After watching the ID card bill debate last night, it is now clear that the Government is not just ‘reacting to the international demand for biometric passports’, but creating that demand. Its Passport Agency is developing the supporting technology, and is lobbying worldwide for its adoption.
Therefore, the British Government obviously think it is acceptable to invade privacy, and take authoritarian control of individuals’ existence using technology. This is justified by ‘if you have not done anything wrong; you have nothing to worry about’.
The message is that society is going to be micro-managed using this technology to keep everyone on the ‘straight and narrow’. Nobody will be able to do ‘wrong’, even minor misdemeanours, due to the Government’s surveillance.

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JAMES KIRKUP
MICROCHIPS carrying sensitive personal information that can be scanned by sensors from a distance could be included in the proposed national identity cards, it emerged yesterday.
While the government's legislation cleared its first hurdle last night, there could be trouble ahead as the ID card could use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.
RFID involves a tiny microchip being embedded in an object. The chip contains data that can be read by scanners from a distance, typically a few dozen feet.
The technology was pioneered by retailers to keep track of stock - many everyday products sold in big supermarkets carry RFID chips that are tracked and scanned by store computers.

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EL-ARISH, Egypt
Twenty military advisers from the United States and the European Union inspected Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday in preparation for Israel's upcoming disengagement.
Egypt is due to deploy 750 guards along the southern border with Gaza after August's pullout
The 20 advisers were guided along the border by members of the Multinational Force and Observers, the peacekeeping force that is stationed in the Sinai peninsula as part of the 1979 Camp David treaty between Egypt and Israel.

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The European Union wants to host a major diplomatic event in Ramallah or Jericho, post disengagement, in an effort to shore up the Palestinian Authority.
EU Parliamentary President Josep Borrell Fontelles, who is in Israel promoting a meeting of the EU-Med Partnership for the Palestinian territories, told The Jerusalem Post that it was premature to hold it in Israel, although some side events could be scheduled here. He said he feared that if it was held in Israel some of the foreign ministers from Arab countries would not come.
The EU-Med Partnership, which this year is celebrating its 10th anniversary, brings together 25 European foreign ministers with their counterparts in Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority. It works on economic initiatives among the countries focused on creating a free trade zone between Europe and the Mediterranean.

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that the Quartet for Middle East peace, which includes the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, should work to bring the three major regional actors -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- into the efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“When you talk about some of the sensitive issues that are final status issues, the regional states are going to have to also be supportive of whatever solutions are found to those final status issues,” Rice told a group of journalists in Saudi Arabia June 21
.
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