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The Horror of a National ID Card System
A glimpse into UK Borders Agency, and what it portends for a population chained to a identification card
All the waste and incompetence of the ID card scheme becomes plain when you hear people's stories about their contact with the new UK Borders Agency. This one comes from an acquaintance, who would prefer to remain anonymous, chiefly because he fears retribution if his name is known.
It started when his wife, a foreign national, applied under the new laws for her card, which was then issued with a mistake. He writes:
In early January, my wife and I visited a UK Border Agency office and paid £595 for their 'premium' service to take her biometric data and process her foreign national ID card.
We waited for hours as they had lots of computer problems, until finally a staff member admitted to us that the 'ID system was down' and had been the previous day also. We were eventually told that the details had been taken and we should just wait for her ID card to arrive by post.
When the card finally arrived we soon discovered that they had got her nationality wrong. She is a US citizen and on the back of her ID card it said 'American Samoa'! We reported the problem and were told to post the ID card back to them in a Freepost envelope.
Weeks later the UK Border Agency sent my wife a letter saying that she needed to send her passport, as they could not correct their mistake without her passport.
My correspondent makes the following points. The agency had already recorded the passport details and scanned it. His wife has paid for a 'premium' service (£595) appointment at UK Border Agency where she was fingerprinted, photographed and filled in forms so that she would not have to send her passport by post. When she phoned UKBA twice to report that "American Samoan" was a mistake, she spoke to two people, who told her to send the incorrect ID card only and did not mention sending a passport. She explained that she would need the ID card back soon in case she had to travel abroad.
He says that the letter received from UKBA instructed - "Please send your passport to the Freepost address as above".
There was no Freepost address shown anywhere on the letter, or on the envelope. He continues:
After a very long phone queue, I spoke to a nice lady on the UKBA helpline (0300 123 2412) who was highly amused at the 'American Samoa' mistake, but said that unfortunately, yes, we would need to send her passport by post, but that we should also phone another UKBA number regarding a possible refund of part of our 'premium' fee.
Another long phone queue ensued and he spoke to what he describes as an unpleasant man at the UKBA immigration enquiry bureau (0870 606 7766) regarding a possible refund:
He was very irritable, dismissive and patronising, but then he admitted it was not his decision to make and gave him an address for UK Border Agency complaints at Lunar House in Croydon. When I heard the name Croydon I said to him: 'Oh, we heard about the Croydon office when we were waiting at the UK Border Agency Offices for hours during your system crash in early January, we heard the Border Agency staff talking about it.'
The man conceded that there was systems crash and hurriedly hung up.
As of writing this, my wife is still without an ID card and now doesn't have her passport either.
I am passing this story on because I have had my first taste of what a state with ID cards would be like, and I have found it very depressing and actually much more scary than I thought I would. The reality of this apparently secure and efficient ID card system is that it is wide open to human error, technical failures and abuse.
A mistake on an ID card will take a very long time to correct, and their mistake becomes your problem, your responsibility. It is a very disempowering and depressing process where a citizen becomes a cog in a vast machine.
This is not just your video club membership, or your supermarket loyalty card ... this is your citizenship and identity, allowing you access to services and allowing you to leave and enter the country.
My wife has been unable to travel since early January because of this mistake by UKBA. We are hoping no family emergencies occur before UKBA get around to returning her passport and ID card.
I still have a slight worry that if we complain publicly then someone within UKBA may have the power to vindictively sabotage my wife's future leave to remain in the UK ... not something I have ever feared before in this country. I also don't want my wife to end up being deported to Samoa by mistake!
I reproduce this story at length because it captures the anger and helplessness experienced when you become ensnared in a system that is flawed, contemptuous of individual needs and entirely pointless.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllThe entire idea behind the "created" incompetency of the paper system is to condition the populace to more readily accept the "perfection" of a chip imbedded in your skin and instantly corrected. Get it? TPTB are eons ahead of we peons. PSYOPS in action! Wake up and smell the control.
A microchip imbedded or your serial number tatooed on your forehead.
All in all I think American Samoa would be a better place to visit.
Sioux Rose
This depiction is so reminiscent of the chilling satire wittily related in the brilliant film, "Brazil." Done before computers took over it features a typical office bureaucrat typing data into his typewriter when a buzzing fly causes him to strike one erroneous key. This leads to an incorrect document wherein the wrong individual is arrested as a suspected terrorist.
As an astrologer, there is a term known as "Mercury retrograde" which seems to readily confuse language, agreements, and electronic machinery 3 X a year for periods of about 21 days each. I once read for the girlfriend of a major writer for Sports Illustrated and was rather pleased to see him use the terminology of Mercury retrograde to explain some bad plays in that periodical! I also did a TV show out in LA a few years ago and a caller called in to say that they posted "Mercury retrograde" at the Air Traffic Controllers' offices to remind them to double-check everything at such times.
This anecdote also makes me think in terms of the industrialization of our food, and soon of genetic components, and I can only imagine the cost to biology when human error and/or retrograde Mercury cause genes to combine in completely incompatible ways. I could share a rated X joke that I came up with that graphically depicts what prophetically waits in store.
And this article also brings to mind the notorious, insidious no-fly lists which are also very difficult to expunge one's name from. Alas, brave new world is neither brave nor new, but callous, indeed.
Yes, much of what is going on reminds me of "Brazil."
Welcome to the Ministry of Information Retrieval!
Forget John Galt, this is Sam Lowry's world.
Sioux Rose
Terry Gilliam was prescient to the Nth degree in doing that film, even down to the terrorists and plastic surgeons.
Sioux,
At the massage therapy school where I teach, a couple of my fellow instructors always remind us when Mercury is in retrograde. I always appreciate their reminders, as I can tend to be a wordy person when I talk in front of a class (that's the history teacher in me), and boy, can I sometimes trip myself up if I'm not careful. The rest of us sometimes joke around whenever we do something stupid and ask out loud if Mercury is in retrograde.
Glad to see others in the "mainstream" are also aware of it.
And I think you need to share that joke with the rest of us . . . : )
Sioux R,
It isn't all bad. Your comment about Brazil reminds me of an SF story where the protagonist was wrongly determined to be dead. Since he could get food from the automat he had to smash the glass and steal it. When the robocops arrested him and required his ID they let him go since he did not exist!
We are now about to experience what it is like to be a 'prole':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proles
Note: I guess 'prole' is not short for prolific.
But I could be wrong !
I am so glad my state governor Brian Schweitzer and other Montana lawmakers said NO WAY IN HELL is this state going to take up this ridiculous scam.
Good luck to you. Maine originally said no, but backed down under federal threat. Plus, we have a spineless governor and an electorate who cares more about a minor increase in our snack tax than they do about their rights.
As Maine goes...
"All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace." Alexander Pope
Its bad enough we arrived at this point .But it seems to get creepier and creepier as we go along .
RICH MAN BEHIND GOD AND THE FLAG
- JOHN TRUDELL
Obama won't do this to us. Bush was the rights taker. Obama promised to stop all that stuff. Right?
Are the picture IDs for voting just a back door to a National ID?
And look at the bright side, if Hitler had won the war we would already have a national ID courtesy of IBM.
I already have a national ID Card; it's called a US Passport. I find it a great convenience, really. No bureaucrats question this document.
What a surprise, the story comes from an anonymous source.
National ID Part two
5) When you get a job you would authorize the employer to access this info. If you were applying for credit you would authorize the creditor to access this info. Each time it is accessed a record would be kept so you would know who is accessing your records.
This would stop identity theft and illegally using fake Ids along with illegal aliens being in this country and taking jobs.
This is so simple and easy and would end a lot of problems.
Again; the ONLY INFORMATION in this DataBase would be your name, State of Birth, Year of Birth, the last four of your SS number, and your most recent photo.
All this information is already in State and Federal records if you where born here, got a drivers license, been in the military, been convicted if a crime or dozens of other things so it is not an invasion of your privacy, would not cost a lot to implement, but would stop crime and immigration fraud.
Marlin Creasote 2007 (www.gdmlegacy.com)
National ID, Part one
(1) When you are born the State you are born in has a birth certificate (and naturalized citizens have a Fed file) You are also given a Social Security Number at Birth. Your State of birth would send a statement to the Federal DataBase saying you were born there along with the SS number.
(2) Your State has a Drivers license
(3) You would be required to be photographed digitally at 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 35, 45, 55, etc by the State you live in. That photo would be sent to the Federal Data Base.
(4) When you are questioned by the law all you would need to give (you would not be required to carry an ID card) is your name, State of Birth, Year of Birth, and the last four of your SS number. This information along with the most resent photo is all there would be in this Nation ID DataBase. Only law enforcement would be allowed to access this Data Base and a record would be kept every time it is accessed.
See Part two