Action!

Whilst everyone was glued to the US election, our own politicians weren't idle. No. They gave the Children Bill its third reading, and no-one did anything about its proposed database of all children in the UK. The press, for example, were too busy yelling about whether or not you could really "go to jail for smacking your child". They also put out a draft of the Organised Crime Bill including a special clause just for Brian Haw, the pacifist protestor who's been camping in Parliament Square for the past three years - just for that one little pacifist, they are changing the law so they can get rid of him.

Fortunately, though, the internet hasn't been entirely quiet. Sign the online petition against ID cards, here.

"We, the undersigned residents of the United Kingdom, petition the Prime Minister and the government to immediately cease all further development of, and legislation for, national identity cards and the National Identity Register.

We believe the proposals constitute an attack on individual rights and freedoms. We believe they will lead to institutional discrimination and to unfair and unlawful denial of benefits and services. We believe the proposals will lead to an increase in state control and surveillance over the individual, and that they will create an unacceptable imposition on every citizen. We believe the proposals are unlawful under the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights that guarantee every person the fundamental right to privacy.

We believe the identity proposals will lead to an endemic loss of privacy and freedoms. We believe they will present dangers to marginalised, disenfranchised and disadvantaged people. We also believe that an identity scheme will imperil the relations between citizen and state.

Furthermore, we believe that even if these principled concerns had been fully addressed, that the government's proposals would still constitute an enormous waste of financial resources and would achieve little or no tangible benefits.

For these reasons we urge the government to fully abandon the proposals."

Details on petitioning Downing Street online are here.