margin of 314-283. At the last minute, some members of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party revolted against the cards, which would carry fingerprints and iris scans of cardholders and be backed by a national database containing extensive personal information.

A Home Office spokeswoman said it's too early to comment on the bill's future success.

We won't speculate on the passage of a bill through parliament. It still has an awful lot of readings to go through. Anything can happen to it.

I wouldn't hold my breath as Tony Blair indicated that he will use a Parliament Act to force the legistration through. The struggle continues...


Comments

As is posted on Tim Worstalls pages, http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2005/07/another_governm.html, if they can't get something like this right, how are they going to explain the huge cost overrun and collapse of a system which can be calculated as being twenty times more sophisticated than the farming version, which is utilising untried technology, and is being given to EDS, the governmnets favourite IT company which, it is alleged, has given more back-handers to Whitehall than was served up at all of Wimbledon!

Posted by: Mike Cunningham on July 5, 2005 01:10 PM


Is Bob Geldof a meddling idiot?
Who is responsible for poverty?
And what is poverty anyway?

http://indcoup.blogspot.com/2005/07/new-colonialists.html

Posted by: indcoup on July 8, 2005 07:33 AM

Arrgh, now the politicians want biometric ID cards here in Norway too. Sorry, but I don't know if there's an article in English on it, I just read of it in Aftenposten, and it appears there's already a majority in Parliament in favour of it. The parties supposed to be on the right are in favour, while the socialists might take decide against it. Grr, grr. (I had to fret somewhere, and this seemed like a good place.)

Posted by: Snorre on July 13, 2005 10:16 AM
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