British citizens who refuse to provide personal details for the planned "voluntary" national identification card have been told they will be denied passports and be unable to leave the UK.
James Hall, CEO of the Identity and Passport Service, the agency charged with running the National Identity Scheme to provide ID cards to all residents of the UK, confirmed many privacy advocates' fears this week when he revealed those who opt out of the program will be unable to obtain or renew travel documents.
Hall made the revelation during a national "webchat" where questions were submitted by the public.
In response to a questioner asking what would happen to those who refused to join the nearly $11 billion program, Hall answered, "There is no need to register and have fingerprints taken - but you will forgo the ability to have a passport."
According to a government website:
The National Identity Scheme is an easy-to-use and extremely secure system of personal identification for adults living in the UK. Its cornerstone is the introduction of national ID cards for all UK residents over the age of 16.
Each ID card will be unique and will combine the cardholder's biometric data with their ...   more »

By Gudrun Schultz
PARIS, France, March 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – More than 2000 French medical professionals have issued a petition calling for laws to permit active euthanasia, saying they already engage in the practice when a patient’s life becomes “intolerable” due to “physical and psychological suffering.”
"Because disease was certain to defeat medical procedures, because in spite of treatment, physical and psychological suffering had rendered the life of a patient intolerable, we medical staff, have consciously helped patients to die with decency," the petition reads.
The declaration was signed by 2,134 medical professionals and published Thursday in the weekly Nouvel Observateur, Reuters reported yesterday.
Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in Canada, questioned whether the signers of the petition were actually involved in euthanasia or whether they were simply involved in allowing death to occur by ending aggressive medical treatment.
“Often people become confused by language and definitions,” Schadenberg told LifeSiteNews.com in an email commentary.
He also questioned the comment claiming euthanasia is frequently practiced by French doctors, pointing out that a study last year in the UK proved that the actual number of clandestine euthanasia deaths in their country was much less than the pro-euthanasia people ...   more »

U.S. Patent Application #20050038718 details the use of RFID readers that American Express calls "consumer trackers" to closely watch people in stores. The idea is that RFID-embedded objects carried by the shopper would emit a "consumer identification signal" when queried by consumer tracker devices in the environment.  Businesses would pick up this signal and use it to identify shoppers, track their movements, and observe their behavior.
Fortunately, in a meeting last week with CASPIAN, American Express senior executives  vowed not to engage in RFID-based consumer tracking without providing notice to consumers. See our press release, American Express Addresses RFID People Tracking Plans for more on this.
Here are a few troubling excerpts from the patent:
"...consumer interface [configured to...provide a consumer identity signal to a radio frequency identification reader via a radio frequency signal] may also collect and transmit time and location information regarding the path traversed by consumer within the merchant's facility. Such information may be acquired by consumer trackers situated at specific locations throughout the merchant's facility..." [Section 0212; Bracketed information from Section 16]
"...different aisles and/or checkpoints throughout the stores may be equipped with RFID readers to facilitate tracking the shopper's performance....By facilitating the shopping experience, the ...   more »