Blair's Legislative Program To Focus on Crime, Security

[R.A. Hettinga]

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110125411107782447,00.html>

The Wall Street Journal


 November 24, 2004 3:28 a.m. EST

 WORLD NEWS



Blair's Legislative Program
 To Focus on Crime, Security

Associated Press
November 24, 2004 3:28 a.m.; Page A11


LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair put the fight against crime and
terrorism at the center of his campaign for a third term, pledging to
fast-track plans for national identity cards and a new police agency
similar to the FBI.

With parliamentary elections expected in May, the government wants to
appear tough on law and order, and security lies at the heart of the
legislative program it unveiled yesterday.

"This is a big change, but frankly with terrorism, illegal immigration and
organized crime ... identity cards in my judgment are long overdue," Mr.
Blair told the House of Commons.

Political opponents accused his government of seeking to frighten voters -
similar to a charge Democrats leveled against President Bush.

Despite widespread public opposition to British participation in the Iraq
war, Mr. Blair's Labour Party is comfortably ahead in opinion polls and
expected to win a third consecutive term.

Queen Elizabeth II outlined to Parliament plans for a Serious Organized
Crime Agency to crack down on drug gangs, people-traffickers, major
fraudsters and Internet pedophiles. The agency has been dubbed Britain's
equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the government's
legislative priority is a law allowing a national database of names,
addresses and biometric details of everyone in Britain. The information
would be linked to ID cards. Ministers hope to phase them in for voluntary
use by 2007, then make them compulsory by 2012.

Such cards are mandatory in many Western European countries, but the idea
alarms civil-rights activists.


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'