[JURIST] The UK plan for national identification cards [BBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive] received another setback Sunday when Lord Carlile [party profile], the Liberal Democrat peer appointed by the British government as an independent reviewer of its anti-terror laws, said that the ID cards would be of "limited value" against terrorism and would not have prevented the London bombings [BBC backgrounder] in July. Carlile, who had previously supported the cards, also acknowledged their potential threat to civil liberties. The national ID plan was recently blocked [JURIST report] by the House of Lords [official website] due to objections to three aspects of the proposal [bill text], including questions of cost. The plan was first announced [JURIST report] by Prime Minister Tony Blair [official website] last spring, but was only narrowly approved [JURIST report] in the House of Commons [official website] in June. The government is likely to try and overturn the Lords' block on the ID plan when the bill returns to the Commons. BBC News has more.