Big Brother is watching you (From Stroud News and Journal)

Big Brother is watching you

THE proposed introduction of ID cards quite rightly sends shivers down the spine of anyone who values their liberty.

The very idea that the state wants to force every citizen of this country to carry a card to prove who they are represents a reprehensible and truly appalling attempt to alter the relationship between people and government.

You can tell us who you are, the government seems to say, but we don't believe any of you. We want you to prove it.

A colleague of mine put it very well, saying: "It's the feeling that the state is keeping tabs on you. Surely it should be the other way around." Indeed it should.

The government says the cards will help prevent fraud and even reel out the standard 'anti-terrorist' line, shamelessly playing on our fear to squeeze through this draconian legislation.

But surely any fool can see that with just one card to steal, fraud will become far simpler.

And as for terrorism, I am far more worried about Charles Clarke than I am about Osama Bin Laden.

Not only that, but the technology for biometric cards is still unproven. For instance, initial trials found that the scanners could not recognise black people. So that's useless for a good chunk of the population, then.

The thing that really grates for many people is the fact that not only do we have to accept the imposition of a surveillance state, we even have to pay for it. The cost of ID cards has been put as high as £19.2 billion, all funded by the taxpayer.

As a free citizen of this country, I do not have to prove who I am. So why is Mr Blair telling me I have to fork out around £100 to do so?

I would say it is natural for anybody in power to want more of it. But this gradual erosion of our civil liberties in the name of the so-called 'war on terror' must stop. We are free-thinking human beings - we do not need Big Brother to watch us.