Recording of police NOT illegal

Many people have asked questions with regards to covert surveillance being it video or audio in various circumstances.

The law in Australia may allegedly vary from state to state but essentially you are 'lawfully' allowed to record any incident, on the proviso that you are present, of donecovertly. Contrary to popular belief, you DO NOT have to inform the other party.

This fact does NOt sit well with auhorities, especially police who will not only intimidate you but also assault you in oderto obtain any damning evidence.

A case explain this is as follows:

POLICE SURVEILLANCE OF PROTESTERS NOT AN INVASION OF PRIVACY

27 September 2012 

Caripis v Victoria Police (Health and Privacy) [2012] VCAT 1472 (27 September 2012)

 

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled that a protestor’s right to privacy was not violated by the Victoria Police’s retention of photographs and video footage taken during a protest. 

The Tribunal accepted that the records were still needed by Victoria Police for legitimate purposes including planning and briefing for further protests and therefore their retention did not violate Victorian privacy laws.
 
Background
 
Ms Caripis attended a climate change protest at Hazelwood power station in 2010, organised by the Switch Off Hazelwood Collective (of which Ms Caripis was a member). The Collective had advertised the protest to its members, and informed them that a professional photographer would attend to promote the protest internationally.
 
Victoria Police filmed and took photographs of the event and retained the images and video footage. Ms Caripis appears in four segments of video footage, with her image visible for less than 20 seconds. The footage and seven still photographs were retained in a locked cupboard. No record existed of the identities of the people in the footage or the photographs, not even their names.
 
The Claim
 
Ms Caripis complained to the Privacy Commissioner that the retention of the images and footage was an interference with her right to privacy and that they should be destroyed. The complaint was referred to the VCAT.
 
Ms Caripis’ complaint relied on the operation of the Information Privacy Act 2000 (Vic) and the section 32 requirement of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic) (to interpret legislation in a manner consistent with human rights) to claim that: the video and photographs interfered with her right to privacy, were no longer required by the Victorian Police and in accordance with the Information Privacy Act, should be destroyed or de-identified.
 
The Information Privacy Act provides that:

• an act or practice of an organisation is an interference with the privacy of the individual if it is contrary to the Information Privacy Act’s Information Privacy Principles (section 14);
• any act or practice contrary to an Information Privacy Principle (regarding personal information) is prohibited (section 16);
• an organisation must take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify personal information if “no longer needed for any purpose” (IPP 4.2); and
• any inconsistent Act or provision prevails over the Information Privacy Act.

Victoria Police claimed that:

• the photographs and video footage did not reveal personal information nor identify Ms Caripis;
• the photographs and video footage was still needed by Victoria Police for intelligence, planning and briefing purposes; and
• the Public Records Act 1973 (Vic) requires retention of the photographs and footages as records “documenting the planned Police response to events such as demonstrations” for seven years.

Decision
 
Senior Member Steele accepted that the records were still needed by Victoria Police for the purposes stated above, and therefore the retention of the records was consistent with Information Privacy Principle 4.2 and not in breach of the Information Privacy Act.
 
Senior Member Steele found that the ordinary meaning of “needed” for the purposes of the Information Privacy provision was “useful” or “required” rather than indispensible. Senior Member Steele then went on to consider whether this construction was compatible with the human rights of Ms Caripis, specifically, the right to privacy, the right to free expression and the right to peaceful assembly, with reference to international jurisprudence.
 
Senior Member Steele concluded that the threat to Ms Caripis’ privacy was not of sufficient seriousness and she could not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the taking, publication and retention of images and footage for the following reasons:

• the photographs do not focus on Ms Caripis and her face is only identifiable in the video footage in two very brief segments;
• Ms Caripis knew that the protest organisers intended to take and publish images from the event;
• many other protestors took photographs of the protest and uploaded them to social media; and
• Victoria Police had obtained no data about Ms Caripis other than her image, did not know her name and had not engaged in systematic information gathering.

In relation to the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, while the Tribunal accepted Mr Caripis’ evidence of increased self-consciousness at protests, it was not persuaded that the retention of the material was inconsistent with these rights, given the extent of the recording of the protest by other individuals and the lack of other personal data collected by the Police.
 
In addition, Senior Member Steele also found that the retention was required for seven years under the Public Records Act and this Act prevailed over Information Privacy Principle 4.2 but, even if it did not, IPP 4.2 did not require the destruction of the footage. The Tribunal did not give any broader consideration to the Charter compatibility of the provisions of the Public Records Act.
 
Notably, Senior Member Steele found that the Tribunal possessed jurisdiction to consider the question of Charter unlawfulness and that, consistent with her conclusions in relation to section 32, there was no Charter unlawfulness made out on the evidence
 
Commentary
 
This case provides an illustration of the types of factors relevant to courts in determining whether an individual’s right to privacy has been violated. In this case, engaging in public acts with the full knowledge that others may be present, the existence of additional or multiple recordings of the public act, and the degree and amount of personal information collected, were all relevant in deciding whether the intrusion was of sufficient seriousness and whether Caripis had a “reasonable expectation of privacy”. It is somewhat curious that the Tribunal did not differentiate between an individual’s expectations in relation the collection of information by the protesters themselves as opposed to the collection of information by the police for a very different purpose.  While recognising that the potential “chilling” of police action on protest movements, the Tribunal dismissed Caripis’ arguments on this point with very little discussion.
 
It is significant that the Tribunal found it had jurisdiction to consider the question of unlawfulness under the Charter. This appears to be the first time VCAT has considered this question following the decision of Director of Housing v Sudi [2011] VSCA 266. Senior Member Steele also conducted an interesting review of the current uncertainty regarding the interplay between section 7(2) and section 32 of the Charter arising from the High Court’s decision in Momcilovic v The Queen [2011] HCA 34 and subsequent consideration by Victorian courts but ultimately considered it unnecessary to form a view on these issues.
 
While this decision usefully provides consideration of the meaning of the provisions of the Information Privacy Act in light of the Charter, it does not discuss the impact of the Charter on the Public Records Act.  The case highlights the tension between the retention requirements of the Public Records Act and the protection of privacy under the Information Privacy Act and the Charter.
 
The decision is available at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCAT/2012/1472.html
 
Richard Griffin is a lawyer on secondment to the HRLC from Lander & Rogers

http://www.hrlc.org.au/police-surveillance-of-protesters-not-an-invasion-of-privacy

LEAKED EMAIL REVEALS POLICE ORDERED TO MEET ARREST QUOTA

 

The email sent to police officers by a senior officer at Holden Hill. SA Police deny officers were ordered to meet quotas and say the email was a mistake. Source: The Advertiser

POLICE were ordered to meet quotas for the number of arrests, drink driving reports, traffic and drug offences in a five-week period, an internal police email shows. 

 

The Advertiser has obtained the email, from Holden Hill Senior Sergeant Andrew McCracken to patrol officers on July 28, which listed five benchmark categories including the number of fines, reports and arrests each officer must obtain over five weeks.
  Officers who did not meet the benchmarks would be required to provide "an explanation" to Sen-Sgt McCracken and their immediate supervisor.
  Senior police now say the email's directions were "outside of SAPOL's guidelines and policies" and it had been rescinded.
  The five-week targets required each officer to:
 

• MAKE five arrests and reports.

• ARREST or report two drink-drivers.

• MAKE nine traffic contacts, including on-the-spot fines, using mobile breath tests.

• ISSUE one drug-related fine or diversion (for minor illegal drug possession).

The email also said "a minority" of officers at the station had failed to reach the targets during the previous 12 months because they had "coasted" in executing their duty.
  "It is clear some of you are really great workers and there are some (the minority) that have coasted," the email said.
  "Those who cannot or choose not to reach these benchmarks will need to provide an explanation to their sergeant and me.
  "As stated, though, this is not hard and easily able to be reached and maintained - 99 per cent of you will have no difficulty reaching the standard and blitzing it."
  The email was rescinded on August 2 when local police management were advised.
  Police initially told The Advertiser  it was rescinded within 24 hours of being sent.
  Opposition police spokesman David Ridgway said the email showed contradictions in the messages coming from SA Police.
  "It flies in the face of what we've been told - that there aren't quotas for a whole range of activities. If police are putting these things in emails, then clearly there is a view within SA Police at certain levels that they do have quotas and that's why this person has published that," he said.
  "It's certainly mixed messages coming out of SA Police."
  Mr Ridgway said setting benchmarks or quotas could compromise police duties.
  "I would've thought it would distract them from making sure they are providing a whole community policing approach when they are having to focus on particular benchmarks," he said.
  "If they need a drug bust and they haven't had one, do they forget about every other offence and just go and look for a drug issue?
  "We have record numbers of police - they should just be out in the community doing the work and there shouldn't be any expectation on the number of pinches they do."
  Holden Hill local service area officer-in-charge Superintendent James Blandford said the email was a mistake.
  "It is important to note the email was sent to operational staff within the Holden Hill LSA only," he said.
  "The original email was sent by an officer who was relieving in a higher position. The directions given were outside of SAPOL's guidelines and policies.
  "As soon as local management became aware of the email, it was rescinded." He said SA Police made no secret of the fact benchmarks were set for traffic contacts but this was in no way linked to revenue.
  He said almost 30 per cent of traffic contacts ended in a caution. Police would not elaborate on exactly what other areas had set quotas.
  "Benchmarks exist across SAPOL for a number policing duties, including responses to emergency calls and requests for police assistance," Supt Blandford said.
  Police Association of South Australia president Mark Carroll said any confusion on quotas had to be addressed immediately.
  "SAPOL management has expressed publicly that it does not have, nor does government expect, booking quotas," he said.

original article:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/leaked-email-reveals-police-ordered-to-meet-arrest-quota/story-e6frea6u-1226199485326  

Another corrupt dealing with the Australian police 'force'.

These 'quotas' are NOT limited the South Australia. They are across the board.

Australia's police is a corporation, operating for profit.

The sooner the general populous wake up to this reality the better.

Coles' secret dollar deal for Woolies store

Coles has paid $1 to officially become the owner of a $40 million Sydney supermarket leased to rival Woolworths after it was caught using an elaborate tax haven structure to conceal its identity as the owner.

Coles has defended its actions as a ''common'' industry practice, dismissing questions about the use of an offshore company to act secretly on its behalf as a ''conspiracy theory''.

Land title records show Coles paid $1 at the start of the present financial year to formally take ownership of the property instead of holding it at arm's length via an agent and trustee, Sino Ace Investment Pty Ltd, a company ultimately controlled by an entity registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Fairfax Media has previously revealed that Coles used a labyrinthine corporate structure to conceal its involvement, blindsiding Woolworths to become landlord of the 4282-square-metre supermarket site in Neutral Bay.

The Grosvenor Street outlet is one of Woolworths' top-performing supermarkets in the country.
In the fiercely competitive supermarket industry, buying a high-performing store from beneath a competitor's nose is known as the ''black truffle'' - the Holy Grail of retailing.

It is believed Woolworths was ''livid'' when it found out Coles was the new landlord, which grants it automatic access to Woolworths' sales data as part of the lease terms.

Coles claims the convoluted method used in the deal is commonly employed by property developers and retailers to ''manage the risk of big buyers attracting a bigger than necessary acquisition premium''.

''This is a sensible commercial strategy to get the best possible commercial outcome,'' a Coles spokesman said.

But Woolworths has struck back, claiming it is ''not common practice'' and Coles ultimately made a poor investment in a bid to one-up its rival.

''Coles have paid $40 million for the property - we estimate they paid 30 per cent over market value for it. We estimate they would have about a 4 per cent yield, which is at the lowish end of returns,'' a Woolworths spokeswoman said.

Coles also said it had been ''fully transparent'' with NSW revenue authorities about the transaction and paid all requisite taxes and charges. Bank cheques were given to Sino Ace Investment to pay the $2.18 million owed in stamp duty and to make settlement on the deal.

The NSW Chief Commissioner of State Revenue has confirmed that documentation relating to the sale had been reviewed and the correct amount of duty had been paid.

But in an admission that could raise concerns about Coles' due diligence processes, a spokesman now claims Coles was unaware it was dealing with a company ultimately based in the tax haven.

''Coles appointed a company incorporated in Australia to act as agent and trustee for Coles. Based on a company search it appears the BVI (British Virgin Islands) incorporated company owns all the shares in the Australian incorporated company,'' he said.

Documents held by the corporate watchdog show Sino Ace Investment was registered by Sydney lawyer Bernard Hang Man Chiu on December 20, 2011, one day before the Neutral Bay site was bought. The local company is wholly owned by Sino Ace Investment Ltd, an entity created the month before in the British Virgin Islands.

In March, Fairfax Media uncovered Coles' involvement in the deal through leaked board papers that also showed the group had spent $40 million on the purchase, setting a record price for a free-standing supermarket in Sydney. Woolworths was unaware Coles had become its landlord until informed by Fairfax Media.

Five days before the purchase, Coles executives staged an extensive review of its own property portfolio to see which properties might be vulnerable to a tit-for-tat response from Woolworths if it ever became aware of the deal. The analysis revealed Coles had 120 stores with a combined turnover of $3 billion that could be open to attack.

The lease for the busy Neutral Bay supermarket ends in 2014 but Woolworths confirmed it would take up an option to extend for a further 10 years. Under the terms of the lease, Coles has the right to inspect Woolworths' sales records for the outlet.
Mr Chiu did not respond to a request for comment.

theage.com.au 4 Nov 2013

Another corrupt deal by the supermarket 'duopoly'.

The authorities supporting corporte fraud at its best.
 
The Australian public still has not woken up to the fact of collusion between the two heavyweights.

Watch as apparently everythingis 'legal'.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is preparing to testify in the Angela Merkel wiretapping case after meeting with a German MP in Moscow. 
 
Mr Snowden is set to give explosive testimony and according to the MP Hans-Christian Stroebele, it's "clear that he knows a lot" about the scandal involving the NSA and Ms Merkel, the German Chancellor.

As Mr Snowden threatens to blow the case wide open, we take a closer look at the NSA. and explain the controversy over America's spying operations in five simple points.

WHAT IS THE NSA?

The National Security Agency is one of America's largest intelligence organisations. Think of it as a less famous cousin of the FBI and CIA. It specialises in codemaking and codebreaking, and providing secret information to US political and military leaders.

The NSA outlines two broad "missions" on its website. Its "Information Assurance" mission is aimed at keeping stickybeaks out of America's business, while its "Signals Intelligence" mission gathers and processes information for "intelligence and counterintelligence" purposes.

The agency describes its vision as "Global Cryptologic Dominance through Responsive Presence and Network Advantage". Ironically, you would need to be a codebreaker yourself to make any sense of that.

Orwellian language aside, the NSA basically spies on people. But it can't conduct "human-source" intelligence gathering - everything's electronic. There are no James Bonds in the NSA.

WHO IS THE NSA SPYING ON?

Practically everyone, apparently. Particularly America's allies. The NSA reportedly monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was royally irritated when she found out. She called up US President Barack Obama for what was presumably the most awkward conversation ever.

"Spying between friends, that's just not done," Merkel said later. "The trust will have to be rebuilt."
They weren't just bugging the bigshots either. News reports in France and Spain have suggested tens of millions of phone calls were monitored in those countries. The NSA disputes the details.

Back in the US, the agency successfully requested access to the "call-detail records" of millions of residents through their telecommunications companies. That information reportedly included personal details, such as customers' names and addresses, along with records of calls they made or received. The goal was to create "a database of every call ever made".

The NSA also gained access to millions of emails, both foreign and domestic, through the so-called PRISM program.

HOW DID WE FIND OUT?

Much of this information comes to us courtesy of Edward Snowden, a former NSA worker turned whistleblower who fled the US in May after exposing the agency's phone and internet surveillance programs.

The US has charged Snowden with theft of government property, wilful communication of classified communications intelligence and unauthorised communication of national defence information. Basically, that means he can't return to the US if he wants to stay out of prison.

Snowden is currently living in Russia, which granted him temporary asylum, and his leaked documents are still breaking new stories. This week we learned the NSA has secretly plundered data centres run by Yahoo and Google, gaining further access to online data.

DID PRESIDENT OBAMA KNOW?

That's a surprisingly complicated question. Intelligence officials insist the White House broadly knew about the NSA's operations, but that doesn't necessarily mean the president himself was aware of them.

Sources in the White House say Obama didn't know the NSA was monitoring the phones of world leaders until this year. If that's true, he was kept out of the loop as president for about five years. The NSA reportedly ended the program after he discovered it.

However, Obama did know about the confiscation of Americans' telephone records, and he has publicly defended the move.

"My assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks," Obama said.

A senior government official said the president is generally informed of "broad intelligence-collection priorities", but the details are worked out elsewhere.

"These decisions are made at NSA," the official said. "The president doesn't sign off on this stuff."

IS AUSTRALIA INVOLVED?

Maybe. Intelligence expert Professor Des Ball told Lateline the Australian Signals Directorate is sharing information with the NSA, using local listening posts in the Asia Pacific region

"The fact that the United States has special collection elements that are doing this today is no different from what many other countries are doing today. It's not unusual," Professor Ball said.

He doesn't think Australians should be worried about their own privacy being threatened. We have an agreement with the US, UK, New Zealand and Canada precluding spying between the five countries, and Professor Ball believes it hasn't been breached.

"The fact that it hasn't now for over five decades, I think, signifies the integrity of at least that part of the arrangement," he said.


news.com.au 4 Nov 2013

At the end of the day it's all about monitoring and control of every person. 

It's a new form of terrorism, Data Terrorism.

Microsoft and Nokia employ interesting bullying technique to get apps for Windows Phone

In an interview with BusinessWeek outspoken Nokia VP Bryan Biniak revealed an interesting technique Microsoft users to convince companies to make apps for Windows Phone.

“If our employees bank with you, if the company banks with you, if we travel with you, if we stay in your hotels, if we do all these things, you should have an application in our store,” he says. “We have some muscle here. Let’s start flexing our muscle.”

Microsoft has about 100,000 employees worldwide, and 32,000 Nokia employees will join the company when the acquisition is official, which likely explains why we have seen apps like the British Airways app arrive on Windows Phone so soon.

In addition Microsoft spends hundreds of millions of dollars into marketing each year and  Biniak also wants to predicate some of that spending on companies building versions of their apps for Windows smartphones.

Of course besides all these shoulder twisting Microsoft also pays hundreds of thousands for speicifc  apps or even builds them directly, such as the Facebook app for Windows Phone.

Ultimately Biniak wants Windows Phone to have its own exclusives, such as the new DreamWorks Dragons game,  or at the very least offer the best possible version of an app.

“Ultimately we’re trying to get to the point where we have a halo around our devices,” he says. “Yes, Instagram is on iOS; yes, it’s on Android; yes, it’s on Lumia. But it’s better on Lumia.”

wmpoweruser.com 2 Nov 2013

Police attack student protest

 

Students protesting against education cuts were attacked by police in Melbourne on Wednesday. Seven were arrested during the demonstration. Sarah Garnham, spokesperson for the Victorian Education Action Network which organised the rally, told Red Flag:

“Victoria Police clearly had a premeditated agenda of attacking our peaceful protest. They came out of nowhere. Riot cops moved in on the crowd and pulled people out. One of the first people they arrested, Lauren Stevenson, was unconscious as they pulled her towards the paddy wagon. We attempted to get an ambulance to her, but police said an ambulance would not be allowed to attend because she was under arrest. So they put her in the paddy wagon unconscious and drove away.”

Among those arrested was Jay Wymarra, the 2014 First Nations Officer at the La Trobe student union. Garnham says that his arrest was no coincidence: “Organisers of the protest believe this is in accordance with the racial discrimination that is well known in Victoria Police; they regularly harass and arrest indigenous people.”
Wymarra spoke to Red Flag after his release from police custody, saying: “Under no circumstances should any student stand for this kind of hostile reaction from the state. No student should have to bear the brunt of some bureaucrat’s decision to slash nearly $3 billion out of education. This is our education. The only ones who should be defining it is us and our educators and of course our unions.”

Jessica Lenehan, recently elected Education Officer at La Trobe University and an activist in the La Trobe Socialist Alternative student club, was also at the rally. La Trobe students had a particular incentive to join the anti-cuts protest today. Their university administration has just announced devastating cutbacks of $65 million. Lenehan told Red Flag:

“We had a peaceful protest. After starting at Parliament House we marched to Liberal Party headquarters. While we were there we threw a couple of shoes at the building, we chalked some slogans on the ground. Nothing violent. But at a certain point the police clearly decided this was unacceptable, and marched through shoving people out of the way, and made a couple of arrests.

“They dragged one woman away. They shoved her into a police van, and another man was arrested. After that the police again and again charged the crowd. They dragged people away, they beat people up. It was just an incredibly brutal display.

“Accusations of protester violence from the police are ludicrous. We told them what our intentions were. We told them we were marching to Liberal headquarters. We had informed them about shoes being thrown at the building. It’s just ridiculous, especially given there were so many police there. Many times more than were necessary for the protest. They were deliberately trying to intimidate people out of protesting.”

Declan Murphy, recently elected Education Officer at Monash Student Association, explained how the police attacks continued even after demonstrators had left Liberal Party headquarters:
“Some of us decided to march down to East Melbourne police station to make a formal complaint. The police told us we were allowed to do this. Nonetheless on the way down the police assaulted the demonstration four additional times. I think a further four people were arrested. They were clearly targeting non-white people and women who happened to find themselves on the fringes of the demonstration.
“Then, on Swanston Street, after we’d decided not to continue marching on to East Melbourne police station and we were coming up to Trades Hall, they assaulted the rally again and arrested another person. It was a clear and despicable attempt by the police, but we will not be intimidated and we’ll keep protesting both for our democratic right to demonstrate and for a fair and equitable education system.

“People are a bit shocked by the disproportionate response of the police but are also quite defiant. We just had a post rally meeting where we got together and decided how we’re going to respond as a collective campaign. The clear vibe was that there would be more demonstrations. We’re not going to put up with attempts by police to shut us down.”

redflag.org.au  30 Oct 2013

Chairman, two executives of Japan's Mizuho to resign over loans to organised crime

MIZUHO Financial Group said Monday the chairman of its banking business and two other top executives will resign over the Japanese lender's failure to crack down on loans to organised crime.


Mizuho said its president, Yasuhiro Sato, will give up six months of pay but remain at his post. The bank also is appointing Tatsuo Kainaka, a former prosecutor and Supreme Court judge with a reputation for toughness, to be its chief compliance officer.

Mr Sato and other top executives bowed deeply in apology - such gestures are a familiar sight in corporate Japan.

Besides the exit of Mizuho Bank chairman Takashi Tsukamoto, Mizuho's top compliance officer and its risk management director will resign on November 1. Dozens of Mizuho employees face salary cuts. Mr Tsukamoto is also chairman of Mizuho Financial Group and retained that position.

"We caused a great deal of trouble and I want to express my deepest apologies," Mr Sato said.

"I am aware there are various opinions about this, but this is what was decided in this case," he said when asked if the penalties were too weak.

An outside panel reported Monday that its probe found Mizuho lax in cleaning up more than 200 million yen ($2.14 million) in lending, mostly auto loans, to clients associated with "anti-social" elements, a byword for organised crime.

Mizuho, Japan's No. 2 bank by assets, failed to do what was expected in reducing and preventing mob-related loans, the panel said, though it concluded the bank had not engaged in a deliberate cover-up.

The panel headed by former judge Hideki Nakagome, who also led an investigation into accounting fraud at camera and medical equipment maker Olympus, called the lending "captive loans" acquired when Mizuho bought consumer finance company Orient Corp.

Senior Mizuho executives neglected to clean up the loans after discovering them in early 2011. Soon after, Mizuho's management became preoccupied with ATM malfunctions triggered by an influx of donations for victims of the 2011 tsunami disaster.

Mizuho presented a plan for an overhaul to the Financial Services Agency, which last month demanded that the bank devise a strategy for "improvements" to its lending business.

The bank has pledged to end the loans, step up anti-mob screening of incoming business, tighten corporate governance and improve internal awareness about preventing dealings with those linked to organized crime.

The troubles at Mizuho underscore the difficulties financial companies confront in avoiding dealings with Japanese gangs, known as "yakuza." They are entrenched in many areas of the economy despite efforts to freeze them out of the financial system.

But the panel also faulted Mizuho's corporate governance, a perennial problem highlighted by a stream of scandals over negligence, fraud and other troubles at some of Japan's most elite companies.
In a governance report issued July 1, Mizuho outlined a code of conduct that abjures any influence or dealings with "anti-social elements."

The bank pledged to "oppose firmly the activities of any anti-social elements that threaten the rule of law, public order and safety" and to ensure compliance with its code of conduct.

Finance Minister Taro Aso said he needed to learn more details about the case before commenting.

news.com.au  28 Oct 2013

Bank fraud is NOT only limited to Japan.

Australia's 'Big Four' banks are involved in a nationwide fraud, but  this news is NOT reported by the corporate media.

American network NBC publishes map showing the whole of Australia is on fire. Oops

AMERICA, the nation which gave the world 307 Nobel laureates, has today shown that its media is about as smart as one of its famously dopey teen beauty pageant contestants. 
 
In a bizarre map produced by NBC News, pretty much the whole of Australia is depicted as being ablaze this week.

You might have thought the bushfires of the past week have been confined largely to New South Wales, but noooo. Not according to NBC they're not.

According to NBC, pretty much the entire country is on fire, including vast swathes of Cape York, the entire Darwin region, and vast portions of Western Australia's Great Sandy Desert where you'd be lucky to find two blades of grass to rub together.

Now, it turns out there may be an explanation for what appears to be a major cartographical catastrophe.

In all likelihood, NBC has taken the image from a Geoscience Australia product called Sentinel. Sentinel is a national bushfire monitoring system which uses satellite data to enable emergency service managers and other users to identify fire locations across Australia.

At any given time, the map will show hazard reduction burns, bushfires which pose no threat to life or property, plus of course much more serious bushfires like the ones we've seen this week.

That's the mistake which NBC appears to have made. They've taken every fire on the Sentinel map and assumed they are all part of the current emergency.

As NBC Foreign Producer Cheryll Simpson admitted overnight, and we think she's a bloody good sport for doing so:

Anthony Sharwood @antsharwood

America tries to explain Aussie bushfires and TOTALLY FAILS! With bonus map which is pure gold

Cheryll Simpson        ✔ @Cheryllasimpson

@antsharwood ughhhh, was kinda funny though - (covers eyes with hands)

NBC has also more or less assumed that the whole of Australia is NSW, which is disturbing given the network spent pretty much the whole of the Sydney Olympics camped on the Opera House steps. You'd think they'd have picked up a little Australian geography during their extended stay.

Then again, perhaps they thought they were in Austria all along. As anyone who watched the London Olympics would know, NBC has ongoing issues with working out which country is which.

Or maybe all those kangaroos hopping down George Street left them a little muddled or something.

news.com.au  28 Oct 2013

And these are supposed to be trusted news sources?

Also, the fires were lit by arsonists, nothing to do with the Global Warming, F.U.D. (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) factor.

Aussies hacked into US government computers: court

• US spying via embassies
• US to curtail spying on allies
• Spain presses for NSA spying details

A global gang of hackers, including two Australians, broke into NASA, US Army and the US Missile Defence Agency's computer systems and stole "massive amounts of confidential data", US authorities allege.

The extent of the hackers' alleged intrusions was revealed on Monday (US time) in a 22-page indictment handed down by a grand jury in New Jersey against 28-year-old Englishman Lauri Love.
Love was arrested at his home in Stradishall, England, on Friday and has been charged with accessing a US department or agency computer without authorisation.

The indictment accuses Love of working with one Swedish and two Australian co-conspirators to hack into thousands of computer networks and steal confidential information.

"As part of their alleged scheme, they stole military data and personal identifying information belonging to servicemen and women," US Attorney Paul J Fishman said.

"Such conduct endangers the security of our country and is an affront to those who serve."

US authorities declined to discuss the identities of the two Australians and the Swede or whether they had been arrested or will be arrested and extradited to the US.

In Love's indictment the two Australians are referred to as Co-conspirator 1 (CC-1) and Co-conspirator 2 (CC-2). CC-1 resided "in or near" NSW and CC-2 resided "in or near Australia", according to the indictment.

"This is still an ongoing investigation and there is really not more information on the public record to speak about it," said Rebekah Carmichael, spokeswoman for the US Attorney's Office.

It is alleged Love and his co-conspirators sought out and then hacked thousands of computer systems.
Once inside compromised networks they placed hidden "shells" or "back doors" within the networks, allowing them to return at a later date and steal confidential data, authorities said.

The indictment includes alleged online conversations the hackers had on what they believed were secure chat forums.

In one conversation after a NASA database was accessed in July, Love allegedly wrote: "we own nasa". CC-2 replied: "supa".

Love allegedly boasted they had "10 subdomains of nasa.gov" and "I think we can do some hilarious stuff with it".

But, CC-2, mindful of not getting caught, allegedly wrote: "but server must have no link to you or us when done we kill it".

After hacking the Missile Defence Agency in October last year, Love pasted into a chat log samples of stolen data, including account user names, email addresses and telephone numbers of various individuals, authorities allege.

Prosecutors allege the hackers found vulnerabilities in structured query language, or SQL, databases to infiltrate US government computer networks. They also allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in a web application platform US agencies used known as Coldfusion.

If convicted, Love faces a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison.

smh.com.au 29 Oct 2013

So the hackers actually 'stole' the information. Did they really?

You said what? Woman says Optus employee compared insurance claim to having a vagina

A WOMAN has described how a male Optus employee allegedly told her that getting her phone screen fixed was as likely as him having a vagina. 

When the female customer, who requested only to be referred to as Rebecca, cracked her iPhone screen, she was referred by Apple to her nearest Optus store and told the repairs might be covered by her Optus insurance.

But when Rebecca, 25, walked into a suburban Optus store and asked about the repairs, she claims the salesman laughed at her.

When she asked why, the employee allegedly responded that Optus replacing the screen was about as likely as him having a vagina, causing other male staff members to laugh.

"I pretty much cried, I was so over the whole situation and then to be treated like that just wasn't right," Rebecca told the Herald Sun.

"I felt demeaned by the entire situation."

Rebecca aired her grievances on the Optus Facebook page, prompting a brief response from the telco.
But the complaint has since been removed.

"Obviously (smashing your phone) is an annoying situation, but I was just irate after the way they handled it," Rebecca said.

"It just seemed like no-one wanted to help."

The 25-year old said the incident had made her rethink being with the network.

When contacted for comment, Optus said they had been in contact with the customer and were taking the matter very seriously.

An investigation is underway.

It is not the first time Rebecca has had issues when dealing with staff in relation to her Optus service.

She claims she was constantly contacted by one of the employees at an independent retailer who changed her phone number over from Telstra to the Optus network.

"He would ask if I wanted to go to a party, or for coffee or if I'd like a lift home. I never responded to any of them and eventually he got the picture, but I certainly didn't think it was acceptable to be harassed by a member of staff," Rebecca said.

news.com.au  30 Oct 2013

A serious issue? Really?

Not compared to how the power companies conned / bullied / threatened 2 million Victorians into installing (carcinogenic?) smart meters.

Another win for the corporatocracy keeping the 'sheeple' in he dark.