Debate suggestion by Morpheas.

Are ID cards a necessary measure in dealiing with the likes of immigration and terrorism or do they pose a serious threat to civil liberties?

This will be a formal 1v1 debate and looking for two participants.

This will be my first debate on U.M. and I'll debate con.

Fab!

Atlantis Rises will be debating Against ID Cards.

Looking for 1 more person to debate For ID Cards.

I'll debate pro ID cards, despite being against them.

However, if I'm debating against a Debate Judge doesn't that give my opposition an unfair advantage?

That was my way of asking that if a debate judge takes part in a debate, do they judge it as well?

Just to make it clear, judges are NOT permitted to score their own debates, obviously. The scoring needs to be as impartial as possible.

Atlantis Rises, just for future reference, it's better to wait until an organizer has aknowledged your participation before posting your introduction.

But we'll do that now.

To recap:

thebarman will be for National ID Cards;
Atlantis Rises will be debating against them.

Each participant will post one introduction, five body posts and one conclusion. Responses must be made within 7 days of your opponent's last post, and remember to quote your sources.

Any questions, please send Lottie or myself a PM.

Thank you Dis

Opening Post

The idea of compulsory National Identification Cards is not new, however the need for them now has never been greater.

With each day the threat of terrorism increases, and in recent years it has been proven that no one is safe. For my side of the debate I shall be arguing that the issue of ID cards will help with the battle against terrorism and make us all that little bit safer.

Secondly, binge drinking among youngsters is at an all time high in the UK. Children sometimes as young as 14 can regularly be seen out on the streets, having had no problem purchasing large volumes of alcohol. I shall debate that with the introduction of compulsory identification, and showing the identification when buying age restricted products, it will become far easier to determine a persons age and prosecute wholesalers who disregard the law.

Thank you
thebarman

Like stamping a barcode on a human, tagging him like some sort of animal. It really proves nothing of the character of the person who wields it. 9/11 is proff of that. Picture ID cards or other ID cards are faked all the time and are indeed only useful when a person is honest. But these days there are many immigrates who get past the border with fake cards and rape our country, steal our wealth from hard working legitament people, and some times take their identity. Bringing terror and danger to our very doorstep.



But as I said before, ID cards can and are being faked at an alarming rate, and like a fake $100 bill, a lot of them can't be detected.



Ask a willing adult to get the beer for you. Sometimes when money is involved a local shopkeeper won't care who's buying despite it being against the law. So ID cards aren't a certifible way of keeping tabs on a young drinker.

The ones I'm talking about arn't being faked yet, because they haven't been made yet. It's not a membership to your local cinema!

I'm talking Government issued biometric cards. The face of the card will contain basic data: name, age, validity dates, nationality, whether a person has a right to work, and a unique ID number, but, inside the card will have a computer chip which can contain any number of other types of information for example:

Facial recognition
Iris scans
Fingerprints

Source

Of course it doesn't have to stop there, the cards could contain criminal records, employment history, credit history - anything really.

Picture this:

Senario one

A man wants to purchase a house, he goes to an estate agents and is shown round a house he likes the look of, just down the road from a school, and he intends to buy.

In order to purchase the house he must first swipe his identity card at the estate agents which would run background credit checks, then, a notice pops up on the estate agents screen - the man is a convicted paedophile and restricted from living anywhere NEAR a school. - Now wouldn't that be nice?

Senario two

A suicide bomber is trying to make his way onto the London Underground, he gets to the ticket gate only to find tickets are no longer in issue, now you swipe your ID card which lets you in and deducts the ticket price from your account.

Alternatively, suppose the suicide bomber has an ID card, when swiped authorities would know he was on the train. If he was already a suspect they would be automatically alerted to his presence. Should the unthinkable happen again, authorities would know exactly who was on the train when it blew, how many were missing, etc. making the whole operation far easier to deal with.


This is exactly my point, thank you, this is why we must have an ID card that is near impossible to fake. Anyone can fake a picture card, but how about fingerprints and iris scans?

It may seem like making us a "Big Brother" state, or as you say barcoding human beings - but the information contained on these cards isn't anything secret. Some companies will already know your credit history, the police will have your criminal record, everyone who works has a national insurance number - isn't that like a barcode already?

Everyone is individual, but everyone is also just a number, having a barcode to your name doesn't take anything away from you, being a number doesn't affect your rights.

The only people who have anything to lose are the criminals, and that's a pretty big deterrent for crime if you ask me.

After all - there is nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....

I don’t need a membership to see a movie. I just pay for a ticket. There are no membership fees to see movies. Not sure about in the United States though. If you need a membership card to see a movie – I feel sorry for you.



This wouldn’t work in any civilized society. It would be vetoed against because it would be a violation of basic fundamental rights of privacy. And how can you argue for an ID card that would go against the principles of these rights? If an in depth card were to be introduced it would create a “Big Brother” totalitarian regime that would destroy the country instead of preserve it. Facial recognition is basically picture ID on cards and those can be faked and/or inserted into present ID cards now, just remove the plastic and it can be done. Iris and fingerprint scanning are reserved for the movies and won’t be available to the public due to the high cost of its application. Perhaps some military institutions have them, but don’t quote me on that. And according to movies – everything has a weakness, even them. People who are creating computer works have the potential of hacking into the most sophisticated military and credit systems and creating havoc and/or steal information despite the best firewall. With this ID care you speak of, there would need to be a gigantic database with everyone’s information and if it were hacked, that would compromise everyone’s safety to the lowest worker to the President of the United States. Nothing is impregnable!



They do that now. But it can’t stop the agent from selling the man a house. It’s now law to recite your criminal record, but it can’t stop them from entering an area where there is children, only to be near children. They’re monitored, but as you can see in the news—and especially in Canada we’re having trouble with this—they set up community housing within normal communities with children. There is no law that prevents a convicted criminal from rejoining society if he has serviced his time according to the law. We can only monitor him, not prevent him from living. And for the safety of those families near-by, laws prevent the criminal’s record from being advertised to the public. It helps prevent scare.



Technology is both a blessing a curse and what can be thought up in the movies can be done in real life. If we’re playing to your scenario then it would easy to fake an electronic ID card. Just hack into the database through a firewall with a sophisticated program and change the information to anything you want. And this is not fantasy, my friend, it can be done. If people can hijack your computer and send emails with your address as spam, changing an electronic ID would as easily as reciting the English alphabet. Also, the “Big Brother” regime would fall into play again and it would violate a person’s basic right to privacy. There are cameras everywhere nowadays, but a person has a right to be alone once in a while without the paranoid of being watched 24/7.







Ever seen a fake $100 bill? Near impossible to duplicate my butt! Every seen the James Bond movies, faking fingerprints aren’t difficult either. Like I said before, if it can be thought up in a movie it can be done in real life. 9/11 is a perfect example. Several months before 9/11 – in the TV show The Lone Gunman – the trio of anti-government conspiracy freedom fighters were put into a scenario where a plane was to crash into the Twin Towers when the guidance system was hijacked by a rogue computer programmer. If the person wasn’t stopped the towers would fall. The terrorist was stopped, but look what happened in real life?



No. But under this ID check it would create a totalitarian regime and our basic freedom rights will be trampled on. How many times have I already said this? 3? Humans value their secrets. But ID cards like these nothing will be safe and in a database for anyone to use against you, legally or not -- especially if you enter politics.



How would you liked to be called a number instead of your name? It wouldn’t be nice, would it? To be an individual is to be treated as such, but with a number, you’re just that, some number with a history -- not a person with a history. The movie the Matrix is a great example. Agent Smith and his goons can assume the identity of anyone in the Matrix just by inputting a number into the database. Your life is a bunch of 1’s and 0’s instead of, let’s said, a name like Neo. And have you ever seen that commercial where a man steps up to a corner to file a clam with an insurance agency and the receptionist stamps a barcode to his forehead and at the first of another line the another man’s head is being scanned by a computer, but it doesn’t want to scan? How would you like to be treated like that? I wouldn’t.



Those who abide the law have the most to lose because criminals can always find loopholes through the system and avoid detection. Being a criminal means you don’t care about the law so he doesn’t think it applies to him so he can do anything he wants. And with crime running rampart there’s no storages of criminals and they’re always thinking up better ways to get around the law, and finding easier ways to do it with computers and the Internet. The Internet is one of the worse perpetrators of loss of privacy because everything you do now is monitors and recorded on the net. Your files are stored in databases, but with viruses and worms, backdoors and hijacked systems, your information is more vulnerable than ever.

I think it's worth mentioning here, that as my profile on the left clearly states I am from the United Kingdom, not the United States. So lets hear no more about "Presidents" and what may or may not be done in the movies and back up our arguments with fact, not fiction.

Also, of course you don't need a membership to see a movie, I was referring to the £10.99 a month cards you buy that give you unlimited viewing, they have your picture on and could probably be easily faked by any computer geek with photoshop and a printer.


This maybe so with passports, but with, for example, the UK driving licence it is not a photo laminated to a piece of card, it is embedded in the licence itself, twice, and has a hologram printed over the top.



I'm afraid this is simply not true, they are of course costly but Iris scans are the favourite choice at the moment for identification purposes. Allow me to back up my claim with some evidence:


From www.homeoffice.gov.uk

From www.privacy.org


This is of course correct, which is why we need a better system than we have now. The information is out there already, and it's already not secure.

This is also not true, maybe it is in Canada, but in the UK a restraining order that includes areas near schools and even contact with any minor can be issued and enforced. Therefore when buying a house the man in my example would have been unable to purchase it.
Again, to back up my claim, here is a story about a Paedophile who unfortunately was set free but given a restraining order banning him from contact with children:News story


As I mentioned before, this is why the Iris scan would be used;
"It is virtually impossible -nothing is entirely impossible - to forge the iris, which is why people across the world are moving towards that system". - from the same source as above quotes.

Of course people can hijack my computer, home computers are extremely vunerable. Government ones arn't. Sure, even the Pentagon has been hacked into, but by how many people? I'm sure it's a significant amount less that the amount of ID fraudsters out there now. Of course no system is impregnable, but any system is better than no system, I'm not saying ID fraud wouldn't exist, but it would reduce it, and make it rarer, and make it easier to catch, and punish, those responsible than it is now.

Nope, I've never seen a $10 bill either, probably because I'm not Canadian.


Yes of course I'm a very big James Bond fan, but I don't accept movie theory as part of a factual arguement. Find a case where fingerprints have been faked and I'll believe you, till then I think you're argument here is seriously flawed.


I'm afraid I must disagree, real life and Hollywood are very different and there are plenty of things in movies than haven't been done in real life.
What rights will be affected by an ID card? In my view it will help those who have the right to benefits, tax rebates, applications for passports, buy a home, and prevent those who do not have the right to do so. Surely this is a good thing.

Yes I know, but who said anything about the internet? I didn't. These files arn't going to be kept online for any spotty freak with a modem to hack into, they'll have secure connections not accesible from an outside computer, making your information safer - not more vunerable.

Please Note

Quotes by AtalantisRises are in RED
Quotes by the Barman are in BLUE

Quote By The Barman-Also, of course you don't need a membership to see a movie, I was referring to the £10.99 a month cards you buy that give you unlimited viewing, they have your picture on and could probably be easily faked by any computer geek with photoshop and a printer.

You’ve never explained this. I’ve never heard of a membership fee to see unlimited movies before. You just assumed I knew. North America tickets are bought from the box office, we don’t need a membership card. Which goes well to my prove my point of a violation towards the privacy of a person’s right to not have to be inserted into a database just to see a movie. Why do you do have to swipe a card through a scanner? Won’t this list all the movies you’ve seen in a database and if you’ve seen enough controversial movies you’re a “watch list”? That has gotta be one of the most disturbing things I’ve heard!

Quote by AtlantisRises-just remove the plastic and it can be done

Quote by The Barman-This maybe so with passports, but with, for example, the UK driving licence it is not a photo laminated to a piece of card, it is embedded in the licence itself, twice, and has a hologram printed over the top.

Again, another example of different laws in accordance to the same type of ID. How can you explain your side of the story assuming I know what you say? And vise versa. We’re getting our lines crossed and clearly there are different methods of making ID cards between the U.S., Canada & U.K.

Quote by AtlantisRises- Iris and fingerprint scanning are reserved for the movies and won’t be available to the public due to the high cost of its application.

Quote by The Barman-I'm afraid this is simply not true, they are of course costly but Iris scans are the favourite choice at the moment for identification purposes. Allow me to back up my claim with some evidence:

The identity cards scheme will build on ongoing work to make passports more secure by including biometrics – unique personal identifiers such as facial image, fingerprints or iris images. Biometric identifiers combined with a secure database will enable people’s identity to be accurately verified and will prevent fraud and attempts to register multiple identities.
Source From www.homeoffice.gov.uk

A biometric is a measure of identity based on a body part or a behaviour of an individual. The most well known biometrics are fingerprints, iris scans and signatures. The government says some biometrics are extremely secure and reliable forms of ID, and it appears very keen on the idea of iris or retina scans to establish one's identity or, at least, one's uniqueness.
Source From www.privacy.org

Where there is technology there is a geek who can hack into it. ID theft is growing and with computers and the internet it makes it easier for a person’s information to be available. Just by going to www.411.com you can access any person’s public name, address and phone number on the internet. An ID card won’t stop a thief there. Being branded by added security like a hi-tech ID card only brings an instability to a person’s information. Anything is accessible if you know where to find it. I don’t need any links for that. And funny what they call this marker: NIR (National Identity Registration), the ID card Scheme. Do you know what the word scheme means? One meaning is this: A secret or devious plan; a plot. www.homeoffice.gov.uk And 1.3 billion pounds a year spent on the ID Scheme cards is a lot of money which would raise taxes and create an even larger gap between the rich and the middle class. And of course you would have to pay for these ID cards. What if you lived on the street and had no money and no ID card? They’d throw you in jail?


Quote by AtlantisRises-Nothing is impregnable!

Quote by The Barman-This is of course correct, which is why we need a better system than we have now. The information is out there already, and it's already not secure.

As I said, nothing is impregnable!


Quote By AtalantisRises-but it can’t stop them from entering an area where there is children, only to be near children.

Quote by The Barman-This is also not true, maybe it is in Canada, but in the UK a restraining order that includes areas near schools and even contact with any minor can be issued and enforced. Therefore when buying a house the man in my example would have been unable to purchase it.
Again, to back up my claim, here is a story about a Paedophile who unfortunately was set free but given a restraining order banning him from contact with children:News story

This is understood to be because the offences would only result in a relatively short sentence, whereas a restraining order banning him from contact with minors could be indefinite. - from the article. The source told the Comet that when she told the church member he was banned from the Oval and was a convicted paedophile, she was shocked to learn the person already knew.

However the article never mentioned the court order banning him from the community. Community housing in Canada has been designed to hold these deviants, however in a recent TV broadcast on CBC (Canadian Broadcast Channel), they did a story on how these communities are kept in the dark from knowing sex offenders are residing in the neighborhood because the court believe they’ve served their time and deserve a second chance. These sex offenders names are on a list in a government database under the Sex Offenders Act, but it’s not readily posted to people where these community houses are resides or it would compromise the rehabilitation project. The communities are test areas where sex offenders can interact with people while dealing with real life situation and goes to reinforce the urge not to be repeat offenders.



Quote by AtlantisRises-If people can hijack your computer and send emails with your address as spam, changing an electronic ID would as easily as reciting the English alphabet.

Quote by The Barman-As I mentioned before, this is why the Iris scan would be used;
"It is virtually impossible -nothing is entirely impossible - to forge the iris, which is why people across the world are moving towards that system". - from the same source as above quotes.

As I said before and I’m sorry I have to use a movie again -- If the movies can think it up, it can be done by sinister people. Take Minority Report. The character Tom Cruise plays replaced his eyes with new ones. We’re far off in doing this, but what we see in movies -- sci-fi especially -- is becoming reality. A lot you seen in Star Trek: portable communication devices, lasers, view screens, and even the transporter is becoming reality. A scientist managed to teleport a single atom from one place to another using similar ideas in Star Trek. I’m sorry I don’t have a link. It was on TV.

Quote by TheBarman-People can hijack my computer, home computers are extremely vunerable. Government ones arn't.

Any firewall can be cracked, that’s the reason why newer and better firewalls are being created all the time.

Quote by The Barman-Sure, even the Pentagon has been hacked into, but by how many people? I'm sure it's a significant amount less that the amount of ID fraudsters out there now. Of course no system is impregnable, but any system is better than no system, I'm not saying ID fraud wouldn't exist, but it would reduce it, and make it rarer, and make it easier to catch, and punish, those responsible than it is now.

Contradicting yourself now?


Quote by AtlantisRises-Ever seen a fake $100 bill?

Quote by The BarmanNope, I've never seen a $10 bill either, probably because I'm not Canadian.

Okay, $100 pound then.


Quote by AtlantisRises-Every seen the James Bond movies, faking fingerprints aren’t difficult either

Quote by The Barman-Yes of course I'm a very big James Bond fan, but I don't accept movie theory as part of a factual arguement. Find a case where fingerprints have been faked and I'll believe you, till then I think you're argument here is seriously flawed.[/quote]

It’s easy to fake fingerprints. Dust a finger print off a window, use a piece of clear tape to take an impression, and then wrap it around your own finger. Put some powder on a glass and press the taped fingerprint on the powder. The impression of the taped fingerprint will appear in the powder though your own fingerprint provided the pressure.

[color=red]Quote by AtlantisRises-if it can be thought up in a movie it can be done in real life.

Quote from The Barman-I'm afraid I must disagree, real life and Hollywood are very different and there are plenty of things in movies than haven't been done in real life.

9/11 2001 -- Terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers in N.Y.City. A few months back in the series “The Lone Gunmen” the very same scenario was played out. Only in the show the planes were stopped. Check out the episode: “Pilot”. Monkey See Monkey Do!

Quote by AtlantisRises-our basic freedom rights will be trampled on.

Quote by The BarmanWhat rights will be affected by an ID card? In my view it will help those who have the right to benefits, tax rebates, applications for passports, buy a home, and prevent those who do not have the right to do so. Surely this is a good thing.

The thought of having all my life in a database is very disturbing. What if you did something as a kid, it will come back to haunt you later in life, especially in politics. The more we play to the notion more security is better, the more Big Brother comes to town! What’s next? A camera in every home? We now them on almost every street corner, malls, department stores, etc. There are even satellites that can zoom in on buildings and read body heat via infra-red. The military has the capability to fire a missile by satellite tracking any where in the world. Now that’s scary.


Quote by AtlantisRises-The Internet is one of the worse perpetrators of loss of privacy because everything you do now is monitors and recorded on the net.

Quote by The Barman-Yes I know, but who said anything about the internet? I didn't. These files arn't going to be kept online for any spotty freak with a modem to hack into, they'll have secure connections not accesible from an outside computer, making your information safer - not more vunerable.

Everything and everyone is connected these days. It’s called Networking.





FORGIVE THE "QUOTE/UNQUOTE" SEPARATORS, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHY THE "" AREN'T WORKING.

Edited again - Lottie

Because you're using far too many. They stop working if you have more than 20.

Try to structure a post to make your arguments, instead of countering every part of your opponent's post.

Alot of the quotes are done wrong too, such as missing the [ ] brackets or not being closed. if one is wrong, they're all wrong. I tried to fix them but they're beyond fixing it seems.

did a bit of editing myself to see if i could'nt help a bit
blue= thebarman quotes
red= Atlantis Rises quotes

Thank you guys.

Note:
I have now edited again because The Barman had raised a concern that there was a mix up with who quoted what.

PLEASE NOTE: From now on Atalntis Rises will be quoted in RED
The BarMan will be quoted in BLUE

If there are any problems with understanding how to change the color code to blue or red please let me know and I will show you.

Note for Atlantis Rises, Please, there is no reason for you to be quoting yourself ontop of quoting The barman. This seems to be why the Quote html is not working because you have gone over the quota in the posts. Plus it makes everything very confusing for the reader.
From now on Quoting just the Barman is sufficient and please keep the quotes to a minimum.

Thankyou, Lottie

Many thanks to all the mods and debate organisers for sorting that out, hopefully my following post will get us back on track with the right quotes in the right place...



Yes it's the same here (and I presume everywhere) but you CAN have an unlimited membership card. We seem to be debating this bit way off topic I originally brought up the subject as an example that these cards are easy to forge and the ones I'm talking about are not. We can debate on the financial inner workings of the movie industry another time.


I agree, but as Canada has rejected the proposal of a National ID card scheme and the UK is currently looking at ways of bringing it in, I think it's best we debate the UK's methods of making ID's.


Well that's American numbers, the equivalent over here would be BT.com but I'm sure these people can opt to be ex-directory just like here. If you don't want your number listed, then don't, simple enough.


Yes I know what a scheme means, and the main meaning is "Systematic Plan of Action", trying to debunk the "Scheme" because of an alternate definition of a word seems like conspiracy theory to me, which is of course by definition - theory, and not fact.

I'm not denying the scheme will be cheap, there have been many estimates on the production of ID cards and all of them stretch into billions of pounds, but then I - like many others - pay thousands of pounds of tax a year and at the very least I'd know this part would be going towards something that will increase my security and potentially SAVE money.

All those illegal immigrants currently poncing off the state wont be able to do so under the new scheme, we will have much better control over benefits and who gets them, rather than handing them out like sweets. I'm positive the amounts saved from wrongly claimed benefits will eventually make up for amounts spent on correct identification, but you have to spend money to make it, or in this case, save it.

Under the proposed scheme the ID cards are not compulsory, you will not be arrested if you fail to produce one when asked. You will however need one when claiming benefits, buying a house, applying for a passport etc. Not things that homeless people generally do, so no our jails will not suddenly be filled with unidentified homeless people.


At the risk of repeating myself repeating myself, I'll let the readers/judges figure out what my response is to that


Quite frankly that is shocking. Perhaps our tolerance of sex offenders differs but I have little or no sympathy for them. The way sex offenders ESPECIALLY paedophiles should be treated can't be written in this forum because obscenities arn't allowed. If it ever comes to the vote that the sex offenders list should be made public I know which one I'd be for, and if the introduction of an ID card helps keep paedophiles away from children then that reason ALONE is convincing enough for me. I can only hope every parent out there agrees.


You really shouldn't watch that much TV, it's bad for you, and it doesn't help you win debates either. You are exactly right, we are a far way from implanting someone elses eyeball into your socket like they do in Minority Report, so lets go with Iris scans until the criminal world is up to speed. It'll take decades for eye transplants to be avaliable medically, and even longer criminally, so when that problem comes along we'll deal with it but for now I think that element of science fiction will remain fiction.


No, I stand by both statements. Government systems are not easily hacked into, and yes the Pentagon has been hacked. My point is it hasn't been hacked by everyone, and hacking into it is relativly tough, otherwise everyone would be doing it. The point here is that even though no system is impregnable the amount of people capable of ID fraud on that level is very small. Or at least smaller than the number of peolpe capable of ID fruad at the moment.


For future reference, this £ is the pound sterling symbol, this $ is the dollar symbol, and we don't have a £100 note, the highest denomination is £50.


I did a little research on this, you know, so I could back up my arguments with sources, quotes, evidence - that kind of thing, and I found that yes fingerprints can be faked but the process is a little more complicated than the one you describe.

SOURCE

However, even if it were that easy don't you think someone taking your print would notice when you had tape wrapped round your finger...?

...and even if you managed to fake it "James Bond" style, the preferred method for identification is the Iris Scan, as we've already discussed, so it really doesn't matter.


I'll be sure to put that on my watch list, but what's that got to do with an argument against ID cards? Perhaps if the USA had national ID cards then these men wouldn't have been in the US in the first place and 9/11 wouldn't even have happened? Ever think of that?


Well, if you break the law as a child then you've still broken the law. I'm sure any decent emplyer would be able to see you've changed and employ you, and perhaps childhood thugs shouldn't go into politics. And if you can't get emplyed...well, sounds like a pretty good deterrent against breaking the law if you ask me.

Atlantis Rises, your post please.

I apologize. I've been really, really busy. I've been able to pop on every once in a while, but not long enough to make a real effort to post my response. I'll need a few days for my reply.

I don't have time to debate this topic any longer. I'm way too busy. I'm sorry. Please give my position to someone else. Thanks.

That's a lot of debating for nothing, we wern't that far off finishing. Can we not both post a short conclusion now and have it judged rather than closing the debate altogether?

thebarman, that's a good idea. I'll see if Atlantis Rises is willing to post a short summary.

I will post a conclusion on Sunday with a little paragraph refuting your last post. But it will be short as I don't have a lot of time. I'm sorry about this, but family comes first and I'm not getting the time on my computer or on the net as I use to.

In the long run a system wide National ID card wouldn’t be cost effective and it would probably cause a lot more problems than it solves. Most people take pride in their privacy and they would not want all their private information in a central database. Any one who plans to enact a malicious act will know how to bypass the security, so in essence this National ID card scheme wouldn’t really benefit anyone and take more money out of innocent, hard-working citizens. And taxes would probably go up too!

As you might know immigrants are often better treated than a citizen born in a certain country, so even with a National ID Card -- which is something similar to what we have now -- nothing would change.



We have that now, and security measures have not changed.



The definition of hack is: illegal entry. If everyone could access the info, it would be in a public domain. But I digress, and the point I’m trying to make is a National ID scheme will not be able to stop criminals from access this private info. They could change their info so they could not ID’ed. There are modems out there that have rotating IP addy’s and programs hackers create to confuse a system so it’s almost impossible for them to be found. Virus and Worms have code that open the “backdoor” to a secure system even with a powerful firewall. What I’m saying is, where there’s a will there’s a way.



Kids will be kids and don’t always make the right decisions when they are young. The straight and narrow path is sometimes hard to follow and if you think about it in politics all politicians are thugs in a way. They rule over their constitutes like a mob boss over his troops. They tell us what is right and wrong, but they don’t always follow suit. But what I’m saying is, the law can’t always protect the innocent even in the right.

In conclusion, I would like to say I don’t believe a National ID scheme is necessary as we don’t need it. The more ways for us to protect ourselves the more ways criminals will come up with ways to deceive us. It will not only cost trillions in wasteful practices, but in the long run, it will cost more fear than security, the criminal element will still by-pass the measures, no matter what!

Concluding Post



Yes, that's a bit of a hot topic in the UK where illegal immigration is rife. We seriously seriously need a solution. Current estimates put the number of illegal immigrants in this country at around 500,000, half a million people have snuck over our borders and some of which are now claiming benefits.

Source

In this instance, an ID card will work, of course it'll cost money and of course there will be teething problems but it's the logical step in defeating this problem and eventually will SAVE money, not cost it.

If I was Canadian I'd be against an ID card, you don't need one, which is probably why the government rejected the proposal. I can't imagine Canada has anywhere near the immigration problems the UK has.

I understand people love their secrecy, I don't like the idea of someone knowing all my personal details but lets face it my personal details are already out there. My name and address is known by my Bank, my Credit card company, the council, the DVLA (Driving and Vehicle Licencing Agency), even eBay! Who also have my credit card details by the way.

However so far I'm ok, no one has racked up £1,000 bills buying garden gnomes from Mongolia, so if eBay can keep my information safe, surely the Government can do the same.

To conclude, a National ID card is not a worldwide solution, but it is a solution in the UK. It will help get benefits to the right place, and therefore stop the flow of money to those people claiming illegally and in some cases using that cash to spout hatred and warmongering in the very country that supports them.

It could potentially help with many other issues including underage drinking and smoking, ID fraud, tax evasion and the capture of criminals.

There are pros and cons for both sides, but in this case I beleive the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, in the end - we just can't afford not to.

Thank-you debators!

I will now hand it over to the debate judges to determine who wins this debate!

Perhaps we should have a debate about what constitutes and argument/debate.
The same minor points were expressed throughout the debate without getting to the actual meat of the debate.

The Rev says “where’s the beef”!

Debater 1: thebarman
Relevancy:5
Countering:7
Style:7
Persuasiveness:5
TOTAL:24

Debater 2: Atlantis Rises
Relevancy:4
Countering:5
Style: 4
Persuasiveness:2
TOTAL:15

I will have to agree with Irish in his assesment of the debate. It seems that both sides got stuck in a loop of quoting quotes. While both sides made some good points, they seemed to be lost in all the quoting- commenting.


Debater 1: thebarman
Relevancy:8
Countering:7
Style:5
Persuasiveness:6
TOTAL:26

Debater 2: Atlantis Rises
Relevancy:6
Countering:4
Style: 4
Persuasiveness:2
TOTAL:16

Shame it couldn’t have been taken to its entirety! And as has already been stated, the debate never really passed its first stages; with still loads of information that could have been covered (which I’m sure it would’ve if it run to completion, in the sense of all its posts). And personally I found it a little confusing when the person posting even quoted themselves?

Debater 1: thebarman
Relevancy:6
Countering:7
Style:7
Persuasiveness:6
TOTAL:26

Debater 2: Atlantis Rises
Relevancy:5
Countering:5
Style: 4
Persuasiveness:3
TOTAL:17

Thank-you debate judges and debators.

Atlantis Rises finishes this debate with a final score of 16.

thebarman wins this debate with a final score of 25.3.