The Quakers on ID cards

William Heath has a quote from Quaker Parliamentary Liaison Secretary, Michael Bartlett, on ID cards:

"..some Quakers feel the scale of suspicion in current proposals amounts to a denial of integrity comparable to the former insistence on swearing oaths. A requirement to produce biometric evidence of identity, in such everyday transactions as visiting a GP, symbolises a breakdown of trust unprecedented in peacetime and unparalleled in Common Law jurisdictions...At the heart of a Quaker attitude to governance is the understanding that it is unhealthy for too much power to be concentrated in any one place. A decision to require compulsory holding of identity cards goes to the nub of democratic politics: the relationship between the citizen, the community and the state. Such a fundamental shift in this balance calls for a maturity of debate that cannot be conducted in the sound bites of studio phone ins and requires the type of reasoned public consultation that cannot take place in a general election campaign."

I agree with Mr Bartlett that the public debate lacks maturity. I doubt whether it will progress to the depth he would wish on the issues of liberty he focuses on, however, when we can't even get past canards and personal insults on the technology aspects alone.