Australian Government Wants ISPs to Record Browsing History

The Attorney-General's Department yesterday confirmed to ZDNet Australia that it had been in discussions with industry on implementing a data retention regime in Australia. Such a regime would require companies providing internet access to log and retain customer's private web browsing history for a certain period of time for law enforcement to access when needed.

Currently, companies that provide customers with a connection to the internet don't retain or log subscriber's private web browsing history unless they are given an interception warrant by law enforcement, usually approved by a judge. It is only then that companies can legally begin tapping a customer's internet connection.'

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New South Wales Government Recording Features for Facial Recognition

The New South Wales Government is quietly compiling a mathematical map of almost every adult’s face, sharing information that allows law enforcement to track people by CCTV.

Experts said yesterday few people realised their facial features were being recorded in an RTA database of drivers licence photos that the Government has allowed both state and federal police to access, The Daily Telegraph reports.'

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Territorians to be Barcoded

Territory victims in large-scale accidents or catastrophes will soon be barcoded at the scene before being sent to hospital.

Experts say it is only a matter of months before Territory emergency services adapt the revolutionary barcode card technology.

And the rest of Australia is expected to soon follow suit.

The technology is designed for major catastrophes which involve more than 10 victims.'

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Lawrence Solomon: Australia Won’t Cap and Trade

Seeing countries around the world back away from their climate change commitments, and seeing his own electoral support crumble, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced today that Australia will be shelving its cap and trade program for at least three years, until after the next election. “That will provide the Australian government at the time with a better position to assess the level of global action on climate change," he told the Australian press.

In recent weeks, Rudd has been embarrassed by decisions by the US and Japanese governments to put climate change on the back burner and alarmed by the growing opposition at home to climate change legislation. His once popular plans to cut back emissions by 5% by 2020, which were scheduled to begin next year, have been twice rejected by Australia’s Senate faced certain defeat in a third vote that was expected in several weeks.'

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Flu Shots Suspended After Kids Hospitalised

The Western Australian Government has suspended all flu vaccinations for children under five while it investigates a spike in admissions to Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth.

The Health Minister, Kim Hames, says 45 children have been taken to hospital suffering high temperatures and febrile convulsions after receiving the vaccination.'

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The Pirate Party: How to Bypass the Great Australian Firewall

The Pirate Party hates the Internet filter and readily put Exit International in contact with member David Campbell, from Newcastle IT shop ClearComputers.

The brief? To teach 70-year olds to bypass the Internet filter. Campbell accepted the challenge, and proved breaking the filter is not just child's play. Your grandma can do it too.

He was kind enough to supply Computerworld with his powerpoint presentation, so the rest of us can always receive unfiltered Internet.'

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Bizarre Speculation Circles Weather Bureau

They are the digital-age equivalent of crop circles - mysterious patterns appearing on the Bureau of Meteorology's national radar system without any explanation.

And the random images described as red stars, rings of fire and white doughnuts are sending online conspiracy websites into meltdown.

The anomalies first began on January 15 when an "iced doughnut" appeared over Kalgoorlie in WA.

Satellite imagery showed there was no cloud over the area at the time to explain the unusual phenomenon but farmers' online comments claimed it was "unusually hot" all day.

It was followed by a bizarre red star over Broome on January 22 and a sinister spiral burst over Melbourne described by amateur radar buffs as the Ring Of Fire Fault.'

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Pharma Backed Australian of the Year Psychiatrist Wants Millions in Government Funding for Brave New World of 'Pre-Drugging' Kids

Drugs, Big Pharma criminals

Who is Patrick McGorry and what does he promote? He’s a psychiatrist just named Australian of the Year for his work in “youth mental health reform.” What does that reform consist of? What he calls a “new form of climate change.” It sure is.

[See TIME Magazine Article "Drugs Before Diagnosis?"]

He not only promotes youths being put on antipsychotics and antidepressants, cited by international drug regulatory agencies as causing hallucinations, hostility, personality change, life-threatening diabetes, strokes, suicide and death, McGorry goes a giant step further—drug them before they’ve even developed a “psychiatric” disorder.'

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Australian Censorship Debate Censored on Communications Minister’s Website

If you’re planning to censor free speech on the internet, what better approach to take than to, er, censor debate about how you’re planning to censor free speech on the internet? Brilliant.

That, according to one sharp-eyed Register reader, is the game being played by Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, whose ministerial website is currently set up so as not to show searches on embarrassing terms such as “ISP filtering”.'

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'There is Very Strange Weather Happening Here': HAARP?

A contact in Australia just alerted me to what he describes as "very strange weather taking place over the south west of Australia". He told me to go to the national weather satellite images if I could not open the images he attached. By the time I had discovered the e-mail and checked, the large clearly defined ring had mostly dissipated but still was just visible on a time loop which was spiraling counter clockwise (Low
Pressure system).'

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Police in Armed Maternity Ward Raid at Women's and Children's Hospital

A father cut his baby daughter's umbilical cord, kissed her and passed the infant to the mother. Seconds later, STAR Group officers burst through the bedside curtains and pointed a pistol at his head.

The baby was then taken by Families SA workers - which has prompted Independent MLC Ann Bressington to hit out at "rogue social workers on power trips".'

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Australian Anger Over Broadened Police Powers to Search People

A Geelong lawyer has slammed new laws that allow police to search people in designated public areas as an "outrageous breach of human rights".

The laws, which came into effect on Wednesday, give police sweeping powers to search people at random, including strip searches.'

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Fluoride Fears Spark Cairns Filter Rush

Cairns residents are giving each other water filters as Christmas presents in a rush before the Far North's water supply is permanently fluoridated.

Shopkeepers say they have been rushed off their feet with sales of filters to residents concerned about the effects fluoridated water may have upon their health.'

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auDA Take Down Anti-Internet Filtering Website in Record Time

On the afternoon of Thu 17th, 2009 SAPIA Pty Ltd registered the domain name "stephenconroy.com.au" as a satirical platform on which to air grievances and promote debate about the Australian governments proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme. By 5pm the next day, the website was forcibly taken offline by auDA, Australia's domain authority body after a complaint concerning the registrant's eligibility was raised, presumably by Stephen Conroy's office: the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.'

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Israeli Delegation Met by Protesters in Melbourne

A high-level Israeli delegation to Melbourne has been greeted with raging pro-Palestinian protesters, forcing the Australian hosts to use an alternative side-entrance for their safety.'

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Rudd Chickens Out on Climate Change Debate

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismissed a challenge for a series of public debates over climate change, saying the Federal Opposition needs to have a policy first.

Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he wants to have the debates over the proposed emissions trading scheme before the Government reintroduces the legislation in February.'

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Australian Fluoride Plant Construction Begins

Construction work on Mount Gambier’s fluoridation plant at the Blue Lake pumping station began on Monday.

The soil is currently being excavated in preparation for the construction of a 60 square metre stone building above the pumping station which will house the plant.
Major works are scheduled to start in late December, with completion to take about five months.

SA Water chief operating officer John Ringham said residents would start receiving fluoridated water by the middle of next year.'

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Global Warming Propaganda on the Sundance Channel: Carbon Cops

Australia's Parliament Defeats Global Warming Bill

Australia's Parliament defeated legislation to set up a greenhouse gas emissions trading system on Wednesday, throwing a central plank of the government's plans to combat global warming into disarray.

The Senate, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government does not hold a majority, rejected his administration's proposal for Australia to become one of the first countries to install a so-called cap-and-trade system to slash the amount of heat-trapping pollution that industries pump into the air.'

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Israeli War Criminal Welcomed in Australia

The news that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was in Australia and was welcomed by the honourable members of our parliament came as somewhat of a shock. It is one thing to have allowed a man on corruption charges as well as facing war crimes indictments into Australia at all; it is another thing that he was listed as a distinguished guest in Hansard – the official record of parliamentary proceedings – and received a resounding "hear, hear" from our elected representatives.

This is, after all, the man who approved the genocidal attack on the 1.5 million imprisoned and defenceless Palestinians in Gaza less than a year ago. This is the same attack that was the subject of numerous enquiries, not least the UN fact-finding mission led by Justice Richard Goldstone, which found that "the operations were carefully planned . . . and designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population . . . [and] that the serious violations of International Humanitarian Law recounted in this report fall within the subject-matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC)." With further investigations, these violations may well amount to "war crimes and "crimes against humanity".'

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