From: billy@anon.com 
  
 "Martin Harran"  wrote in message 
 news:qjambkhltl0ko0ovugr4qkh43vhdqbjar9@4ax.com... 
 > On 4 Sep 2025 21:13:57 GMT, Spike  wrote: 
 > 
 >>Martin Harran  wrote: 
 >>> On 3 Sep 2025 10:15:20 GMT, Spike  wrote: 
 >> 
 >>>> With the news today that a mandatory so-called Digital ID Card is being 
 >>>> considered by the government, on the grounds that it will discourage 
 >>>> illegal migration by making it harder to such migrants to get jobs, 
 perhaps 
 >>>> we should look back to the last time ID cards were compulsory and see 
 just 
 >>>> how intrusive they became and how they were used for extra-judicial 
 >>>> harassment by minor State functionaries such as local government and the 
 >>>> police, finally coming to the fore in the Harry Willcock case. 
 >> 
 >>>> It has been said that the defining characteristic of Socialist 
 governments 
 >>>> is the equal spreading of misery, and this latest ID scheme punishes us 
 all 
 >>>> for the sins of the illegal immigrants. 
 >> 
 >>> How are ID cards a *punishment*? 
 >> 
 >>Look back to the last time we had ID cards, with petty officials, the 
 >>police, and others peremptorily demanding ID simply because they could. 
 >>Plus the huge mission creep, of course. Little wonder that Harry Willcock 
 >>made a stand. 
 >> 
 >>Starmer is talking it up today saying that things have moved on in the last 
 >>20 years, we all carry digital ID (do we really?), so essentially it isn't 
 >>an imposition. 
 >> 
 >>So everybody will have to carry either an ID capable phone or whatever 
 >>device  it might be that the phoneless get foisted on them, at their 
 >>expense, of course. 
 >> 
 >>> Are the people of the many countries 
 >>> who already have them being collectively *punished*by their 
 >>> governments? 
 >> 
 >>It depends on the effectiveness of the checks and balances that are put in 
 >>place, always assuming there are any, and whether they are enforceable in 
 >>fact. 
 >> 
 >>Will digital ID cards stop the current wave of shoplifting? Or burglaries? 
 >>Or the hundred other crimes that now don't get investigated? 
 >> 
 >>PS: I can remember my National Identity number. 
 > 
 > 
 > Poor attempt at a swerve. Let me remind you of the questions I 
 > actually asked: 
 > 
 > "How are ID cards a *punishment*? Are the people of the many countries 
 > who already have them being collectively *punished* by their 
 > governments?" 
  
 Its quite possible to argue that some people at least ,see themselvesc as 
 being 
 "inconvenienced" by having to carry ID cards around with them; they see them 
 as an 
 "unnecessay impostion" 
  
 While others of course may take a diametrically opposed point of view and 
 see 
 only their potenttial and actual benefits. 
  
  
 bb . 
 > 
  
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