For those unable to believe how anyone could possibly not welcome Identity cards with open arms, here’s a story for you. After the war, fed up with the constant intrusions of privacy and government tracking, the British Housewives League burnt their compulsory ID cards in frying pans and dry cleaners.
In 1950 in London, when a common man refused to present his ID card to the police, he was taken to court. Lord Goddard who was the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales said that compulsory ID cards must be scrapped since they “tend to make people resentful of the acts of the police.”
Image Credit: http://www.no2id.net
And now a final tidbit. These ID cards were introduced during the Second World War in order to enforce wartime regulations. However, intoxicated by the power that such Identity Cards gave it, the government did not revoke the ID cards. Police still had the power to detain anyone on the street and ask them for their card. Not surprising given that we saw earlier that we must not give the government too much power.
More proof that world over, compulsory Identity Cards have resulted in repression and police abuse. We must never forget history while making policies since such mistakes are expensive and ones that we can ill afford.