Last night MPs voted against “safeguards” to curb the use of secret courts proposed in the Bill. Labour’s amendments were intended to make it more palatable to its numerous critics. But with the unstinting help of former Labour ministers David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Hazel Blears, the amendments failed by 71 and 73 votes, even though seven Lib Dems rebelled.

But at least the word 'privacy' is in circulation. Which means campaigning *for* privacy is a little easier. Though there are a multitude of things for NO2ID to be *against*, that is what it is *for*. Our ultimate formal object is: 'To promote legislation or administrative change in order to safeguard the privacy, personal security, and information security of individuals, from the threats posed by ID Schemes and other mass-surveillance schemes.' And at last we may be able to find a receptive audience for that.

It’s a depressing snapshot, to be sure, but I submit that the Framers of the Constitution would not have been surprised by the relentless attempts by government to expand its sphere of control. The Framers themselves would often refer to written constitutions as mere “parchment barriers” or what we would describe as “paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that putting safeguards down on paper was better than having nothing at all. And lest we forget, that’s what millions of people around the world have — nothing at all.

In simple terms, if you want to deny equality of rights to one group of people because of some shared trait, and not because they have actually violated the rights of others, then you are a bigot toward that group.