Reflections on anarchist involvement in the movement against IDAt the time I'm writing this, the corporate media is in full throttle with attempts to idolise the exiting Tony Blair. According to a piece propagandistically entitled ‘Poll shows he will leave with voters’ respect’: “Mr Blair will be remembered as a force for change in Britain… by 60% of all voters”(1). Those who have been fighting against the current government’s massive campaign to centralise power and bring down repression on those who challenge it would certainly agree that Blair’s government was a force for change. Whilst anarchists recognise that this is a project of the state, not linked to any particular politician or party, it should be recognised that the current Labour government under Blair has been particularly successful in overturning all kinds of relative freedoms. Because Blair is particularly skilled at statecraft he has been able to present the state’s agenda in a way that cashes in on prejudices and ignorance already present. The current government has capitalised on terrorist attacks, socially-excluded youth, and even identity theft to create a climate of fear, in which the government may do as it wishes with the excuse that it is ‘protecting’ the terrified masses. As anarchists have argued, the governments only vary in how successful they are in grabbing more power for themselves, and as long as there is a state we will have to defend our efforts towards a free society against it.
The inevitable result of many of the new government measures is an increase of state power in everyone’s day-to-day lives (see Box 1). This occurs through surveillance of our personal habits, from which websites you access to how much rubbish is put in your recently RFID-chipped bin. It means more effective repression of the socially-excluded, through monitoring with CCTV and electronic tagging, to the imposition of control orders (home detention without trial or need for evidence) on terrorist ‘suspects’. In collaboration with the media, the state paints a picture of a nation under siege from religious fanatics and anti-social youths, and presents the only solution as more crackdowns and state power. This is a very difficult situation to work in for those who want to build autonomous communities and wish to fight state power. In spite of these difficulties, there are many who continue to take action against state control (see Box 2).
Box 1: So what's new in the state’s arsenal?
To mention just some important measures(2):-
- The Identity Cards Act (2006) has become law
- Britain is the CCTV capital of the world with 4.2m cameras
- Anti-Social Behaviour Orders can be used to effectively criminalise any act deemed ‘anti-social’ on the basis of hearsay evidence
- The National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), a political police unit, has the mandate to deal with “any criminal or recognisably anti-social act…that has the purpose of disrupting lawful business or intimidation in order to achieve protest or campaign objectives”(3)
- The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA, 2005) makes unauthorised protest in central London illegal
- The NHS spine is set to become a central database of all patients’ medical records
Anarchists, unsurprisingly, have been at the forefront of many of the campaigns that have arisen to combat the ever more invasive powers of the state. This involvement has varied from the participation of anarchist individuals in broad-based civil liberties campaigns, the setting up of specifically anarchist organisations and networks, and exposure and analysis of the situation. Here are just a few significant examples of late:
The Defy-ID network was set up as an anarchist network to oppose ID cards
The involvement of anarchists in NETCU Watch, the website opposing the activities of NETCU, and in the ongoing Parliament Square protests that are aimed at defying SOCPA
The Freedom to Protest conference and mailing list were largely the brainchild of London anarchists
Analysis of the menace of CCTV in a recent Class War publication(4); analysis of RFID, fingerprinting and ID cards in Anarchist Federation publications(5)
Defy-ID
Anarchists were pretty quick off the mark in opposing the governments ID scheme. Soon after the government started talking about an 'entitlement' card, back in 2002, the Defy-ID network of groups opposing the scheme through direct action was formed(6). The reasons were obvious: what was being proposed was that the government be enabled to collect all sorts of personal data, including biometric information, on a central database, which would then be linked to a card that people would have to produce in order to gain access to any public service, e.g. health, benefits and legal employment. This would mean a massive acceleration of the state's invasion into everyday life. The network got together for it's first gathering in 2004, and many ideas for action against the scheme were formulated(7). However, the government had clearly learnt from the lesson of the poll tax not to bring in such unpopular measures in one fell swoop, and have been gradually but determinedly moving towards ID cards ever since their first announcements. As such, many groups in the Defy-ID network peaked too soon, and seem to have disappeared back into the woodwork. However, newer groups still have the energy for action and are keeping the network going. It is this current makeup of the network that I'll discuss in more detail.
What was clear at the recent (2006) gathering of the Defy-ID network was the lack of consensus on what the role of the network within the broader movement against ID cards should be. It was clear that although the majority of active groups seemed to be anarchist in their politics and organisation, there were those who were more closely aligned to the authoritarian left and right libertarian politics. This reopened several of the ongoing debates within the movement over how best to approach defeating ID cards and the NIR. Anarchists opposing ID cards will inevitably make very different arguments and take different forms of action to those with no critique of the state or capital. As such, we are bound to come into conflict with groups like Liberty and No2ID, who oppose the current ID scheme, but not the political system that has produced it. The strongest rejections of arguments such as “ID cards won't stop illegal immigration/benefit fraud/terrorism” have come from the Nottingham group, who produced a leaflet entitled 'Stop Using Their Logic!', urging campaigners not to “seek to refute the official claims without questioning the terms of the debate.”(8) The reasons that anarchists should show solidarity with immigrants and those scraping a living from benefits, and should oppose state fear-mongering about terrorism should be obvious. However, these reasons are often put to one side in single-issue campaigns such as No2ID in order to be “pragmatic” by appealing to a mythical “mainstream”(9). The position taken in 'Stop Using Their Logic!' has often been misinterpreted by other anti-ID cards campaigners as sectarianism (i.e. anti-No2ID), but really the leaflet was an attempt to critically appraise the direction of the anti-ID cards debate, which sometimes drifts dangerously close to statism. The division between those in favour of the arguments raised and those claiming they were sectarian was quite apparent at the gathering, although the majority seemed in favour of the approach championed by Nottingham.
A related issue is the scope of the network. Defy-ID sounds like a single-issue campaign, but it has often made sense to those working within the network to oppose other forms of social control from the same political standpoint. As such, the group in Nottingham have been engaged in campaigns against the encroachment of CCTV(10), police harassment(11) , workplace surveillance and fingerprinting in schools(12), as well as making sure the links between the surveillance of asylum seekers and that of the general public are made(13). This latter link has led to the formation of a No Borders group in the area, with very close links to Defy-ID. At the most recent gathering a really wide range of different areas of surveillance and control were discussed along with the ID scheme, so it is fair to say that the campaign is a broad one, stemming from an anti-authoritarian politics that rejects all social control. This is certainly one of the strengths of the network – a total and uncompromising rejection of the varied attempts at social control that the state attempts to foist on us.
In taking this line, the Nottingham group have frequently found ourselves coming into conflict with the local authorities. Because it is local authorities that will be ultimately responsible for implementing most of the repressive measures like installation of CCTV cameras and ensuring that service providers only allow those 'entitled' by their ID cards to access services, many anti-ID campaigners have suggested that they are a better target than the national government which seems intent on a programme of social control. There have certainly been some successful campaigns leading certain local councils to make strong statements of non-cooperation with the ID scheme(14). However, these strong statements may be useful in getting a few more votes for a particular political party or councillor, but may not translate into action when it comes to the crunch. Whilst the local council seem like an easier target than the national government anti-ID campaigners will have to hold them to their promises, and should decentralise their pressure even further, to service providers such as individual clinics and doctors.
There are some serious challenges ahead for Defy-ID. The war against social control seems to be an unwinnable one. The state and big business will never give up their attempts to increase the level of surveillance of citizens, consumers and workers. Even if we manage to win some major battles, such as stopping the current ID scheme in its tracks, there will always be future situations where attempts will be made to have another go at bringing it in. We are in for the long haul. There is also the serious problem of getting sufficient people to actively resist the introduction of new technologies of control. Anarchists have so far been unable to convince enough people to go beyond vocal protests against ID cards into actually taking action. Indeed, there has been a conspicuous absence of direct action against the about-to-be-opened interrogation centres for new passport applicants, or the companies hoping to make massive profits from the scheme, in spite of a very helpful search tool to find them(15). The government has been very sly in its introduction of the scheme, bringing it in incrementally rather than allowing the possibility of a mass protest on one day. This has led to an atmosphere of both complacency (it never seems to really be happening) and powerlessness (it seems inevitable) amongst the general public that has to be turned around by the example of an effective resistance.
These attitudes aren't just found amongst the general public. With the notable exception of those like the Anarchist Federation who have championed Defy-ID in recent years, the movement seems fairly non-committal in its approach to ID. Unless it's taking measures to protect themselves and their actions from state detection, most anarchists don't seem to be doing much about the creeping surveillance society. Those within Defy-ID groups need to make the case that resisting these developments is essential to ensuring that we can continue struggling against all of the other injustices that we care about.
There is much to be done. The pervasive culture of complacency over giving away personal details to powerful strangers in the corporate and state spheres must be overturned, and replaced with a culture that defends anonymity. We need to make people aware about the uses which the powerful have for knowledge about their identities and offer practical methods of defending those details. This doesn't mean instilling fear and paranoia – just a healthy distrust of those who claim to protect us. We need to learn from societies where stronger community and horizontal social relations have provided resistance against state intrusion. We recognise that genuine security comes from our interrelations with people who don't seek to dominate us, not agencies and organisations that do. As a network, Defy-ID needs to make links with those most under threat from increased information gathering: ethnic minorities, excluded youths, schoolchildren and parents, those on benefits, etc. Practical solidarity with these groups will be necessary in building a broad-based movement that can mount an effective challenge to social control. There are plenty of ideas for action within the network, and there have been since the beginning(16). All we need now is the ingenuity and the strength to carry them out.
1)Julian Glover, “Poll shows he will leave with voters' respect”, The Guardian, 10th May 2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/tonyblair/story/0,,2076201,00.html
2)More such measures are listed in Nottingham Defy-ID's Bulletin 4, Oct 2006, http://www.nottingham-defy-id.org.uk/download_files/notts_defy-id_bulletin4_oct06.pdf
3)NETCU, “What is 'domestic extremism'?”, About NETCU, http://www.netcu.org.uk/about/faqs.jsp#what%20is%20DE
4)Tommy Corrigan, “Surveillance in the city”, A Touch of Class, Sep 2006, http://www.londonclasswar.org/A_Touch_of_Class.pdf
5)Anarchist Federation, “National ID on the cards + spychips”, Organise, 64, Summer 2005, http://flag.blackened.net/af/org/issue64/idcards.html; “Police fingerprinting goes mobile”, Resistance, 90, Dec 2006/Jan 2007, http://flag.blackened.net/af/res/resist90.html; “Get 'em while they're young”, Resistance, 87, Sep 2006, http://flag.blackened.net/af/res/resist87.html
6)Anonymous, “Defy-ID”, Loombreaker, 33, Dec 2002, http://www.ainfos.ca/02/dec/ainfos00255.html
7)Defy-ID, Ideas for Action, 2004, http://www.defy-id.org.uk/ideas_for_action.htm
8)Nottingham Defy-ID, Stop using their logic!, 2006
9)No2ID organiser, personal communication
10)Nottingham Defy-ID, “Asbo TV”, Bulletin 5, Mar 2007; Sock Puppet, “Reclaim slab square”, 25th Mar 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/03/366081.html
11)Gulliver, “A true story of everyday life for Nottingham town folk”, 11th Mar 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/03/364864.html
12)Roger Geowell, “School biometrics in the city and Notts”, 21st Apr 2007, https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/nottinghamshire/2007/05/371212.html
13)Nottingham Defy-ID, “Defy-ID and No Borders: Better together”, Feb 2006, http://noborderslondon.blogspot.com/2007/02/defy-id.html
14)Mid Befordshire Liberal Democrats, County Lib Dems win ID card vote, 11th May 2006, http://midbedslibdems.org.uk/news/000116.html; Cambridge Liberal Democrats, City Council says no to ID cards, 25th Feb 2005, http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/news/000063.html
15)A postcode searchable database of companies can be found at http://www.nottingham-defy-id.org.uk/company_search
16)Defy-ID, Ideas for Action, 2004, http://www.defy-id.org.uk/ideas_for_action.htm
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