681–690 of 809 posts
"In the UK ... we have got a right-wing proposition that we have not had in this country before ... so the battle of our times is between patriotic national renewal ... versus something which is turning into a toxic divide."
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So the Netherlands may not be the best example to use as a positive example here. Notoriously, the national identity system was used during World War II as a system for discovering and eliminating the Jewish community[1]. The lessons learned from that are a frequent topic of discussion in civil liberties groups, and the Dutch experience is often cited, both global conversations and within the Netherlands -- e.g. On L…
My response as to the difference is the 1998 Good Friday agreement. Something that has already been branded as the Brit Card is simply something that wouldn't work in Northern Ireland, and that the name passed any scrutiny say an awful lot. Ireland is not Britain, and people from Northern Ireland can chose to identify as British, Irish or Both by birthright. A "Brit Card" is not something a significant portion of peo…
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Was reading through your post, finding it difficult to find fault with anything you were saying, but something wasn't sitting right. And then ... > I'm certain it's worked well in other countries It has! In the Netherlands for example, it's just an incredibly convenient system, and if there's anything dodgy going on I'm not aware of it. So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands? Genuine question, because I…
It's the difference between proportional voting vs winner takes it all. In the latter case you can't really hold politicians accountable, as you will have to choose between effectively throwing your vote away or voting for the one opposition candidate, that often will be just as bad. While the UK have some level of representativeness, each circuit has a winner takes it all structure, making change quite hard to achie…
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Was reading through your post, finding it difficult to find fault with anything you were saying, but something wasn't sitting right. And then ... > I'm certain it's worked well in other countries It has! In the Netherlands for example, it's just an incredibly convenient system, and if there's anything dodgy going on I'm not aware of it. So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands? Genuine question, because I…
Mandatory ID cards are a cultural no-no in the UK. They were required during WW2, then discontinued in peacetime. People burned them in the street. You are not required to show ID to a police officer. Even when driving you don’t need to show a license on the spot, though if stopped for cause you have to present it at a police station within three days. At least those were the rules when I was a young driver there. Th…
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You appear to have buried the point you’re trying to make here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Agreement#:~:text=... >Article 1 (vi), commonly referred to as the birthright provisions, states that both governments, "Recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish, or British, or both
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I wonder if zkSTARKS could help here. Prove that the validity of a statement (like "I am a citizen that is authorized to receive benefits") without revealing your precise identity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-interactive_zero-knowledge...
This is the proposal for the UK system right now. Zero Knowledge Proofs. The technical side hasn't been adequately explained to the public.
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And "become customers" means it will become mandatory to sign away your rights to a foreign corporation by agreeing to their terms of service. This kind of abuse of power is a clear example of why the UK needs a real constitution.
And if Google bans you for some reason (which they have been known to do sometimes), I guess you'll be kicked out of the country unless you buy an iPhone.
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Was reading through your post, finding it difficult to find fault with anything you were saying, but something wasn't sitting right. And then ... > I'm certain it's worked well in other countries It has! In the Netherlands for example, it's just an incredibly convenient system, and if there's anything dodgy going on I'm not aware of it. So what makes the UK so different to the Netherlands? Genuine question, because I…
So the Netherlands may not be the best example to use as a positive example here. Notoriously, the national identity system was used during World War II as a system for discovering and eliminating the Jewish community[1]. The lessons learned from that are a frequent topic of discussion in civil liberties groups, and the Dutch experience is often cited, both global conversations and within the Netherlands -- e.g. On L…
The government also decides how many non-family members can register at an address, so in Amsterdam it is common for people to remain registered at there parents while subletting a room in an apartment.
You also get a DigiD which very convenient but also terrifying, especially when I walk around my neighborhood and see plaque’s in the ground for the victims of the holocaust who lived here.
My Dutch girlfriend does not believe me when I tell here that you don’t have to register where you live with the government in the anglophone world. It’s just so engrained in the society that anything else seems absurd.
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It all depends on exactly when they're mandatory and what tracking is associated with them. My own personal thinking has evolved on the subject since I campaigned against ID cards under Blair ("no2id"). It is a question of trust and purpose. Things like the Estonian digital identity scheme do not seem to be bad in practice. The problem comes from identity checkpoints, which serve as an opportunity for inconvenience,…
I've had a very similar journey. I also campaigned against them, rejoiced when the hard drives were shredded after the election. I am now less worried. The devil is in the detail, and the issue last time was in the database rather than the cards. That said, I think since then we have bigger concerns, and if an ID app alleviates some concerns about immigration then I'm fine with it. One big thing that has happened sin…
It won't.
The US border is now locked down far tighter than it ever was when I was a kid, and the cries for locking it down even more and violently apprehending suspected violators are at a fever pitch. The UK too - like many countries in the recent rightward lurch - has gone from a country where I can just show up to visit to one when were I need to request permission beforehand.
It sure seems like the "concerns about immigration" in the UK mirror those in the US, which in my analysis is a reaction towards the loss of white privilege combined with the loss of economic power. Putting stricter id checks may assuage abstract xenophobia, but the concrete details don't fundamentally change the concrete details.
It's not like Brexit fixed those concerns about immigration.
The same thing is happening in Greece. The new mandatory digital ID replaces and unifies everything about citizens in one place, "to make it easier for government services to share information between each other". It can indeed be useful, but the privacy implications are enormous. Just imagine that a policeman, employer or anybody else with access to the information linked to the ID can instantly view our medical rec…
>The worst part is that we no longer have any power to do something about it. That's not true. If a large enough mob of citizens went to the capital, burned down the government building and harassed MPs on the street (and followed them to their homes), as recently happened in Nepal and before that in Bangladesh, things would change very quickly.