More Security Kabuki in the UK

Want to get a new cell mobile phone? Bring your passport:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

Gee, ya think? Boy, that "unwritten constitution" sure is the shizzle flippity floppity floop.

Let's see, a monster database filled with info on normal folks doing their daily business? Easy for Bad Guys to bypass? Random errors inconveniencing regular people without catching terrorists?

Good thing that would never happen here.

It's a crying shame, really, what the UK is doing to itself.

UPDATE 20 October 2008 19:57: Soon, you'll need a passport to buy disposable diapers nappies. Fortunately, all the security cams will catch the hardened eco-criminals dropping them in the garbage can dustbin.