Adventure Ausrama Blog

Apparently the U.S. National Security Agency is not listening in to people in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Seeing that these countries are America's closest allies this seems rational. However, terrorists are quietly leaving the shores of these countries and fighting for Islam of one color or another. It seems to me that the United States would be involved with local authorities in these English speaking nations to keep an eye on what suspected terrorists are doing, probably at the request of these governments. Note, that the United States had secret agreements with Russia that the UK found out about during WWII. Churchill was totally in the dark about them for quite some time. He too had secret talks with Stalin. If the NSA is watching the IMF, World Bank, the Atomic Energy Agency and European countries why not "nose in" on what people in allied countries are doing? Germany is supposed to be an ally and snooping on Chancellor Merkel did ...

Police are upgrading detective work from fingerprints to "nose prints". It seems we all have different noses, so we can be identified by surveillance cameras. While fingerprints and iris scans are being used for "signing in" and entry to premises, work on identification by nose shape is being ramped up. A lot has been done on ear shape, which also differs quite markedly from person to person. People tend to cover everything but their noses when they are up to no good. Another thing is, if a suspect does not cooperate he/she can be identified by the shape of their nose. Plastic surgeon Dr Peter Callan says some noses are easy in determining a person's identity. For example, there is the classic Roman nose, Greek nose, turned-up, snub and hawk nose. Cameras that film in 3D give a very accurate picture of nose shape. However, to take a picture this way a person has to be moving quite slowly. It would be okay for prisoners. For general camera surveillance, whe...

While some countries have embraced general camera surveillance others are still cautious. The problem is that in national constitutions people have a right to privacy. Cameras placed in public streets clearly trample over this right. Nowra, a town in New South Wales, has come face-to-face with this issue. An Australian rights campaigner, Adam Bonner, took the local council to a tribunal and a decision was made to order the council to desist from breaching the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act. It was not an instruction to turn the cameras off but it had the same result. The Administrative Decisions Tribunal New South Wales decision has thrown a spanner into the works nationwide. State bodies set precedents for national courts. It has shown, however, that people can act locally to stop camera surveillance at local government level. One person has stopped a council in its tracks. The Nowra Council did not help itself by telling the tribunal that the cameras were n...