The UK will eventually become one big open prison - everyone tagged, chipped at birth, ID cards, GPS in cars..

Question

you won't be break any laws without knowing you'll get caught.

Maybe this is a good thing? Or not? What do you think? Am I over exaggerating?

Aren't we supposed to live in a "free" society??

Hazza, perhaps you would like to explain to everyone how, if you are chipped, you have freedom? If you are chipped, you can be tracked at any time, what's free about that?

I'm a bit worried, I'm propsing a sci-fi nightmare and people think it's a good idea.....

Answer 1

It would be a good idea IF we could trust the benevolence of those who did the monitoring. A country without crime sounds very appealling, but when the only people prosecuted are the poor, or those of a different religion, creed or colour. We live in corrupt societies, and the establishment is rotten to the core, so we are simply heading into the Orwellian nightmare.

Answer 2

Nice one, Snow - you've actually got me thinking (a very rare occurence nowadays, as it takes a lot of effort and makes me break into a sweat!!!)) But here goes....

Firstly, I don't think you're exaggerating by describing the UK as "...one big open prison...." under these circumstances because it would be so easy to be tracked.

The main problem I have is the exorbitant financial cost to the taxpayer in implementing, securing, administering and continuing to provide ever changing hardware and software.

And I simply cannot see how society would benefit from forking out all these costs because the intentional criminal (as opposed to the 'spur of the moment' wrongdoer) would be well prepared to avoid the various methods of identification and detection anyway. So who would really benefit?

The current argument that ID cards will help fight homegrown terrorism and decrease crime is implausibly unrealistic because your average terrorist and career criminal (recidivist) will have a false one from the new industry of fake card production.

So, the only people that would be reliably tracked are the law-abiding card-carrying, chipped folks who aren't worth tracking 'cos they're law-abiding anyway, and the 'petty' criminal who doesn't care as they'll be below the threshhold for the authorities to do anything about it as they'll be too busy investigating the folks making fake cards and chips.

For these reasons I reckon it would be a huge, unnecessary.and expensive mistake that we, the taxpayer, would pay for.

CONCLUSION: Bad idea.

Answer 3

Maybe you would like to live in a police state but I am not happy at all. Just take this a little further.... If crime is reduced to nearly zero then what will be next.

Thought crime?

The people in the Uk are being systematically stripped of their own identities and they allow this to happen freely. Under the guise that if they have done nothing wrong then they have nothing to fear. That is just plain and simple bullshit....

I also have done nothing wrong but I felt the spying on me when ever I went out was too intrusive, I am a naturally private person.

Answer 4

Perhaps you have never lived in a country where your paranoid fantasy is real - I have and it isn't very pleasant. In Europe in the 20th Century the fiction you describe for Britain was real in all too many places - from Nazi Germany to Franco's Spain to Mussolini's Italy. Then there was the evil Soviet Union and the intrusive and obscene Joseph McCarthy era in the US (in my lifetime too!).

Britain is a free country, but we need checks and balances to keep it that way. I have absolutely no objection to ID Cards - I welcome them. I don't break the law - but if I did I might be worried.

If you live in Britain the freedoms you enjoy were earned by your father and his generation and those that went before him. These freedoms are cast in stone and ID Cards help maintain them - they do not threaten them.

Answer 5

I would feel safer knowing that the hoodie who mugs me while walking home can be traced. They would get pretty bored tracking me to the shops etc. I would feel safer knowing that if I was raped they would be able to run the DNA through a computer and catch him. You feel differently about these things once you have a child. You would do anything to protect them.

I believe that a truly free society should be one where women, children and the elderly have the freedom to go where they want without being terrified.

Answer 6

Do you think that is going to happen only in the UK? It will be that way everywhere, my friend. The Apocalypses, The Anti-Christ, The Mark of the Beast, It's all coming to the whole world. You will not be able to buy or sell anything without your mark. (666) The first sign of this, many say was the Euro Dollar. One coin for all. It is prophesied. It is the beginning of the end, my friend. I am probably not going to live to see it, but the next generation may. The Bible teaches us to resist the Mark of the Beast, so we may enter the Kingdom of Heaven, But without it you will surely die here on earth. It is gonna be real ugly! I'm not religious, by most standards, however I do believe in the end of days, and in the Bible.

Answer 7

There are different kinds of freedom.

Yeah we'd have lost our freedom to certain degree of privacy, but gained freedom to walk around without being exposed to crime.

I'd actually prefer it that way. As long as no one is watching me at home, that would be creepy. But I don't much care if someone knows where I drive, sees me walk down the street or knows where I am at all times. It doesn't much matter. I have nothing to hide, and it if wouldn't be used to meddle in my private life I don't see it impacting me at all.

It's just an individual preference, but freedom doesn't really come into it- either way, we lose one type of freedom to gain another.

Answer 8

This is a possibility of future life. We can however prevent it by political pressure. The opposition of ID cards is the first obvious step. I will be showing my opposition by not voting labour n using my vote productively in the next election for a party who is not infavour of id cards. I don't think ur over exgerating but i do think this is a horrible existance i don't particularly want to be tagged do u?

Answer 9

I think that this is a good idea but knowing human culture it would be takin too far and where does it stop?

This isnt really solving the problem really, just drivng it underground. How do we learn from our mistakes then? Most crimes are petty crimes that dont necessarily build up to bigger crimes if the person is helped and supported.

Answer 10

I think it's a good idea. No rape or murder, what could be better than that. If I actually liked living in Europe (which I don't very much) I would considering staying permanently if they changed things that way. Unfortunately for me, I'm a US citizen, and I know they would never go that far in the states. Stupid ACLU, with all their stupid privacy lawsuits.