New Australia - USA Extradition Treaty

[philw]

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/aust-us-sign-new-terror-deal-20120504-1y419.html

firstly I did not know she was over here.. 

A new counter-terrorism agreement signed between the US and Australia shows that the threat of extremism at home and abroad remains real and more global cooperation is needed, senior government figures say.

The US Secretary for Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, the Australian Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, and Justice Minister Jason Clare signed joint statements in Canberra on Friday on transnational crime and counter-terrorism.

The agreements came as papers seized from the Pakistan compound of Osama bin Laden were publicly released, documenting the late terrorist leader's ambition for further attacks on the "malignant tree" of the US and its allies.

Ms Napolitano said the papers spoke for themselves.

"I think we all recognise that Osama bin Laden's death was a significant event and a significant degradement in al-Qaeda's capabilities, but certainly not the end of those capabilities nor the end of terrorism writ large," she told reporters in Canberra.

"As we look forward we realise that we are living in a world of a continuing terrorist threat."

Ms Roxon said the risk of home-grown terrorism was "real" and counter-terrorism authorities had been able to foil Australian-based plots.

"It's something that is a small risk, but has deadly consequences," she said.

Under the statement on countering transnational crime, terrorism and violent extremism, the two countries will be able to share law enforcement data and expand the current information sharing on extremists and radical groups.

Ms Roxon said criminal and terrorist groups were increasingly using the internet, which made it all the more important to cooperate globally.

Ms Napolitano said the statements on collaborative targeting and supply-chain security would be important in fighting the global drug trade.

Mr Clare said 96 per cent of detections of drugs at Australia's border were as a result of shared intelligence, and law enforcement agencies had advised the government that "the more intelligence law enforcement has, the more illegal goods they can seize and the more criminals they can arrest".

The two countries would now be better able to target and risk-assess cargo and passengers as a result of the joint statements, he said.

Australia and the US have also agreed to look at ways to make travel between the two countries easier using electronic passport checks.

This would cut down customs waiting times in both countries.

The attorney-general said Australians' personal information shared with US authorities would be covered by privacy protections under Australian law.

sounds ok to start with bla, bla, bla  standard BS.. ok

then lets look at this little gem of info..
<http://torrentfreak.com/the-lengthening-arm-of-uncle-sams-pirate-justice-120506/>

File-sharing was firmly on the agenda when the head of the US Department of Homeland Security touched down in the Australian capital last week. The four new agreements – promptly signed before Secretary Janet Napolitano flew back out of Canberra – were less about sharing season two of Game of Thrones and more about sharing the private, government held information of Australian citizens with US authorities.

“Because today’s threats do not recognise national boundaries, our responses must also transcend borders,” Ms Napolitano told her hosts in a speech overly dominated by assurances the US would respect the privacy of Australian citizens.

The legal reach of the US government has lengthened considerably over the past decade. Under the banner of fighting terrorism, law after law has been introduced, up to and including the creation of the Department of Homeland Security itself. Allies of the United States have signed up to bi-lateral and multi-lateral treaties giving that country enormous power over non-US citizens.

The perceived imbalance of many of these arrangements is starting to draw official protests. British Parliamentarian Dominic Raab recently stated, “Richard O’Dwyer [is] subject to US extradition orders based on [his] actions in Britain. Yet, no American has ever been extradited for alleged offences committed on US soil. It smacks of double standards, and strengthens the case for extradition reform.”

Richared O’Dwyer‘s alleged crimes involve facilitating copyright infringement via the website TVShack.net. Midway through 2010, Napolitano’s department used America’s control of the .net domain name register to extraterritoriality seize the TVShack domain.

Just under a year later the US Justice Department sought to have O’Dwyer extradited for alleged breaches of US law. O’Dwyer’s supporters have strongly questioned why a UK citizen can be sent to the US, despite having committed no crime on US soil for an offence that has generally been considered a civil, not criminal, matter.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, German celebrity hacker and internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is also fighting extradition to the United States for allegedly breaching the copyright of US corporate interests. Unlike the 23-year-old O’Dwyer, Dotcom has gained global media attention thanks to a high profile and limited access to considerable resources.

While facing extradition to Sweden from the UK, Wikileaks’ Julian Assange also fears the ever lengthening arm of US justice. Sweden holds a “special” arrangement with the United States which allows that country to temporarily surrender people into American custody. Assange and his supporters believe that should he be sent to Sweden, he will be promptly handed to the US authorities. (Although it should be asked why Assange does not fear he will be extradited by the British Government themselves.)

Should either the UK or Sweden fail to do America’s bidding, the Australia Government reportedly has a contingency plan. In March this year, the Australian federal parliament passed the Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Amendment Act, lowering the bar to extradite its own citizens while removing many previously held defences.

Combined with so-called “Wikileaks Amendments” and other expansions of their powers in the post 911 era, Australia’s spy agencies are now equipped to legally snoop on Australian citizens and share the information internally. Napolitano’s visit and the agreements she and Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon signed allow for much greater sharing of that information with the US government.

Australia’s Rama Brothers may consider themselves fortunate their copyright infringement trial began before this bilateral legal regime was expanded to its current form. Both received suspended jail sentences under the Queensland legal system, unlike Britain’s Richard O’Dwyer who faces a lengthy sentence in a foreign country. Future Rama Brothers will conceivably be shipped off to the United States for trial and punishment, with little to no ability to challenge an extradition under Australian law.

Last month the Australian High Court emphatically rejected an attempt by Hollywood studios to have local ISPs held responsible for the file-sharing activities of their customers. The legal precedent is binding in Australia and influential in countries who share a similar legal system such as India, Canada and the UK.

Through bypassing the courts and going straight to our legislators, who are arguably compromised in their ability to deal with the United States, the American Government is achieving the outcomes Hollywood lawyers and lobbyists could not. If Australian law will not deliver the results entities such as the RIAA and MPAA are pleased with, it can be circumnavigated by applying US law instead.

We have reached a point in Australia where citizens can be arrested and extradited to the United States based on information supplied by Australian spies for breaches of US law on Australian soil. Australia has effectively signed away its right to govern its own in matters of copyright infringement when those matters overlap the interests of the United States.

so looks like I might have a free trip to the US after all 

[Pecos Bill]

Does this mean that if I were to travel to Australia I could say I was going to the colonies?

Pecos