21 June 2007
CLARENCE WILLCOCK - ID HERO
In December 1950, PC Harold Muckle stopped a dry cleaner in Finchley
named Clarence Willcock and asked him to produce his World War II
identity card. Mr Willcock refused, saying "I am a Liberal. I am
against that sort of thing."
On 26th June 1951, in Clarence Willcock's High Court appeal, the Lord
Chief Justice said that "...to use Acts of Parliament, passed for
particular purposes during war, in times when the war is past, tends to
turn law-abiding subjects into lawbreakers, which is a most undesirable
state of affairs." As a result of the Willcock case and Lord
Goddard's attack on their abuse, identity cards were abolished by
Winston Churchill in 1952 as part of his "bonfire of controls".
Hackney & Shoreditch NO2ID will be celebrating Clarence Willcock
Day with an evening of hip-hop, rap and poetry at the Hackney Empire
next Tuesday, June 26th. Details on the NO2ID website:
http://www.no2id.net/news/events.php#143
Please come along, or if you cannot make it, why not write a letter to
your local paper declaring your own opposition to ID cards in honour of
Clarence Willcock, on the 56th anniversary of his successful stand for
freedom?
One person CAN make a difference.
'TAKING LIBERTIES'
Many thanks to those of you who wrote to your local cinema about
showing 'Taking Liberties', as mentioned in last newsletter. The
response across the country has been very positive, screenings have
been well attended and it has received some great reviews. New people
are joining NO2ID as a direct result of seeing the film. More info at http://www.noliberties.com/cinema.htm
What's next?
Local groups news
We have local groups all over the country and in 36 of the 69 locations
of ID interrogation centres (see
www.no2id.net/getInvolved/idCentres.php). If you can help to set up a
local group in one of the remaining towns then please contact us at
(office@no2id.net). A full list of local groups can be found at
www.no2id.net/localGroups
Manchester NO2ID calls for "Students against ID" volunteers
Manchester NO2ID are looking for people who are interested in helping
out with a Students Against ID society in the next academic year, both
at Manchester University and at other universities across the
North-West. It won't involve a lot of work - just organising a presence
at Fresher's Fair (last year the stall was manned entirely by NO2ID
volunteers), maintaining a list of contacts (the Student's Union should
provide a facility for this) and organising a termly meeting. The
National Identity Register is likely to hit students early on - either
because they're more likely to need a first-time adult passport, or
because they'll need an ID card to get a student loan. There are other
things we'd like a student society to do, but just to get the basics
right would be a start and not much work. If you are at all interested,
whether you are prepared to take responsibility yourself or
just help someone else out, please drop an e-mail to
manchester@no2id.net
Saturdays 1pm - 3pm - NO2ID Edinburgh Campaign stall
NO2ID Edinburgh's regular Princes Street campaigning stall on Saturdays
is at the east end of Princes Street, opposite the Balmoral Hotel, from
1pm - 3pm. We use our stall to raise public awareness of the
Identity Cards scheme, collect donations and entries for the NO2ID
petition, and also to increase membership of our group. Please do
pop by for a chat if you happen to be around. We are planning to run
the stall every Saturday throughout the year, weather permitting, and
so new volunteers are always very welcome. You can see photos of our
stall and group contact details at: www.no2id-scotland.net/edinburgh/
Most Saturdays 2pm - NO2ID Glasgow Street Stall
Most Saturdays there are stalls in Glasgow city centre (usually
Buchanan Street) from about 2pm. Volunteers are always welcome, please
contact Geraint if you would like to help: glasgow@no2id.net.
24th June - Manchester NO2ID - Brown's Coronation
Sunday, 24th June 11am-2pm. There\'s going to be a large Stop The War
Coalition rally in Manchester for "Brown's coronation". It'd be good to
be there with NO2ID flyers and petition sheets, either at the
announcement itself (which is presumed to be in the Midland hotel) or at
the demo. More details to be confirmed (see
http://manchester.no2id.net/) but it is expected that the group will be
meeting at 11am at St.Peter's Square metrolink stop would be best.
25th June Edinburgh NO2ID meeting
Monday, 25 June at 7pm in the Library at the Quaker Meeting House, 7
Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL. Buoyed by their appearance, albeit
briefly, in the closing credits of the film "Taking Liberties", the
Edinburgh Group will be planning to further their campaign against
compulsory identity cards. All are welcome. Please help with
publicity whether you can come or not.
26th June - Home Affairs Committee Inquiry: 'A Surveillance Society?' evidence session
Tuesday, 26th June at 10.15 a.m. Witnesses: 10.15 am - Professor Simon
Wessely and Professor Carol Dezateux, Academy of Medical Sciences, and
Dr Ian Forbes, Royal Academy of Engineering; 11.15 am - Dr Chris
Pounder, Editor, Data Protection & Privacy Practice, Dr Eric
Metcalfe, JUSTICE, and Shami Chakrabarti and Jago Russell, Liberty.
Location (tbc): Wilson Room, Portcullis House. The session can be
watched at http://www.parliamentlive.tv/
26th June - Hackney NO2ID - \'Clarence Willcock Day\', a celebration at the Hackney Empire
Tuesday, 26th June 9.30pm at Marie Lloyd Bar, The Hackney Empire, Mare St.
E8. "Listen Up" – a hip-hop, rap and poetry night will be hosted by
Hackney & Shoreditch NO2ID to commemorate Clarence Willcock Day.
The event is headlined by Horizontal Life, the thought provoking,
soulful, 9-piece hip-hop group from Oxford and with MC Shazia Mirza.
The rest of the line-up has David Erdos, Kokumo Noxid, Tamsin Kayembe
and The Leano, London’s hip-hop Scratchclub host, giving it up for
protection of our freedom, liberties and rights.
26th June - Lancaster NO2ID - \'The Real Big Brother Britain\' film screenings
Tuesday, 26th June, doors @ 7.30pm at Friends Meeting House, Lancaster.
An evening of film screenings, including Suspect Nation, The Big
Brother State and talks. This is a crossover event between NO2ID, RINF
and Defy-ID. With several groups working in the area all
campaigning against ID cards and the database state, the evening will
be both informative and empowering with a mix of views and solutions to
the Orwellian nightmare that Great Britain is becoming.
26th June - Glasgow NO2ID Meeting
Tuesday, 26th June, usual place, usual time: 8pm at Mono (Map:
http://www.glasgow-no2id.org.uk/meeting.html) our fortnightly meeting,
all welcome!
27th June Swindon NO2ID meeting
Wednesday, 27th June 7.30pm at The George , Eastcott Hill. Swindon
NO2ID\'s monthly pub meeting. You are very welcome to join us.
28th June - Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells NO2ID meeting
Thursday, 28th June in the bar of the Royal Wells Hotel, Mount Ephraim,
Tunbridge Wells, TN4 8BE(see http://www.tunbridgewells-no2id.org.uk/).
If we can get enough Tonbridge members we\'ll certainly alternate
meetings between the two towns.
30th June - Protest at Glasgow interrogation centre!
Saturday, 30 June at Blythswood House, 200 West Regent Street, Glasgow.
>From 11 am. For more info contact glasgow@no2id.net or see
http://www.glasgow-no2id.org.uk/
1st July - Kensington & Chelsea NO2ID street Stall
Sunday, 1st July 12pm-5pm, Kensington & Chelsea NO2ID will have a
stall in the Earls Court street fair Kenway and Hogarth Roads, SW5.
Contact kensington@no2id.net for more info. (See
www.earlscourtfestival.org.uk for more details)
2nd July - NO2ID Highbury July meeting
Monday, 2nd July 7pm The Alwyne pub - 83 St Pauls Road, N1 2LY. Nearest
tube - Highbury & Islington. An informal meeting to discuss future
events and a general update on NO2ID\'s campaign and other relevant
developments. All welcome.
7th July - Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells NO2ID stall
Saturday, 7th July in Tunbridge Wells at the pedestrian precinct,
between Boots & The Body Shop, outside The Royal Victoria
Precinct. Just an hour or two volunteer effort makes a lot of
difference & there\'s plenty of company - please email if you can
help(tunbridge.wells@no2id.net). On the 17th in the face of fierce
competition from rain and Morris Dancers we held a very successful and
engaging first Tonbridge stall. Repeats will certainly be planned for
Tonbridge in the near-term, and we look forward to welcoming new
Tonbridge members, whether or not they can help with the stalls.
7th July - Southwark NO2ID at Southwark Park - Tour de France
Saturday, 7th July 12 Noom to 10pm in Southwark Park. Confirmation has
just been received that NO2ID has been allotted a stall at this well
publicised event. A condition of being accepted as a stall
holder, is that the stall is continuously manned between noon and
10pm. We want to ensure that we take the opportunity this event
offers to collect as many signatures as possible for the NO2ID
petition. Could anyone with an hour or two to spare on July 7th please
contact Judith Hitchin at southwark@no2id.net advising her of the hours
they could be available to assist on the stall.
14th July - Manchester NO2ID Flyering
Saturday, 14th July, 1pm - 3pm at St. Anne\'s Square. We\'ll be running a
Saturday afternoon stall in St. Anne\'s Square. The main objectives of
the afternoon will be to raise awareness among the public, engage
people in discussion about the NIR, and collect petitions for the NO2ID
petition to keep people in touch with the campaign. We\'ll meet in the
square itself at 1pm to set up shop; feel free to join us to lend a
hand or just chat. You don\'t need any experience or equipment, just a
bit of time to spare and a friendly smile!
15th July - RISE Festival - NO2ID volunteers needed
Sunday, 15th July 12pm-8.30pm at Finsbury Park. Volunteers needed for
the RISE festival: a free, all-day multicultural music event. If you are available that day and you fancy handing
leaflets out to some fab music then please contact Caroline -
highbury@no2id.net. The food is great too!
18th July - Manchester NO2ID Meeting
Wednesday, 18th July, 7.30pm - 9pm in the upstairs function room of the
Town Hall Tavern, Tib Lane, Manchester. Sadly, this venue is not
wheelchair-accessible, please contact us if you have accessibility
needs. We will be discussing film nights, websites and other things of
interest. Feel free to join us! (The Town Hall Tavern serves
reasonably-priced, good quality food until 8pm so you don\'t need to pop
home for tea - you can even order your meal brought up to the function
room.)
28th July - Manchester NO2ID at Taking Liberties Premiere
Thursday, 28th July. We will be flyering and taking petition signatures
at the Cornerhouse Cinema, Oxford Road at the Manchester premiere of
the new film "Taking Liberties".
_______________________________
What just happened?
Cambridge NO2ID Meeting success
On Friday, 8th June NO2ID Cambridge held a very successful public
meeting on ID cards at Parkside Community College. David Howarth MP
told the meeting that the Government\'s stated purpose for ID cards
changes all the time, but that the cards would do nothing to control
either terrorism or illegal immigration. Ian Gibson MP debunked the
Government line that identity cards would somehow be "voluntary", and
expressed concerns about health data being accessible via the ID Card
database in future. The well-attended meeting closed with a lively
hour-long debate involving speakers and attendees, most of whom
expressed determined opposition to government plans to track and
control the population via ID cards.
Home Office rebranding: ID "like railway companies"
This week Immigration Minister Liam Byrne MP used a Chatham House
speech to take ID related government hyperbole to new heights. The
speech entitled \'Securing Our Identity: A 21st Century Public Good\'
predicted that the "National Identity Scheme" will soon be occupying
the same place in British hearts and minds as "the railways in the 19th
century". Perhaps Mr Byrne is closer to the truth than it at first
seems. Many pamphlets against the railways were written in the good old
days, such as \'Railway Tyranny\', a letter of appeal to the President of
the Board of Trade published in 1885, which begins: "On behalf of very
many Fellow Passengers, and with them, in the interest of the
much-wronged General Public, I have to lay before your Honourable Board
[...] a complaint of the many violations to the Law constantly
perpetrated by the Railway Companies and their servants." Railway
Tyranny is available online at http://tinyurl.com/2z2dgn and could be
adapted to \'ID Card Tyranny\' and sent to Byrne to prove how right he is.
Data Sharing and the Serious Crime Bill
Last week(12th June) the Serious Crime bill received its second reading
in an almost empty House of Commons. The commons also passed a
guillotine motion that will means that scrutiny of the bill in
committee must be completed by 12th July and set limits on the length
of third reading debate. The bill has already passed through the House
of Lords. The bill contains yet more new data sharing and data matching
powers. Nick Herbert MP said: "The Bill [...] clears the way for a
large-scale data-matching exercise, even though a Home Office
consultation paper published last year acknowledged that many public
bodies feared that such operations could be seen as fishing
expeditions." Geoffrey Cox MP, who made a very powerful speech against
the bill(3hrs 16mins into the video stream), said: "The Bill must be
seen against the background of a Government who wish to introduce
identity cards and ensure that the citizen must do the bidding of the
state at appropriate times in his life so that his biological data can
be recorded."
Watch the debate online at http://tinyurl.com/ysyshv
Belgium\'s leaky ePassports
About 720,000 Belgian ePassports are wide open to data theft,
university researchers have found. The passports can be freely read by
anyone with a device sold in the shops. Belgium was one of the first
countries to go biometric. Issued from 2004 to mid-2006, the
first-generation ePassports apparently do not even comply with basic
ICAO data security standards. This directly contradicts ministerial
assurances given to the Belgian parliament this January. The passports
also contain non-required sensitive data, including a scanned
signature. Belgian passports issued since July 2006 are similar to
British and German ePassports and have the same security flaws, the
researchers say - but in the Belgian case, the passport numbering
system makes it easier to guess the access code. In 2003, Belgium won
an Interpol prize for its ePassports. And in 2004, James Sensenbrenner,
Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in the US House of
Representatives, stated that Belgium is "probably going to be the best
in all of Europe in terms of security of passports".
The Belgian research report and a video clip are online in English at http://www.dice.ucl.ac.be/crypto/passport/index.html
Publication details: © NO2ID 2010 - This document may be freely redistributed
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in its entirety including this notice. It may not be mass-mailed without
the prior permission of NO2ID.
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