Tracking the citizenry

On its way to the USA

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 5, 2001]

Making diligent use of the fears resulting from the United States' September tragedy, the government in England tightens its grip. From the London Times we learn:

The Home Office has secretly created a prototype national identity card in preparation for the introduction of ID cards for all Britons. Ministers commissioned the Passport Agency to carry out a feasibility study aimed at producing a card with fingerprint and face-imaging technology, as well as encoded information about the holder.

The technology is already in place at the Passport Office to introduce ID cards. Digital photographs and signatures for passports are already possible and are likely to be introduced by early next year.

Once that system has begun, all that would be required to bring in national ID cards would be to transfer the stored digital photographs and signatures for passports onto the new format.

The latest revelations come after months of conflicting signals from the Government on the subject of ID cards.

And from Russ Kick of New York's Village Voice, we learn further:

Britain is funding trials of "speed limiters," which track your car's whereabouts via Global Positioning Satellites, then refuse to let you drive faster than the limit for that stretch of road. Results from initial trials, according to the Guardian of London, were so promising the government is forking over money for more research, with an eye toward fitting all cars in Britain with speed limiters by 2006.

"Law enforcement technology developed in any country will soon be deployed in all countries," says reporter Jim Redden, author of the book Snitch Culture: How Citizens Are Turned Into the Eyes and Ears of the State [Feral House]. "If speed limiters work in England, we'll see them here before too long. My understanding is that the [U.S.] government is currently looking at requiring carmakers to install computer chips which would allow the police to remotely shut off any car's motor."

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