Free, civilized, safe Britain - where did you go?

I used to live in a country with freedoms, of movement, of expression, of religion and political affiliations. I used to walk the streets, sometimes with a camera taking pictures , feeling secure in the old-fashioned virtues of a society regulated in part by it’s own social control system, but also by the rule of law, and the guardians of law and order.

I now am pretty much domiciled in Malaysia, and after watching this (which was filmed merely 200 meters from where I used to work) I am damn glad to be here! If the UK government wants it to be like America, so be it, but most Americans enjoy greater freedoms overall than people do in the UK today.

I want no part of it. CCTV everywhere. Too much ignorance of the law, and too many part-time idiots who think they can interpret it without proper training. It’s an entertaining watch, but oh so fucked up:London, I miss you - not very much. And for UK photographers, or photographers visiting the UK, here are your rights - let no-one take them away from us. Direct PDF link.ukphotographersrights.pdf

Leaked UK gov’t doc reveals plan to “coerce” Brits into national ID register.

I’m just going to copy and paste the headline fom Boing-Boing’s Cory Doctorow - someone who knows about screcy and abuse of freedoms! - verbatim.

And the linked file is here: Take me down, chaps, take me down! nis_options_analysis_outcome.pdf

Leaked UK gov’t doc reveals plan to “coerce” Brits into national ID register — MIRROR THIS FILE!

Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 29, 2008 3:01 AM | permalink

Phil from the UK anti-ID-register group NO2ID sends in this nugget — note the call to action there. We’ve got a sensitive government document revealing the British government’s plan to trick us into a database state and we need as many copies as possible, as quickly as possible! If you mirror this document, please add a link to it in the comments for the post.

UK campaigners NO2ID this morning enlisted the help of bloggers across the world to spread a leaked government document describing how the British government intends to go about “coercing” its citizens onto a National Identity Register. The ‘ID card’ is revealed as little more than a cover to create a official dossier and trackable ID for every UK resident - creating what NO2ID calls ‘the database state’. NO2ID’s national coordinator, Phil Booth, exhorted bloggers, freedom lovers and anyone who gives a damn about personal privacy to mirror the annotated document on their site.

“The charade is over. While ministers try to bamboozle the British public with fairytales about fingerprints, officials are plotting how to dupe and bully the population into surrendering control of their own identities.”

“Biometric ID cards are a sham; a magician’s flourish to cover the biggest identity fraud there has ever been.”