A public burning of these wretched things in Parliament Square.

And no, we wont be applying for permission to do it.

(I know this does not address the real evil, the database, but its a start)

So someone (a politician!) stands up for what they believe in, and what appears to be the general concensus of the Reg readership and they get a slagging for not really doing anything/not doing enough. Thanks for that.

Last I heard though, we are all going to have to pay for our own cards, refusing to do that would seem like a perfectly easy way of achieving illigality, on the same lines of destruction and refusing to accept delivery. The having a passport already, therefore being on databases and having to wait a bit is hardly his fault is it?

Practically everyone with a passport will be on the database to some extent, but they will only have limited information (i.e. only what has always been necessary) for those that renewed before the interrogation centres opened, and they wont have biometrics such as fingerprints.

I refuse to have my fingerprints taken like a common criminal, which of course is exactly what the government intends to make me if I refuse. Looks like they will have to release a few more foreign murderers to make room for me, and no doubt a few others like me, in prison.

The Lib-Dems have proved quite conclusively by their actions in Scotland & Wales that there is no point at all to them. They are facile in the extreme and frankly I wouldn't believe the latest bag of weasels vying for the "top job" further than I could throw them.

The idea of a UK politician (ANY politician) being interested in anyone other than themselves surely belongs back in the days of Jackanory & Captain Pugwash?

Facile, self-serving venal scum.

That's what the definition of politician is these days - perhaps we could try to get dictionaries to reflect reality eh? ;-)

Anyone who wants to avoid the NIR should renew their passport now if it's likely to expire in the next five years. Ideally you should have done it before the price went up a month ago. They might eventually get you by other means, but there's a reasonable chance that by the time you need to renew again, we'll have had a change of government and managed to ditch the whole lot. If not, then we're all doomed anyway.

I've still got my pre-photo driving licence, they haven't quite gotten around to forcing us to change those.

Who loves money that much? (hint: not the UK Govt).

I for one will be looking for any way at all to make my information in the database as useless as possible.

I will not be handing over any biometric information, if they want it then they will have to come get it.

I will also be trying to use any means possible to get as much information about me that is stored in the database into the public domain. Advertising it for all and sundry to come and steal. Its as good as stolen anyway by the government, so if I can reduce usefulness of the data about me in any way then I shall be taking those steps.

I expect there to be consequences for my opinions and actions but I am not cattle and refuse to be bagged, tagged and branded for life.

If I wanted to live in a police state I would move to Russia.

They can have my fingerprints, retinal scans or whatever but I sure as hell won't pay for it.

I get taxed enough each month and then get taxed again when I buy stuff with my hard earned cash.

OK I had to pay for my passport when I wanted to go abroad (or the Republic of Ireland anyway) so if I did not want to pay I could have just not gone on holiday but they'll have to chuck me in a police car and prise my credit/debit card out of my cold,dead hands before I'll pay for it (but even then they might have some difficulty due to chip and pin though that system is probably full of backdoors for HMG)

Up yours Gordon!

> If you refuse to take delivery of it

I wonder how the system would cope if, when it arrives in the post, you write "not known at this address" on the envelope and post it back.

how about we all change our names to Howard Johnson?

my hat, my gloves, my coat and my phoney dog-poo!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I so wish I was working on this ID register project from the IT side as a consultant, just think of how much cash it's making somebody. Like fuck this piece of shit will ever float, 2 years before it's compulsary?

Bollocks.

I want in on this cash cow dammit!

If those muppets want my fingerprints they can have them when they take them from my cold dead hand! Oh God, I think I just joined the NRA. Maybe we should have a Second Amendment type law here, "The right to bear arms to oppose tyranical govement", nothing really to do with hunting or assult rifles.

"The goverment should fear the People, not the People fear the Goverment", V for Vendatta

So if you refuse NID you are a lawbreaker and being a lawbreaker HMG can then take the stuff they wanted plus your fingerprints and DNA

What a fucking marvellous country we have

V for Vendatta

Lots of Lib Dems renewed their passports as part of the NO2ID campaign; it was (and still is) a popular campaign in our Party. We promoted the campaign on our web sites, and our MPs voted against the bill in Parliament. The Cons, who now say they are against it too, did not. The ID card is illiberal, unnecessary and expensive. I thought that was the Reg's view too? I even have a NO2ID T-shirt, which I bought via El Reg, so why is it now suggesting a Lib Dem MP isn't serious about opposing ID cards?

Historically, Clarence Henry Willcock was a Liberal who refused to show his war-time identity card in 1950, claiming the National Registration Act of 1939 no longer applied as the emergency which it was based on (the war) was over. He lost his case in court, but the subsequent protests forced the post-war government to repeal the Act in 1953. We need more people like him now!

A short nuking will brick any smart card very effectively. A card that's been destroyed in this fashion is indistinguishable from one that's a "natural" dud.

If a sufficiently large people did this any system that relies on automated card reading would grind to a halt as the failure rate goes up to 20% or so.

On the radio last night, he was interviewed and said that he intended merely to challenge in court the right of the ID service to demand the information. Whether he made a different statement earlier on, I don't know, but on last night's evidence there is no "MP advocates law-breaking" story here.

The interviewer *then* asked how he could advocate breaking the law passed by the Parliament he sat in. From which I conclude that, in the eyes of the interviewer, even exercising one's right of access to a court constitutes some form of offence these days. Fortunately, I can't see the courts themselves taking that view.

I've never been a huge supporter of the Lib Dems, but I appreciate what they say, I preferred Menzies Campbell (sorry), but I'd still much rather vote for them than a) vote for a party that jumps on the bandwagon then shoots the horses, b) claims the bandwagon has a bomb on it, arrests the horses, interrogates them and tortures them when they won't speak, assumes they aren't speaking because they've got something to hide and locks them up indefinitely, before blowing up the cart and bombing the horses relatives.

... it's a government-run IT project. Anyone with experience of NPfIT or any other major online intiative HMG have tried in the last decade will know it is doomed to failure.

Chances are, it will cost the taxpayer another abscene number of £Ms and then identify me as a 90 year old grandmother from Milton Keynes who happened to die last year (no offence intended to anyone who was, or had, a 90 yr old grannie in MK who died last year...).

It's a huge waste of money, it's a massive invasion of privacy but it'll never bloody work.

My 2p ;)

The government's proposed scheme for a compulsory national register of identity and compulsion to carry an ID card is iliberal, intrusive, expensive and will be ineffective in combatting terrorism or serious crime.

That being so, it behoves us all - whether we are "vile venal scum" (politicians) or just ordinary serfs - to resist by whatever means including demonstrations, direct action, civil disobedience and the ballot box.

"It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph." Edmund Burke

just do without. That's what I'm doing. I'll not go abroad. If getting a new drivers license (now they have made it photo license, merely, I suspect, so that it MUST be renewed : revenue stream!!!) means that I must put my data in a register, then I'll stick with my old license. I still HAVE a license to drive, the expiry is for when I'm 70.

I'm not giving the current gov a rush of money.

Hell, with not being able to get HDDVDs (licensed, not sold, so I'm not buying), with new computers looking to get TPM and all this farking around with controlling me, I'll not have to work again soon. Just mooch round the country and enjoy it.

Fuck, sounds great.