[Newsbot]

<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="/link.php?id=28664" target="_blank">We have everything to fear from ID cards</a> (click to view)

<strong>Category:</strong> <a href="/news/topic/17-business" target="_blank">Business</a>
<strong>Posted By: </strong> <a href="/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=Sargasso" target="_blank">Sargasso</a>
<strong>Date: </strong> 2008-01-02 05:10:45
<strong>Canadian</strong>

[Scape]

Cards are not as bad is injectible RFID chips.

[hwacker]

We need this in Canada, there are too many people here that shouldn't be.

Wouldn’t it be great to just come up to someone and ask for their card, it they don't produce it you call the cops and get them booted out of the country?

Yeah for Cards that kick the freeloaders out.

[paisley_cross]

I can't get too worked up. I go into a bank - I show ID. I walk into a federal building - I show ID. I get on a plane - I show ID. I cross into the US - I show ID.

[Scape]

Smart ID is a means of tracking that has both passive and active applications. Like cattle we have no control over who has that information. I don't mind the information being out there what I do mind is not having any control over the mark of the beast. What's the difference between a free man and a slave again?

[Ripcat]

Anyone not self-employed or capable of subsistance living is already a slave.

[paisley_cross]

Scape Scape:

Smart ID is a means of tracking that has both passive and active applications. Like cattle we have no control over who has that information. I don't mind the information being out there what I do mind is not having any control over the mark of the beast. What's the difference between a free man and a slave again?

Privacy is a concept more honoured in the breach than the observance.

[ShepherdsDog]

All residents, foreigners and citizens both carry ID cards here in Taiwan. The Taiwanese are expected to register a change of address with their local police department. Our health cards are also chipped now, as are our bank cards. Even with all of this I feel less regulated here as a foreigner, than I do as a citizen back in Canada.

[Scape]

I have RFID to get into a secure building and I have a cell phone though witch every movement I make in the day can be tracked. It is a choice over convince that I consciously make of my own free will. The new smart chip enabled bank cards will make them more secure as well but any such simple conveniences can quickly and easily be abused. Instead of spam in your email inbox and telemarketers calling at times of day selling you things you don’t need with smart ID you can quickly find yourself cut off. Everything from the job to freedom of movement will be affected and that is simply too much at stake for a piece of plastic.

[QBall]

$1:

But surveillance cameras and lost data will prove minuscule problems next to ID cards, which will obliterate the fundamental right to walk around in society as an unknown.

Wow, what constitution/bill of rights/document lists being anonymous as a right? The only people who want to remain unknown usually have a reason, and it's usually never a good reason.

[BartSimpson]

QBall QBall:

Wow, what constitution/bill of rights/document lists being anonymous as a right? The only people who want to remain unknown usually have a reason, and it's usually never a good reason.

The right to be left alone is a basic human right. Also, your assumption that anyone wanting not to participate in a Big Brother government is somehow guilty of something is, itself, an assumption of guilt and that is a violation of both Canadian and US norms for due process.

In the USA the right to not have a government issued ID was brought to the US Supreme Court (in The Walker vs. the City and County of San Diego) who ruled that you don't have to possess or present an ID on demand. Of course, that limits your means of travel to walking as using most means of transport requires ID and using even a bicycle requires a driver's licence in some states.

[Scape]

QBall QBall:

Wow, what constitution/bill of rights/document lists being anonymous as a right?

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

$1:

The maxim, innocent until proven guilty was born in the late thirteenth century, preserved in the universal jurisprudence of the Ius commune, employed in the defense of marginalized defendants, Jews, heretics, and witches, in the early modern period, and finally deployed as a powerful argument against torture in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

...

The maxim protected defendants from being coerced to give testimony and to incriminate themselves. It granted them the absolute right to be summoned, to have their case heard in an open court, to have legal counsel, to have their sentence pronounced publically, and to present evidence in their defense.

Presumption of innocence

$1:

The fundamental right

This right is so important in modern democracies that many have explicitly included it in their legal codes and constitutions:

* In Canada, section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states: "Any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal".

* In France, article 9 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, of constitutional value, says "Everyone is supposed innocent until having been declared guilty." and the preliminary article of the code of criminal procedure says "any suspected or prosecuted person is presumed to be innocent until their guilt has been established". The jurors' oath reiterates this assertion.

* Although the Constitution of the United States does not cite it explicitly, presumption of innocence is widely held to follow from the 5th, 6th and 14th amendments. See also Coffin v. United States
* In the 1988 Brazilian constitution, article 5, section LVII states that "no one shall be considered guilty before the issuing of a final and unappealable penal sentence".

* The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 11, states: Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defence.

* The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe says (art. 6.2): "Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law". This convention has been adopted by treaty and is binding on all Council of Europe members. Currently (and in any foreseeable expansion of the EU) every country member of the European Union is also member to the Council of Europe, so this stands for EU members as a matter of course.