back to article Wacky Jacqui's yoof ID site goes silent

The Home Secretary's opinion-harvesting site for young 'uns, mylifemyid.org, has shut up shop and looks likely to drag its feet on publishing the research. Jacqui Smith launched the site back in July to kickstart debate amongst the yoof about government ID cards. The only trouble was that opinions expressed by those using it …

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  1. Colin Millar
    Black Helicopters

    Sneaky jacky

    This is all part of the scheme to sell ID Cards to everyone else

    "Home Office research shows that binge drinking, knife-wielding gangs of feral hoodies (AKA yoofs) are terrified that the introduction of the ID card scheme will interfere with their granny terrorising, car-stealing, e-popping lifestyles."

  2. Matt Kimber

    Listening.

    If nothing else the current administration really do push the limits of the adage, "never attribute to malicious intentions that which can be ascribed to mere incompetence."

    It's the setting up a site with what does actually genuinely seem to be the belief that people actually want them to do what they're doing, that the public outcry on tracking, filing, databasing and losing the backups to Nigeriam scammers, is some kind of inconvenient vocal minority. (Funnily enough, when a vocal minority says something that agrees with their aims, it's taken to be overriding public opinion.)

    Where it falls down, and Ms. Smith is one of the worst culprits, is that they simply don't seem to possess the ability to look at the results, think for a bit, and say, "okay, you don't want us to do that, maybe we'll have a bit of a rethink." Sadly, the way the political system works, unless you're very very lucky your vote is probably completely ineffective compared to a relatively small number of people in swing/marginal constituencies, who are on the receiving end of a combination of election-time bribes and bogeyman stories about how "the other lot" are going to threaten your house price, job, and pension - so you've got no chance of anything ever being fixed.

    Problem is, elected representatives might be elected, but most of the time they're hardly acting as representatives. Does the overriding majority of Jacqui Smith's constituency *really* want ID cards?

  3. Scott van Looy

    Oh dear...

    When will the government realise that the ONLY people in the UK that want ID cards are the ones who'll be making billions creating them...

  4. daniel
    Coat

    Whacky Jacqui?

    As much as I like that, I'm not sure she is whacky, more cold, controlling and manipulative. When 42 days was revoked she said something along the lines of "Some people don't take the security of Britian seriously." Surely that is for the benefit of Daily Mail readers who will lap it up? One wonders wether she takes human rights seriously.

    Aside from that, this is encouraging, The whole point of that site was to influence the yoof and say how positivily they responded. Its great to see that those who took part, blew it right back in her face. If I want proof of Age etc, I'll use my driving licence, why would I bother with a seperate card - aside from privacy issues.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Poor judgement

    Again and again she shows very poor judgement.

    For example, the Control Orders thing. The lawyers try to get around the right to justice ECHR rules by saying there are two types of Control Orders, the first one only needs Jacqui's say so, and any more restrictive one that would violate ECHR law need a court order.

    By doing that they hoped to try to marginalize the right to judicial process as *optional*, depending on how strict the control order is. Of course it's not optional at all, there can never be any type of control order that doesn't comply with ECHR.

    What it tells me is the lawyers know they're over the line, they know none of this shit can survive challenge, so they play lawyer games to delay the inevitable.

    Same with the massive central government database of all communications context data. That's flat out illegal under the restrictions imposed by Article 4 of that directive. So they talk about 'efficiency measures' and 'implementation detail' to dress the violation of privacy as a technical measure so she can bypass Parliament.

    The anti-p0rn law, likewise, the people chosen to make the 'research' report were chosen for their views to generate the report needed to support Jacqui own world view.

    Here the underlings will restructure those comments, perhaps grouping them together, and assigning a straw man, then knocking it down. It's very much like she think she's dealing with children incapable of seeing through simple debating games.

    She just shows incredibly poor judgement again and again. But Brown can't sack her, because she's one of his only loyal supporters, and she's a loyal supporter because she know this is the best job she'll ever have and it won't last much longer anyway.

    It's sad you know, that the democratic controls have been so weakened that some off-reality politician can so damage the UK.

  6. Michael
    Thumb Down

    Awaiting publishing of either

    a report that maintains that "youths" support it despite all the contradictory evidence, or a report that claims the involvement of outside parties has rendered the whole affair useless and wasted the taxpayer's money.

    And then for Jaqui Smith to demand IP addresses of everyone who used the website so that they can be monitored for national security purposes.

  7. John Wise
    Coat

    Home Office Security!

    "The requirement to register to post on the boards didn't stop the No2ID crowd gettting involved"

    Home Secretary: "Darn! How do they keep getting on when we have their email address and have banned it from registering? It's a little like that other offender register we have, and the security / tracking measures we have in place on that too. Foolproof! I just don't understand!"

    Mine's the one with the long list of alternate email addresses.

  8. Jo-mo
    Flame

    Following up

    I went to post on the site this morning and everything was gone... I expected at least something to still be accessible!

    Just to alert any ex-members - i've just set up a blog at www.id-watch.co.uk for us to continue debating ID cards, and analyse virtual surveys' response and the government reaction. All are welcome.

    This isn't over yet...

    'deepspacemillar'

  9. dervheid

    Something like this...

    JS: Well then, BY (Britain's Yoof), what do you think of these well cool ID cards then, man?

    BY: They is well minging!

    JS: So, you like them then, dudes?

    BY: No, Bitch, they is totally shit!

    JS: Great, so you're all in favour of them.

    BY:You is not listenin' woman. They is MINGING! We ain't wantin 'em. Is you deaf?

    JS: Super. You'll all get one shortly then.

    BY: !!!?!

    Papers Please, Citizen.

  10. Nic Brough
    Go

    No surprise

    They closed down the site because they asked a simple question, and got an overwhelming response that they did not like. All that does is tells us that the government is still not "listening", and the attempt to hide the results just makes them look even more ignorant and autocratic than they did before.

    If they really want to stand any chance of re-election, they really do need rid of Jacqui Smith - we, the people you are supposed to represent, are overwhelmingly against almost everything she suggests - 42 day detention, ID cards, or massive tracking databases.

    As one of the posters on the site put it so succinctly - "Do Not Want" (and no kitteh in sight!)

  11. Mark
    Thumb Down

    re: Listening.

    I have absolutely NO IDEA why people trot that line out.

    a) It doesn't mean malice isn't the reason, else malice would never be proven (and libel laws useless)

    b) It is actually WORSE if it is incompetence in many cases. If it were malice, you could improve the system. If it's incompetence you've got a looooong hill to climb to fix it. If you're even allowed

    So stop with that quote. It's neither useful nor helpful.

  12. michael

    re:re: listening

    cos some of us get neck strane lookng for the black helicoptors and need reasurance that some times it is not a massive conspricy just a bolus of w@nkers

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Whacky Jacqui?

    Whacky as in Wacky Backy the comic name for pot.

    She admitted smoking pot at University but then went along with Browns 'lethal pot' claim (remember when Brown declared that todays strains of pot were lethal)..... except the EU study, says no, it's just herbal pot grown at home that is stronger, which it was in olden days and pot is not lethal.

    Jacqui went along with it, despite the obvious hypocrisy and untruthfulness for her political gain.

    So yes she is manipulative cold etc. but wacky jacqui is a perfect reminder of the pot smoking hypocritical bitch.

  14. Lloyd
    Black Helicopters

    Oh dear

    It's the current Nu Liebour cabinet that are making "Ministerial Intelligence" an oxymoron.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ When 42 days was revoked

    Well I am still waiting on their Enquiry into Iraq war and wether this war had an impact on terrorism in the UK.

    This gov is really good at trying to cover up the real issues and finding other ways of punishing the everyday average person.

    Lets have an enquiry into the War and once we learn that terrorism over here has been increased due to their actions maybe then we can hold them accountable for what they have done !

  16. jayeola

    I wonder what the answer machine sounds like

    ... at the Home Office...

    "please leave a message. you can say what you like cos no one will listen!"

  17. Dave
    Black Helicopters

    The Blender Treatment

    What they'll do is take a quote from the site that is anti ID cards, shove it into an anagram generator and see if they can re-use the letters to generate something positive. That way it's the original quote slightly edited to fit the publication.

  18. RogueElement
    Thumb Up

    mwah wah wah

    seems to me the obtuse bitch got EXACTLY what she asked for - and didn't like what she saw.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @dervheid

    You owe me a new keyboard, as that comment caused this one to suddenly be filled with coffee.

  20. W
    Go

    icons

    Re: the request for new El Reg icons.

    Can we have a keyboard+coffee icon please, as a shorthand, so that the old joke doesn't need trotting/typing out quite so often.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @dervheid

    glad i didn't have a mouthful of anything when i read your post. Thanks...haven't laughed that hard all day and this topic isn't even funny...

    why am I all wet?

    the answer machine is more like: leave a message if you must, but don't count on us to listen to your loony ravings since we already know all the facts.

    @ac - Lets have an enquiry into the War...."my folks have looked into this and find nothing wrong, thank you. Please move along. Nothing to see here."

  22. Wayland Sothcott
    Stop

    Daily Mail Readers

    I don't know about the people who read the paper version of the Daily Mail but if you read the posts on bothe the Daily Mail and the Daily Express on this sort of police state crap you will see they are pretty much the same opinion as on The Reg and my Life my ID.

    Does this mean that the vast majority of people don't post online and only a few do and those all hold the same negative opinion of the ID scheme?

    Obviously to check this I talk to real people I meet. It seems that most people are a bit twitchy about something that's going on in the world. People have connected stuff like bees dieing to GM crops not needing pollination. I don't know if that's the case but this person was cirtainly tuned into lots of things.

    There is some much blatent crap coming out of governmental authorities and their hangers on (Virtual Surveys, Parish Councils, Health and Safety Officers) that people are becoming incredulus.

    Take the crap about high blood pressure. The figure for high blood pressure keeps getting lowered. Then people need to take statins to keep it under control. Big Pharma, surely?

    Today a policeman told me they can't trace a mobile phone call that just happened but they could in future monitor my mobile phone if they thought it nessasary. I mean, come on!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    You vill carry ze card!

    http://wikileaks.org/leak/nis-options-analysis-outcome.pdf

    Page 4, third bullet point from the bottom:

    "Universal compulsion should not be used unless absolutely necessary. It cannot be delivered quickly due to the need for inevitably controversial and time consuming primary legislation and would pose serious political, enforcement and resource challenges"

    That's my favourite bit. Visions of random roadblocks with full body cavity search authorisation, armed pigs nicking people who don't have their wallets on them. With the friendly public order enforcement chopper hovvering protectively overhead... For your safety.

  24. Andus McCoatover

    @dervheid

    Best ever!!!! 100%!!

    Congratulations. (Minging Muppet)

  25. Scott
    Thumb Down

    Denial

    What web site? we never setup a web site for the yoof? no the yoof love ID cards, check out my stats form madeupstatsforthegov.com, it proves i'm right and if you don't like it i have a DB of all yours comms think a fishing trip to see what i can pin on you will find?

    mines the police state cell third from the left.

  26. Steve Swann
    Stop

    This bothers me.....

    Also taken from the Wikileaks document....

    "There will be an ID card. The nature of the card issued should be proportionate to the services that the user wishes to access. People wishing to access services with a higher demand for integrity will be issued with a higher integrity card, and vice versa."

    Does this mean that there are different 'grades' of ID cards and thus variant levels of citizenship? Are we talking about Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum ID cards indicating the 'level of services' that you have access to?!

    Or perhaps they will adopt a greek alphabet naming convention? Alpha, Beta, Delta, etc.

    Brave New World anyone?

    Sign up to NO2ID now, folks, and be ready to burn your cards in the street!

  27. Mister_C
    Black Helicopters

    Yoof exam

    "the site being only for 16-25 year olds."

    How did they check that?

  28. Richard
    Coat

    BREAKING NEWS

    BREAKING NEWS - Government statistic turns out to be wrong

    (London - UK)

    A statistic previously published by the government has turned out to be completely unreflective of reality, sources claim. A survey that actually asked for the public's opinion (in a rare moment of democracy presumably leaked by the government) shows that people don't agree with what the government say they should.

    Government sources are reportedly annoyed that the people didn't swallow their crap as they'd hoped, but said they will be continuing to make it up as they go along in the future in order to enact policies that they know the public hate, especially if the policy is ill-conceived, pointless, and/or a waste of money.

    Said minister Davide Bl'Unquette, "This is a disappointing day for us. We have tried to con the public, and they showed that they do actually have brains after all. We know that ID cards will do nothing for the country, but we will continue to press the point as we need to find something to do with the money."

    IGMC.

  29. Alan Fisher

    @Weyland Sothcott

    one interpretation of it all is found when one looks into the various 2012 prophecies...human mass-insanity and many dire warnings which could be interpreted as events currently happening are all there....the bank crashes, mass extinctions, danger in our food and potential famines, water crisis, wars, the seemingly Great Dictators.....all of these could be Signs

    some even say that Time is not as inflexible as we think and the human mass conciousness is tapping into the potential of what is to come and going all this crazy stuff because of that.

    whatever the cause, the world is truly going bonkers these days and I'm beginning to wonder if what I call "God doing an Etch-a-Sketch (TM)" is maybe not such a bad thing? Nice big disaster, the fall of society, back an eon and start again? Hmmmm

  30. Ash
    Joke

    @Colin Millar (First comment)

    Well done; You've just saved Jaqui another £50k on spinning the results.

    Good work you're doing to HELP the scheme along there, pal!

  31. Charlie Pite

    Youths

    Please stop calling us "Yoofs". The politicians are patronising enough without the independent media having a dig as well.

    Cheers.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Re. Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum ID cards

    Those with Platinum, Gold or Silver cards go through the clean door. The rest of you go through the dirty door marked 'Showers' with the chimney spouting black smoke.

    Lots of love Jacqboot Smidt.

  33. Sarah Bee (Written by Reg staff)

    Re: Youths

    Go to your room.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blair Babe bangs another nail into Brown's coffin.

    Just when the opinion polls are nudging up in Brown's favour along comes the hapless, wacky wonder with another birdbrained piece of repressive legislation. Hate to say it but this lady has been promoted way, way above her competence level.

    However, given her determination to control the internet, she could make a more acceptable start by doing something about the 30 billion pieces of spam that daily infest the web. After she has wiped out all the botnets there are other areas that require her attention, such as viruses, trojans, malware and financial scams galore, to mention only a few of the real criminal activities that are prevalent in cyberspace.

    While Jaqui is busy doing all this stuff, the rest of us can sleep safe in our beds knowing that our professional spooks are taking care of the real business of security.

  35. Andus McCoatover

    @ Sarah Bee - "Go to your room"

    Priceless comment.

    That's why you're a journalist in London, and I'm unemployed, getting about €2,500/month on the dole (apartment rent (noin) £300 also 80% paid) for calculating the square root of my apartment's name (Bugger Hall) in Finland. Swap? Nah. (till Winter, anyway - Damn, think it just started...)

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @ Sarah Bee - "Go to your room"

    and yer lucky you didn't git your hide tanned, along the way.

  37. RogueElement
    Happy

    @ Sarah Bee - "Go to your room"

    oooo - is it time for a spanking ?

  38. Thomas Baker
    Stop

    Hmm, after a quick google image search...

    Jesus Christ! I've shat things prettier than that!

    Is it just me or does anyone else think that at least one of Jacqui Smith's parents must have been a potato?

    http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00025/Jacqui-Smith_25769t.jpg

  39. Thomas Baker
    Heart

    How about: "We'll publish the results later"

    The Home Office sent us the following statement: "Key findings will be published once all the data has been analysed. The written research findings will be published on the IPS website. This qualitative report will explain the range of views expressed on the site, the structure of those views, and will illustrate what underpins the hopes and fears expressed by the participants."®

    God help us all.

    Or, in case you want to put your trust in something real, find out how guns and bullets are made and get out there in your garage, 'cause pretty soon you're gonna need 'em if this lot aren't ousted. And don't think Cameron will be any different or do any repealing of laws or regressing of powers, 'cause he won't. He ain't even promising to.

    If one politician stood up tomorrow and said I'll run for Prime Minister and we'll pretend 9/11 never happened and just get on with life as we were doing in 2001 pre-Bush, and I'll stop all this made up terrorist nonsense and surveillance bullshit, and take down all the speed cameres apart from the ones distinctly absent from outside most schools??, etc. What's that you hear? 60,000,000 people rushing to the poll booths chanting "Please get us out of this madness!!!!"

    I like the lewinsky: Whacky Jacqui - very good. I think we need a campaign similar to that of the Turnip Head photo of Graham Taylor. Whacky Jacqui, eyes bulging, spliff hanging out of her mouth, in a Nazi get up for preference, spewing incoherent gibberish. I'll have to knock something up and stick it on youtube.

    And we definitely need a Whacky Jacqui icon so that we can attach it to any half-baked, loony comment, (like this one), in the future.

  40. Pierre

    "This qualitative report"

    Read "we'll take the 99% negative feedback (posted by real people) and the 1% positive stuff (posted by the admins) and make them equal. With a special emphasis on the 1% positive things".

    I know what the report will look like: "Despite a few misunderstandings, most of the yoofs thinks ID cards will be of great benefits". Job done.

  41. Block
    Alert

    haha

    of course yoofs don't want id cards!

    If everyone had an id card there'd be no getting away with a crudely laminated pseudo college id for getting booze on the underage.

  42. PH

    Re: Virtual Surveys director Ray Poynter comments @ Economist.com

    Over on the Economist's site, "mylifemyid" Virtual Surveys director Ray Poynter has been posting some comments on their coverage of the story.

    Mr Poynter demonstrates the project's 'openness' by writing "Over 50 million online ads were placed... to promote the site". Yet a look at the mylifemyid.org web site code suggests very much the opposite intention, specifically: http://mylifemyid.org/robots.txt.

    All robots/crawlers are blocked from the site, without exception. If you scroll to the end of their robots.txt file there's a line of human-readable comment that says it all:

    # [nall]: generally we don't want to be indexed

    Disallow: /

    So much for efforts to "promote" the site!

    [Errata: is it just me or should a site associated with promoting Security and ID for all maybe NOT have a Drupal file called install.php sitting on the server???)

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