Hi Fastship, out of interest what countries are you going to move to?

__________________
Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

OK well that's one option, personally I would have liked to have heard your honest answer. I am curious to know if your objection to things such as DNA databases, ID cards and e-borders is because you feel the information will be misused in some way or if your objection is based on something else.

Absolutely none whatsoever, but then I'm not part of a democratically elected government.

All of them! I plan to take my bike and/or truck and just keep on going until I find a place of contentment.

__________________

I feel I have more than answered your questions or at least provided you with some basis to start your own enquiries if you have an open mind to do so.

As to your last point - you make the classic mistake of confusing democracy with freedom.

In conclusion, I wise president once said "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." B Franklin 1775.

Good luck in your new utopia, it sounds like you will be very happy in it and remember another quote - "denounce your neighbour for he may denounce you first!" - graffiti found engraved on the wall of a gulag in Russia. Author unknown.

__________________

well good luck Fastship. We are doing the same things (although obviously not for the same reason). let us know when you find you utopia - I will certainly be interested if you find that most other countries have their own sins. Certainly all the ones I have so far been to all have plus and minus points .......

__________________
Ollie

www.jollyfollies.com

Land's End to Sydney 2009

Not at all, the only problem is that democracy is the best option we have, the idea of living in a completely free society is just nonsense, it simply isn't possible.

As I said when I edited my last post, I am curious to know if your objections to all the stuff that has been raised in this thread is because you think it will be used beyond it's stated intent, just on general principle or if you have some other reason.

The Franklin quote is just nonsense I am afraid, anyone who lives in any form of society has to sacrifice some liberty for safety, that is how society works. Individuals sacrifice some personal liberty for the safety of society as a whole, usually in the form of laws.

Fastship.

Out of interest, your plan to ship out and move on, will that involve you applying for citizenship of another country? Because surely unless you do that you'll be just as restricted under any e-borders system as if you stayed?

I'm an ex-pat, but I still have a British passport, so I'm sure any government keen on tracking the movements of its subjects/citizens would be able to track me though its use. When it runs out I'll have to apply to the local embassy for a new one, so they can find me then. I'm sure it's almost impossible to drop off the grid and still maintain freedom of movement.

Fortunately I've got two other passports.

__________________

Paradoxically, ID cards are predicted to be readily forgeable therefore in accepting them, in theory I could have any identity and nationality I wish.

__________________

the british government already track individuals movements via your credit/debit/store/nectar cards ect. checking on where when and on what you spend your money on. you can run but you cant hide [cash is king]

I was thinking exactly the same thing. Every time you pay for fuel or lodging using a card or withdraw cash from a machine, "they" know exactly where you are. Banks build profiles of spending patterns in (admittedly hopeless) attempts to detect card and identity theft too.

On a lighter note, 12 of my friends were strip searched at Newcastle Airport after one of them joked to passport control that he had semtex and cocaine in his luggage. Now, everyone of those 12 has their passport flagged up whenever they travel.

Steve

I'm a bit concerned about some of your comments in the light of this one. The UK does have a constitution (and most of it is written down in various laws), but we do not have a single document headed "The constitution of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". I used to think this was a strength as I (naively) thought it was harder to tamper with many documents and the first thing new dicators do is to re write the constitution, but I have been proved wrong by the government that now wants to create a database with my personal facts on it, to be sold to whichever commercial organisations donate to the Labour party, or lost on a train.

The UK is also no longer ranked very high in terms of personal freedom; you may not even protest against government policies without applying for police permission (which may be witheld without giving any reason)!

While many other countries have ID cards and some have databases, the one proposed for the UK will be one of the most all enveloping in the world (I did not say the free world, I meant the whole world; even China collects less data on its citizens than the UK). I will leaving for another European country, where I will carryy an ID card with eight pieces of data on it - 49 fewer than the UK expect from me.

Rant over, I'll try to confine myself to motorcycling issues for a while now.