Monday, 21 November 2011
US can access Aussie DNA, personal data
If the DNA or fingerprint query returns a reference match, US agencies can access a target's personal information to verify the hit. Personal data would include information on a target's full name, aliases, sex, date and place of birth, nationality, passport number, other identity document numbers and fingerprint data beyond the reference information supplied in the initial hit.
US agencies won't have access to the data on a random whim, however. To access the information, agencies must be presented with the clear and present threat of criminal activity or terrorism.
According to the MOU, circumstances may include the possibility that the target or targets:
- (a) Will commit or has committed terrorist or terrorism related offences, or offences related to a terrorist group or association as those offences are defined under the supplying participant's laws; or
- (b) is undergoing or has undergone training to commit the offences referred to in in sub-paragraph 12.1(a) [above]; or
- (c) will commit or has committed a serious criminal offence or participates in an organised criminal group or association.
The MOU highlights the importance of data security in the transmission, storage and analysis of such information and has outlined in several sections how this data should be kept secret from prying eyes while respecting the legal rights of the host nation and the target when dealing with said data.
"The participants are to ensure that the necessary technical measures and organisational arrangements are utilised to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss or unauthorised disclosure, alteration access or any unauthorised form of processing," the MOU reads in the section on data security.
Each party will also be required to keep a record of the transmission of data, which will include what was sent about whom and when. Data will be retained for a period of two years and the nation supplying the data can always query the status of how the information is being used.
The two signatories to the MOU, Brendan O'Connor, Federal Minister for Home Affairs, and Jeffrey Bleich, US Ambassador to Australia, said that the document is designed to ensure that law enforcement agencies can correctly identify and move on criminals and persons of interest hiding amongst legitimate tourists and businesspeople.
"Transnational criminals and terrorists are always trying to hide among legitimate tourists and business travellers. It is critical for us to find them and stop them without interfering with those travellers who build bonds between our people and strengthen commerce for both countries," Bleich said in a statement.
O'Connor added that "this important measure reinforces our shared values regarding the protection and privacy of the citizens of both countries while also denying safe haven to criminals".
Luke Hopewell @'ZDNet'
Guess we are officially the 51st State now...
About Pepper Spray
I checked the Scoville Scale for something else yesterday. I was looking for a way to measure the intensity of pepper spray, the kind that police have been using on Occupy protestors including this week’s shocking incident involving peacefully protesting students at the University of California-Davis.
As the chart makes clear, commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.
The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious.
Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison. That we’re not talking about cookery but a potent blast of chemistry. So that if OC spray is the U.S. police response of choice – and certainly, it’s been used with dismaying enthusiasm during the Occupy protests nationwide, as documented in this excellent Atlantic roundup - it may be time to demand a more serious look at the risks involved.
My own purpose here is to focus on the dangers of a high level of capsaicin exposure. But as pointed out in the 2004 paper, Health Hazards of Pepper Spray, written by health researchers at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, the sprays contain other risky materials:
Depending on brand, an OC spray may contain water, alcohols, or organic solvents as liquid carriers; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, or halogenated hydrocarbons (such as Freon, tetrachloroethylene, and methylene chloride) as propellants to discharge the canister contents.(3) Inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory, and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death...
Continue reading
Deborah Blum @'Speakeasy Science'
How I Got My Song - Leonard Cohen's Prince Of Asturias Speech 21/10/11
"Poetry comes from a place that no one commands, that no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from I would go there more often."
Via
Via
MetPoliceCO11 Metropolitan Police
In response to the ongoing CCTV outage in the Holborn area we have now deployed a small team of barn owls with notepads.
In response to the ongoing CCTV outage in the Holborn area we have now deployed a small team of barn owls with notepads.
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