thanks for passing by. I agree with you, but we have different backgrounds. I come from the ‘continent’ and am used to IDs and ISPs having to save data. Hence I might see less harm in those, although I wished the UK had similar privacy laws as aforementioned countries have.
But as said, CCTV was a _shock_ and I certainly agree with the 1984 campaign!

Sadly things are deriving more and more every day and there are even plans to register every prepay phone purchase in a near future and the UK is becoming more and _G.W.Bushian_: The War on Terror is not a wildcard to control everyone, but the gouvernment thinks differently.

Yes, after I will have ranted some more, I can see myself become a member.

Thank you for your compliments, and your comment. Just one point about this paragraph…

“The UK is not alone, Big Brother is watching you all over, in any country, and I seriously doubt that most so-called privacy anal-retentists browse online anonymously or avoid cloud based services such as GMail and Google Web History and consequently block cookies from third parties such as ad providers, statistics programs and many more. Probably most of them have at least one credit card, and maybe even participate in several bonus card systems in their favourite shops, thus allowing everyone and their neighbours to analyse their spending patterns.”

The point is that I can CHOOSE not to use GMail or Google Web History. I cannot CHOOSE not to have an ID card, or be filmed on CCTV, etc.

As it happens, I have no credit card and no store card: I do useGMail, but I do it in the full knowledge of the possible consequences. I clean cookies and am careful about my online presence.

However, the big point here is choice: it is massively important: indeed, it is the crux of the matter, especially as far as ID cards are concerned. In Germany, I think that everyone has to have one (?) but that is not the case here, and it is not the government’s privilege to tell me who I am.

They work for me (or so the supposition goes), not the other way around.

DK

I’ll stick to my words about PDF’s entry: powerful, ad rem, but dangerously prone to be misunderstood and invite to more a more populist style. Otherwise, yes I like most I read at DK.

That’s how people to whom we would refer as ‘jackasses’ argue.