Britain is becoming a dangerous place for those concerned about civil liberties. First off, national ID card trials go into effect this week. The proposed penalty for a violation in ten years in jail. Here's more on that.

The Muslim community is concerned about profiling. The Government has agreed to exempt thousands of Muslim women from the photograph requirement.

The cards will cost £35 or between £70 and £80 for one combined with a driving licence or passport. They will contain name, age and date and will be linked to a national database which will contain information on criminal records, health details and social security information.

Civil liberties groups are set to condemn the proposals, which they say will put more power in the hands of the state and are likely to be technically unworkable. 'The public have serious and understandable concerns that the Government will simply not be able to handle the data they will be attempting to collect,' said Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty.

The Earl of Selborne, chairman of the Royal Society's influential science in society committee, said that the public should be aware of the dangers of ID cards. 'There has been a lack of public debate and there is a very real danger that we are sleepwalking into our technological future,' he said. 'But what if the cards also held data about our genetic disposition to specific diseases, or revealed information about our lifestyles that affect health, such as how much we are overweight or how much alcohol we are drinking, updated daily. 'These are technically possible in the future, so we should be discussing whether they are desirable.'

And then, check out these stories.....Britain is institituting a program under which gamblers will face addiction checks. And one town in Britain has decided to interrogate asylum seekers so as to prevent them from settling there.