It's going to be a long, hard road to defend our liberties

I've not blogged much ID/NIR stuff latel. This not because there haven't been things written, more a sense that the developments are not particularly significant: the juggernaut trundles on through the countryside without reaching any particular junctions. The arguments against are still the same. However, I'm breaking my silence because I think that those who are concerned for the liberties of our older selves, our children and their children should take this moment to pause and make ready for the battle (for it is clear that the juggernaut is still going and hasn't been deterred by a series of cogent arguments or the demonstrable weaknesses of its own). In this pause for reflection, we can do worse than to note this article: Simon Carr: It's going to be a long, hard road to defend our liberties - Simon Carr, Commentators - The Independent. And here's an arresting quote to ponder as to why the argument has not been convincingly won: "most social democrats... enjoy an active state. They feel it's essentially benign, constructive and protective."
I think Simon is right: for in supporting No2ID I find myself sharing political space with some 'dodgy' characters: libertarians and Daily Mail readers who are relflexively anti state in a way that I am not always. And although I have a penchant for self-organising systems, I tend to feel that there are things that are well-done by larger democratically-accountable agencies; health care, for example.

However, more importantly is the appearance of a new argument (I think it is, at least. It's the first time I have sighted it in the wild):
"what does this surveillance and remote monitoring do to our political class? I bet it has a negative effect on their energy and humanity. According to the state, Arthur Koestler said, the definition of an individual is a million people divided by a million. If we, the subjects, become a screen experience, numbers to be crunched, that surely diminishes our masters' capacity to think of us in personal terms.
These vast schemes increase their credulity, arrogance and appetite for autocratic, unworkable solutions. The databases they sign up for at the cost of billions are not only vanity projects, they dehumanise the people who work in them. They reinforce the separateness of the political class from the rest of us."
Though again it may mainly appeal to the thought-out voter rather than the 'no more duty on beer and fags' voter. Yet for all that it will bear the analogy with warfare where the callousness of war increases with the disengagement of those pulling the trigger or pressing the button from the effects on their victims. That's still remote until you realise that we -that means 'I' multiplied by a million or several- are the ones having the missiles rain down on us. We will be the surveillance casualties akin to innocent Palestinians in Gaza. Maybe that's an argument that could get attention? If you think so; blog it, talk about it -influence opinion with it.

Htt No2ID
see also the Guardian's guide to how we got here.