What Vaclav Havel can tell us about liberty

I have a feeling in my bones that 2009 may become the make or break year for ID cards and the NIR. This opinion piece brings the issues out quite nicely. Henry Porter: What Vaclav Havel can tell us about liberty |Comment is free |guardian.co.uk. Here's the nub, I think: "the democratic state must be given power to act on behalf of us all but that is not the same as the state granting itself powers to know everything about us and to bully those who resist its invasive instincts. In 2004, the Courts and Tribunals Enforcement Act made it legal for the first time in 400 years for bailiffs to force entry into homes on a civil order and remove goods. Now we hear from the Justice Ministry that bailiffs may offer reasonable violence to force inside their own homes. That gives us an idea of how the government plans to enforce the �1,000 fines handed out to ID card refuseniks – ultimately by violence meted out by men who may be no better than nightclub bouncers. It is astonishing that we are going to allow this to happen."