International Law

Will Home Secretary Alan Johnson bother to listen to opponents of the ID Cards scheme, during his supposed review "by the end of the summer" ?

The Sunday Times seems to have been anonymously briefed again by Home Office and Downing Street spin doctors.

Why does this Labour Government persist with such media manipulation and propaganda ?

What harm would it do for the Home Secretary to officially announce such a Review of the policy ? Why do they have to sneak it out via a Sunday Newspaper briefing ?

The Sunday Times
June 14, 2009

Alan Johnson eyes ID card U-turn

Jonathan Oliver, Political Editor

ALAN JOHNSON, the home secretary, has launched an urgent review of the £6 billion identity card (ID) scheme, paving the way for a possible U-turn on one of Labour's flagship policies.

Johnson, who was promoted in Gordon Brown's latest cabinet reshuffle, is understood to be "sympathetic" to critics who claim identity cards will undermine civil liberties.

The home secretary told officials that he wanted a "first principles" rethink of the plan, which was launched by Tony Blair following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and has since been championed by Brown as a way of fighting terrorism.

"Alan is more sympathetic to the civil liberties arguments than previous home secretaries," said an insider.

"He is genuinely open minded. He wants to see all the evidence and then he will make his decision before the end of the summer."

[...]

A spokesman for No 10 said: "As you would expect, the new home secretary has asked for full and detailed briefing across a range of key issues including the principles and the progress of the identity cards."

Johnson said in a statement last night that ID cards remained a "manifesto commitment". He added: "We remain on course to bring in a policy that we believe has widespread public support."

You can write to the Home Secretary Alan Johnson, to express your fears, concerns about, and opposition to the database surveillance state aspects of the National Identity Scheme, ID Cards and the real danger, the national Identity Register compulsory centralised biometric database at:

Home Secretary
Rt Hon. Alan Johnson MP
c/o Direct Communications Unit
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF

Home Office telephone: 020 7035 4848 (09:00-17:00 Mon-Fri)
fax: 020 7035 4745

email: public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

You might also like to formally invite him to come to your local area to "listen" to your and other people's concerns, in person.

An acceptance of such an invitation,or even a refusal, is something worth reporting to your local ,or even national, news media organisations.

Contact your one of the NO2ID Campaign local groups for help with this.

The article also says:

Ministers have shelved plans to push a series of regulations through the Commons that would allow the government to move forward with the next phase of the identy card scheme. The statutory instruments were due to be debated on Wednesday but the debate has been postponed until next month.

Presumably these are the Secondary Legislation Orders which would have revealed the real detail of the scheme, in preparation for the unnecessary Airport workers ID Card scheme - literally a "pilot scheme", as it is being inflicted on some airline pilots etc., who already have plenty of security passes and identity checks.

See the previous Spy Blog article: National Identity Cards Scheme creep - 4 Draft Orders laid before Parliament under the Identity Cards Act 2006

Full post as published by Spy Blog on June 14, 2009 (boomark / email).