[LINK] The White House Blog, Weekly Wrap Up: Strengthening Relationships Abroad

[Roger Clarke]

At 10:17 AM +1100 21/11/11, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
>Photo Caption: President Barack Obama [with Prime Minister Julia Guillard]
>delivers remarks honoring 60 years of the U.S. and Australian Alliance to a
>crowd of some 2000 soldiers and guests at the Royal Army Air Force Base in
>Darwin, Australia, Nov.17, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
><http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/11/18/weekly-wrap-strengthening-relationships-abroad>

Perhaps I'd better offer the alternative view, as posted to the 
privacy list over the weekend:

[Many people felt considerable disquiet about the location of US 
servicemen on Australian soil, as announced by a star-struck Gillard 
last week.

[One reason for concern is the likelihood of a serious loss of 
national sovereignty, such as exemption of American military 
personnel from Australian jurisdiction, and perhaps ceding of control 
over the geographical location of the base, and even airspace and air 
traffic control.

[Another is the heightened risk of enforced importation of the gross 
abuses of freedom that are now part of the American way of life.

[It's started already, with automated access to Austrac databases.]


US can access Aussie DNA, personal data
By Luke Hopewell, ZDNet.com.au
November 17th, 2011
http://www.zdnet.com.au/us-can-access-aussie-dna-personal-data-339326371.htm

As part of US President Barack Obama's visit to Australia, a raft of 
new accords have been agreed upon to strengthen the national security 
of the two nations, including a memorandum that will see US law 
enforcement agencies score access to the names, aliases, DNA and 
fingerprint information of suspected criminals and terrorists.

Under the new memorandum of understanding (MOU)(PDF) signed in 
Canberra yesterday, US law enforcement agencies will have automatic 
access to fingerprint and DNA reference data from Australian law 
enforcement counterparts so long as a system exists to obtain such 
information.

MOU at 
http://www.cnet.com.au/story_media/339326371/AUSTRALIA-UNITED%20STATES%20MOU%20ON%20COMBATING%20CRIME.pdf

...


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University