buckthesystem

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/254...s-bedrooms.html Councils snooping into residents' bedrooms Town hall chiefs are stepping up the use of powers to "snoop" into council tax payers' homes and even their bedrooms, the Conservatives have warned. By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent Last Updated: 8:08PM BST 12 Aug 2008 More than 7.5 million people who claim a 25-per-cent discount on their council tax bill because they live alone could be forced to prove that they do not share their life with another adult by opening their home to inspectors. Until now, most councils have been reluctant to use powers given to them by central government to inspect residents' bedrooms for signs of occupancy by more than one person over the age of 18. Eric Pickles, shadow communities and local government spokesman, warned that as a result of "function creep", however, increasing numbers of householders will have to submit to inspections in future in order to claim the discount. One local council, Thurrock in Essex, already requires those applying for the single person exemption to sign a declaration agreeing that they will allow council officials to enter their home as part of an inspection. A letter accompanying the form reads: "You currently receive a 25 per cent discount on your council tax because you are the only adult living in your home. "The Government requires the council to review all households receiving such discounts. Therefore I need to check that your discount should still apply. "If you do not do so, we will have to cancel your discount and send you a revised bill for the increased amount" Residents must then sign a form, which reads: "To be completed and returned immediately if you wish to continue to claim single person discount. "I authorise the Council or its agents to make enquiries to corroborate this claim. "I will permit the Council or its agents to inspect the property on request." Mr Pickles said that these inspections would "inevitably" involve checking bedrooms to find evidence of a secret partner. He went on: "Day by the day under Labour, the rights and liberties of law-abiding citizens are being undermined, with more and more state officials trying to enter and spy on people's homes. "It may be appropriate for local authorities to check that council tax discounts are not wrongly claimed. "But it is wholly disproportionate to threaten higher council tax bills if residents do not allow state officials into their bedrooms. "This is another worrying sign of function creep. State duties originally intended to tackle fraud are now being over-used by bureaucrats in a heavy-handed, intrusive manner." A spokesman for the Local Government Association said: "Millions of pounds are being ripped off from the taxpayer by a minority of people who deliberately cheat the system by claiming discounts. "Councils are clamping down hard on fraudsters who pretend to live alone when there are actually more people living in a house and try cheating the tax payer. "Pretending to live alone to defraud the taxpayer is not a victimless offence. "This is money that could be spent on the genuinely vulnerable or keeping council tax down."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...il-account.html Controversial Government powers to access millions of people's private phone records are set to be extended to email accounts and website records, ministers have said. By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 7:44AM BST 13 Aug 2008 The move was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism Photo: SIMON STRATFORD The news means that councils or quangoes could access private email accounts or examine internet phone records to snoop on taxpayers. It has emerged that Sir Paul Kennedy, the spying watchdog, said they were not using their powers to examine phone bills and call records enough. Since last October phone companies have had to retain information about all landline and mobile phone calls made by members of the public for one year, and hand over the data to more than 650 public bodies and quangos. The move, approved by Parliament last July under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, was justified as a vital tool in the fight against terrorism. The Home Office said it wanted to extend the powers to include people's access to websites, email accounts and even phone calls made over the internet using services like Skype. A Home Office consultation document on implementing an EU directive on electronic communications said the data would only be made available "to assist in the investigation, detection and prosecution of serious crime". The cost of the new plan is likely to be borne by internet and telecommunications companies, although the Home Office said this would form part of the consultation. The move has been heavily criticised, with claims that extending the powers was further evidence of a "snoopers' charter". Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Ministers have proven time and time again that they are not to be trusted with sensitive data, but they seem intent on pressing ahead with this snoopers' charter. "We will be told it is for use in combating terrorism and organised crime but if RIPA powers are anything to go by, it will soon be used to spy on ordinary people's kids, pets and bins. "Once again, the Government seems prepared to be more invasive than its EU counterparts in seeking to hold phone records for two years rather than six months." Guy Herbert, a spokesman for the No2ID campaign, said the information would be made available to "hundreds of official bodies responsible" under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. He said: "As ever with the database state this is a mass-surveillance measure for the retrospective convenience of officialdom in general. "Bugging and tracking genuine suspects in real ongoing investigations is unaffected. This is keeping everything it might be convenient to know about you and me for a rainy day." The Home Office said that enforcement officers would only have access to where emails were sent or received from and not their content. A spokesman said: "This data is a vital tool to investigations and intelligence gathering in support of national security and crime. Communications data allows investigators to identify suspects, examine their contacts, establish relationships between conspirators and place them in a specific location at a certain time. "It also gives investigators the potential to identify other forensic opportunities, identify witnesses and premises of evidential interest. Many alibis are proven or refuted through the use of communications data. Without the directive investigative opportunities will increasingly be lost. "Implementing the EC Directive will enable UK law enforcement to benefit fully from historical communications data in increasingly complex investigations and will enhance our national security."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/13/p....civilliberties 'Snooper's charter' to check texts and emails

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/05...-all-seeing-eye China's All-Seeing Eye By Naomi Klein - May 14th, 2008 Published in Rolling Stone With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export. Thirty years ago, the city of Shenzhen didn't exist. Back in those days, it was a string of small fishing villages and collectively run rice paddies, a place of rutted dirt roads and traditional temples. That was before the Communist Party chose it

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story....jectid=10526795 Witchcraft on syllabus at Massey University 10:32AM Wednesday August 13, 2008 Spells, magical curses and voodoo dolls are all part of a new paper being offered at Massey University. Magic and Witchcraft, is a 100-level extramural paper offered this semester at the university's school of history, philosophy and classics. Senior classics lecturer Gina Salapata said the 120 students enrolled in the paper studied the use of sorcery in the classical world, medieval and early modern times and in colonial Maori culture. The idea for the programme grew out of her background in classics, she said. "I had thought it would be good to have a paper on magic and witchcraft in my programme," said Dr Salapata. For the first assignment students had to create a magical curse tablet or erotic charm. However, the fanciful assignments had to be backed up with research, she said. "So far I've received everything from 'voodoo' dolls to elaborate curses," said Dr Salapata. Paper co-ordinator Chris van der Krogt said the lecturers were not advocating witchcraft but were using the theme to open windows to past societies. "We are putting it in a historical context. I also teach about Christianity, but I'm not advocating it," he said. - NZPA --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://venturebeat.com/2008/08/08/defcon-e...your-pacemaker/ The Defcon conference is the wild and woolly version of Black Hat for the unwashed masses of hackers. It always has its share of unusual hacks. The oddest so far is a collaborative academic effort where medical device security researchers have figured out how to turn off someone

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/08/11/TSA...26951218457441/ TSA readies new rules for private planes Published: Aug. 11, 2008 at 8:24 AM WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A move by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to regulate private jets could hamper the convenience of using small airports, industry observers say. Homeland Security's Transportation Security Agency is preparing new rules for the nations' 4,700 small airports reserved for private jets designed to prevent terrorists from using them in airborne attacks, USA Today reported Monday. The measures could put a crimp on the airports' attractiveness as an alternative to crowded commercial airlines for those who own the 15,000 private planes that would be affected, the report said. "The new security proposals must be workable and should strike the right balance between the need for security and for mobility," Dan Hubbard, spokesman for the National Business Aviation Association, a trade group for businesses with private aircraft, told USA Today. TSA's proposed new regulations would apply to planes that weigh more than 12,500 pounds. They will probably demand background checks for flight crews, parking planes in secure areas and inspecting planes. The new rules are coming after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff voiced concerns about terrorists using private jets, USA Today reported.

Again, if the parents of any of these kids have any sense at all they will refuse point blank to let their kids be fingerprinted. What are the schools going to do then? One teacher holds the screaming child while another forces the kid's thumb onto the "scanner"? This surely leaves school staff open to all sorts of allegations, and they are not even the police, so imagine the resulting court cases ....... Hmmn, the mind boggles. ________________________________________________________________________________ ____________________ http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/scottish-...78057-20690929/ Scots schoolchildren to be fingerprinted in controversial ID scheme Aug 10 2008 By Raymond Hainey MORE than 8000 pupils are to have their fingerprints taken so they can be tracked by teachers. Controversial biometric fingerprinting will be introduced to eight secondary schools in the biggest experiment of its type in Scotland. But parents yesterday attacked the scheme, saying there are few controls over who can access the fingerprint database. Officials behind the scheme say schools can use electronically collected thumb prints to monitor attendance, the buying of school meals and borrowing of library books. But Scottish Parent Teacher Council spokeswoman Judith Gillespie said: "I have concerns about it and it does raise the spectre of Big Brother. "We need a new, independent mechanism to look at the use of biometric data. We recognise people's concerns that we are setting up some kind of secret record of fingerprinting." The scheme is to be introduced in all eight secondary schools across East Dunbartonshire, where the council have already piloted it in Boclair Academy in Bearsden and Lenzie Academy. They have announced plans to use it in the new public/private partnership Bearsden Academy, near Glasgow, when it opens next year. But the Sunday Mail can reveal five other secondaries - Bishopbriggs Academy, Douglas Academy in Milngavie, Kirkintilloch High and Bishopbriggs schools St Ninian's High and Turnbull High - will also get the scheme. A total of 8300 pupils will be involved. The council said: "We will be introducing this in all our secondary schools. "Earlier this year, the system was introduced in Lenzie Academy and Boclair Academy and has been a success and positively received." Biometric fingerprinting works by scanning the thumb with infrared light, which is absorbed by the veins in the thumb. The information is used to create a unique code, which is stored in a database. Scanners recognise each individual code and can identify the child from a thumb impression on a scanner. The council have claimed one of the benefits of the scheme would be to end the stigma of free school meals by making it impossible to identify recipients. The council added: "The number which is created after scanning cannot be re-interpreted into a fingerprint image. Pupils will also have the opportunity to opt out." She refused to say how much the new system would cost to implement but similar systems already installed in schools in England cost up to s20,000 per school. Green MSP Patrick Harvie said: "Biometric schemes are expensive, unreliable and utterly inappropriate for a school setting." But Lenzie Academy parent David Steedman, who has two children at the school, said: "As a parent, I don't have any concerns about it. You have to have an element of trust in society."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080809/ts_af...tiarussiaunrest by Samantha Shields Sat Aug 9, 5:53 PM ET TBILISI (AFP) - Russian planes staged bombing raids across Georgia on Saturday as the conflict over South Ossetia escalated putting pressure on international efforts to secure a ceasefire. ADVERTISEMENT Russian warships headed for the Georgian coast, Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili said after air raids on the port of Poti and the city of Gori, where inhabitants said scores of people were killed. The leaders of Russia and Georgia also stepped up their war of words. "What they are doing is nothing to do with conflict, it is about annihilation of a democracy on their borders," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in an interview with the BBC. Saakashvili declared a "state of war" in his country on Saturday but also offered a ceasefire to Russia. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev said his country had launched its operation to "force the Georgian side into peace" and accused Georgia of causing thousands of "victims". Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia's military offensive to take back the province which broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war. Fears of a wider conflict added urgency to international calls for a ceasefire. Britain said a joint European-US mission was due in Georgia late Saturday to try to help broker a ceasefire with Russia. The UN Security Council met again Saturday to agree on a call for an immediate ceasefire after talks failed a day earlier. France, which holds the EU presidency, announced that it would host a meeting of European foreign ministers early next week and an emergency EU summit could be held. The European Union "strongly states its commitment to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia and its internationally recognised borders and urges Russia to respect them," said a statement released by France. The EU "underscores that the military actions (against Georgia) could affect EU-Russian relations," it added. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will visit the region to present settlement proposals, France said. The United States demanded that Russia to halt its military assault. US President George W. Bush cut into his engagements during a visit to Beijing to call for an end to Russian bombing. "We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops," Bush told reporters. "We call for an end to the Russian bombings." Georgia said a Russian air raid had "completely devastated" the Black Sea port of Poti in attacks that the country's UN ambassador likened to "a full-scale military invasion". This was followed up with air raids on Gori, the main Georgian city closest to South Ossetia. Georgia's prime minister said another attack targeted the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline but did not damage it. Azerbaijan still suspended its oil exports through Georgia. Apartment blocks in Gori were left in flames and residents said scores of people were killed. Georgian television showed images of the body of a pilot from a Russian jet shot down. The conflict spread to Abkhazia, another breakaway region of Georgia, where the separatist government said its forces had launched attacks on Georgian troops. Georgia accused Russia of staging the attacks in the Kodori Gorge region, the only part of Abkhazia controlled by Georgia. The United States has been informed that Russia plans to move parts of its Black Sea fleet towards Abkhazia, a US official in Washington said on condition of anonymity. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, arrived in the city of Vladikavkaz, close to Russia's border with Georgia, and said Russia had been right to launch its offensive. "From a legal point of view our actions are absolutely well-founded and legitimate and moreover necessary," Putin said, blasting Georgia's "criminal" leadership. The conflict with Russia has claimed 150 Georgian lives, the foreign minister said, while Russia's ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, claimed 1,500 South Ossetian civilians were killed in the burning of villages in just one day of Georgia's offensive. In South Ossetia, Georgian and rebel forces made rival claims to control the capital, Tskhinvali , but Russia said it had "liberated" the city after airlifting paratroopers. In the streets of Tskhinvali, home to an estimated 20,000 people before the conflict, tanks burned and women and children ran for cover. South Ossetia broke from Georgia in the early 1990s. It has been a constant source of friction between Georgia and Russia, which opposes Tbilisi's aspirations of joining NATO and has supported the separatists without recognising their independence.

Axxman you're getting paranoid about this sort of thing. Did anyone say that they were blaming the police? I blame the stupid, out of touch with reality, politicians who thought of the silly idea of taking the DNA of innocent people and retaining it on a national database for ever, also the top police officers (most of whom, rumour has it, have never been "out on the streets" themselves) for lobbying for, or agreeing to this dumb idea. Also, you are assuming a lot by saying "being 41 and still living with his mother". We do not know the circumstances, maybe his mother is a sickly widow who moved in with him for support. Although the article indicates that he lives in the same house as his mother, there could be many different reasons for this. And as to another of your remarks: I think I'd be pretty "traumatised by a DNA sample" if it was me in this position too. Do you realise that this also labels him as a "sex offender", and if you're obviously not but you know that a PNC check will bring up the information that you are a sex offender, yeah, that is pretty traumatising too. It is rather more than "a cotton swab in the mouth". I think if someone tried to put a cotton swab in my mouth against my will, they would end up with it somewhere in their anatomy where they didn't want it. I think the time is long past where we just "roll over and take" these things and then complain about it later, we have to fight back. Also some responsibility must lay with the police officer who insisted on arresting Mr Chong under these circumstances, on a complaint from a "problem complainer". Surely common sense can come in somewhere.

With the way the UK government has got the law "sewn up", if he were to apply for a job "working with vulnerable people", a CRB check would "raise a flag" and he wouldn't get the job. He was just an ordinary citizen, yet he has been criminalised and the police have access to his DNA profile (and that of his close family members) for ever.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-...ken-888387.html Mother claims son killed himself after DNA profile takenBy Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent Friday, 8 August 2008 A grieving mother says the inclusion of her innocent son's genetic details on the DNA national database, after a woman at a train station falsely accused him of flashing, drove him to suicide. Robert Chong was arrested by an off-duty policeman at Waterloo station in May, handcuffed, held and forced to provide a DNA sample, after the woman

You are over-reacting. I am not proffering any "conspiracy theories", I'm merely QUESTIONING the official story. People who accept preposterous things that they're told remind me of a child sitting in the corner with his hands over his ears chanting to himself "I'm a good citizen of the new world, I will never ask questions". The thing about this particular episode is that there are so many obvious holes in the way of belief of what the public is being told happened and it is far harder to accept things as being what the way the FBI claimed, than to see what is wrong with it. Doesn't it make you wonder why there was no autopsy in this case? Apparently there was not even an examination of the body to ascertain whether or not there were bruises, sign of force etc. It is not necessary to hold an autopsy to claim that someone ingested drugs. All you have to do, and all that was done in this case, was to take a blood sample from the corpse and analyse it for the presence of tylenol. Now if you are going to hang all your evidence on the court document that was written by a woman of questionable knowledge, consider how much weight you can really put on a court document where she described herself as a "theripist". Have a look at this: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...81anthrax2.html Now as for "the FBI don't have to come up with a perpetrator" Well, yes they do if they want to close the case and stem any future public scrutiny.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hf7dqqs...PaqcDwD92DPHVO0 Urine bottles: Another result of high fuel prices? 16 hours ago ONTARIO, Ore. (AP)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26002709/ FORT COLLINS, Colo. - A man believed to have died in a Colorado flood in 1976 has been found living in Oklahoma. Sixty-three-year-old Darrell Johnson told the Fort Collins Coloradoan for a story Friday that he didn't know he had been counted among the 144 victims of the Big Thompson Canyon flood until a resident called him last year. Barb Anderson said residents didn't want his name on a memorial plaque without proof he was dead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080805/ap_on_...Wn5qsEE08EsQE4F PERRYSBURG, Ohio - An Ohio woman has sent Michigan transportation officials a bill for the $16 she says she wasted on gasoline sitting in construction zone traffic. Carol Greenberg complained there were no signs warning about the work on southbound Interstate 275 where it merges with I-75 near Newport, Michigan, about 27 miles north of Toledo. So, she said she got stuck idling for about 50 minutes on July 23 while trying to get home to the Toledo suburbs with her cat after a visit to a specialty veterinarian outside Detroit. She said her Maine coon cat, Sammy, didn't like the delay either and howled the entire time. In a response letter, the Michigan Department of Transportation says it's not able to reimburse drivers for time, wages, or gas lost in work zone back-ups. ___

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080805/ap_on_...4snM_nc.OMsQE4F NEWARK, Del. - Police have arrested a Newark area landlord who allegedly rammed his Hummer into a renter's house, claiming the tenants were behind on their rent. New Castle County Police spokesman Cpl. Trinidad Navarro said the 30-year-old landlord crashed the SUV into a home on Lute Court in Harmony Woods about 3 a.m. Thursday. A 50-year-old woman and her 53-year-old husband sleeping inside and were jolted awake by a loud crash and the house shaking. Officers learned the man was the landlord and went to his home and saw the damaged Hummer with a pine branch stuck in the front bumper. The landlord was charged with endangering the welfare of those inside, reckless driving and harassment, among other charges.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_...tJ0PSLLhycsQE4F NEW YORK - It was a report calculated to send chills through those charged with anti-terrorist vigilance in New York City: Bearded intruders secretly penetrate heavily guarded transportation site. But it turned out the would-be trespassers were goats imported by the National Park Service to clean up poison ivy and other unwanted weeds at historic Fort Wadsworth, a 200-year-old Revolutionary War rampart on Staten Island near the Verrazano Bridge. Brian Feeney, a park service spokesman, said the goats are brought down yearly from a farm near Rhinebeck, N.Y., and escaped about two weeks ago. According to officials, the dozen goats

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_..._2yaZjX9ZksQE4F FERNDALE, Wash. - No one wants to be stuck with a large, uninvited visitor. Especially a sea lion that makes itself at home on a family sailboat

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_...ICSPlEMgRgsQE4F Wed Aug 6, 3:40 PM ET WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Officials say an indigenous New Zealand reptile regarded as one of the last living remnants of the dinosaurs will become a father for the first time in decades at the age of 111. Henry the tuatara and his younger mate Mildred produced a dozen eggs last month after mating at the Southland Museum on New Zealand's South Island in March. Tuatara curator Lindsay Hazley said Wednesday Henry has lived at the museum's special enclosure for Tuatara since 1970 and had shown no interest in sex until he recently had a cancerous growth removed from his genitals. He was now enjoying the company of three females and might breed again next March.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080806/ap_on_...4T.aZ15e9osQE4F SOUTH OGDEN, Utah - An 11-year-old boy who wanted to get his girlfriend's attention without waking her parents got a lesson in the strength of a window pane. A pebble fired from a slingshot has more velocity than a pebble tossed by hand. ADVERTISEMENT "We were just trying to get her attention," said Joe Brunton, who is now doing odd jobs around his neighborhood to raise the money he needs to replace the window. Joe and a friend were trying to see the girl early one morning a few weeks ago. At first, they threw wood chips at the window, but that wasn't enough, so the boys went home for heavier artillery. The slingshot worked in getting the girl's attention, but it also cracked the window. The boys immediately owned up to the broken window and promised the girl's parents that they would replace it. Joe went to his mother, who covered the $160 replacement cost but said the boy was going to have to do extra chores. Joe's friend Justice Kane decided that was going to take too long, so they have been going door to door and asking neighbors if they need any household chores done. They also explained why they are raising the money. "It was kind of embarrassing," Joe said. ___

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080807/ap_on_...e7Epvge_vYsQE4F By DAN CATCHPOLE, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 7, 5:02 AM ET SEATTLE - A 6-foot-tall, 250-pound letter carrier is campaigning for the right to take off his pants. Dean Peterson wants the U.S. Postal Service to add kilts as a uniform option for men. The idea was soundly defeated in July at a convention of his union, the 220,000-member National Letter Carriers' Association, so Peterson knows convincing management will be an uphill struggle, but at least he'll be comfortable in his kilt, or Male Unbifurcated Garment. "In one word, it's comfort," he said. With his build, Peterson said, his thighs fill slacks to capacity, causing chafing and scarring. Peterson, 48, has Finnish and Norwegian ancestry but not Scottish. He began wearing kilts a couple years ago when his wife brought one back from a trip to Scotland. (A spokeswoman for Britain's Royal Mail said kilts are not allowed as part of its letter carrier uniforms.) Now Peterson wears them everywhere

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4644769a4560.html The loss of Booger the pit bull terrier was almost more than Bernann McKinney could bear. Now she is happy, minus $US50,000 ($NZ70,000) and her house, and owner of five cloned Booger puppies. "It is a miracle for me because I was able to smile again, laugh again and just feel alive again," McKinney told a news conference in the South Korea capital to show off the week-old black puppies

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4645588a4560.html Thousands of German police women will receive what media have labelled "bullet-proof bras". Made of white cotton and featuring the word "Polizei" (Police) along the seam, the bras are meant to better protect police women who wear bullet-proof vests. "There was a slight safety risk for women wearing normal bras with metal parts underneath a bullet-proof vest," a police spokesman in the northern city of Hanover said. "If the vest is hit by a projectile, this can have an impact on the metal bit in the bra underneath and cause injuries." Some 3,000 police women working for Germany's federal police will be equipped with the new bras which feature no metal parts and look like sports bras, the spokesman said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4645499a4560.html Are you a fan of Woody Allen or action movies and want the world to know? Now you can have the images from your favorite film on a pair of trendy eyeglasses made by designer Zakarias Tipton. The 29-year-old optician first began experimenting with vinyl and plastic glass frames about eight years ago and now sells a range of Cinematique eyewear with clips from the silver screen worked into the frame. "I began testing all sorts of plastic until I found my father's record collection, and then I started recycling those without his knowledge," Tipton told Reuters. That's when Tipton, who grew up in the United States with a Hungarian mother, decided to set up his funky eyewear business. Now he, along with his brother, are based in Budapest and their collection is sold across Europe and North America. Their Cinematique frames are made by recycling 35mm and 16mm movies. The film is collected from cinemas and dates from after 1989 (the fall of Communism in Hungary). "They (customers) tell us they'd like a film from Woody Allen or they want Mission Impossible 3 in their frame or they want a picture of some famous actor, then we will make it here and ship it to them," Tipton said. Tipton moved to Hungary at the start of this decade and is now targeting increasingly affluent eastern European customers with a list of about 300 films to choose from. The frames are designed on a computer and a company in Italy manufactures them. The front of the frames is made by a sister company in neighboring Slovakia. Not all films make good material though, as the images must have bold colors and lots of contrast. Tipton said a favorite is the 2003 action movie Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which stars Antonio Banderas as hitman El Mariachi alongside Johnny Depp as a psychotic CIA agent. "There are explosions everywhere, contrast, people flying, jumping, which brings out an added dimension."