(fwd) USA / Australia - Civil Liberty

Path: news.aus.world.net!news.us.world.net!usenet
From: tomk@world.net
Newsgroups: aus.legal
Subject: USA / Australia - Civil Liberty
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 96 01:59:02 PDT
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1 March, 1996
At 1:50 pm today PST in the Federal Court of the USA 
in the State of Oregon, an Australian national 
Ms. Amanda Wilson was unfairly incarcerated by Justice 
Haggerty of the US Federal Court.

During her incaceration, she was denied legal counsel, 
her request to have her embassy contacted was refused
and she was informed by the Sherrif of Oregon, that she had
no rights until she was transferred to a Federal Jail.

This individual was a witness in a civil case and was
neither named as the plaintiff nor the defendant.

Work that she had performed for the plaintiff under 
contract was not being paid for by the Plaintiff and Ms.
Wilson was not inclined to provide the information without
her agreed remuneration.

Justice Haggerty then claimed that Ms. Wilson was an agent 
of Koltai Inc and Thomas P. Kotlai and that her work was
not Intellectual Property owned by herself until 
remunerated.

Ms. Wilson claimed that she had evidence that she was 
acting as an independent agent. Justice Haggertys' response
was that "I'm not interested in your evidence".

Justice Haggerty ordered the Sherriff to detain Ms. Wilson
for Contempt of court.
Ms. Wilson then informed the court that she had done
nothing wrong and that she was an Australian resident.
The sherriff and his assistant then handcuffed and
removed Ms. Wilson to the holding cells on level four of the
Federal Courthouse in Portland.
She requested leave to contact her embassy. This was 
refused. She requested the right to counsel, this also was
refused. She then requested that the sherriffs office  
contact her parents in Australia to notify them of her
arrest. The sherriff refused this request.

She was then photographed, finger printed and informed that 
she would be removed to a jail later that afternoon if she 
did not comply with the courts order to divulge the 
passwords giving Ausnet Services Pty. Ltd. free access to 
her Intelectual Property.

Justice Haggerty then visited Ms. Wilson in the holding 
cells to counsel her.
Ms. Wilson requested from Judge Haggerty that she be allowed
to contact her father and/or the Australian Embassy.
Justice Haggerty declined this request.

Ms. Wilson then gave into the pressure applied and gave
the passwords required by Justice Haggerty.

During her three hours and fifteen minutes of incarceration
Ms. Wilson was humiliated with a personal body search.
Threatened with transport to a jail in California.
Informed that she had no rights and was generally verbally
and mentally abused.

Under USC 28, 1603, (B)(3) Ms. Wilson is an alien and the US
Federal court has no jurisdiction over her.

It is the opinion of this individual that the US Federal
Court has exceeded its authority and has failed to recognise
the civil rights of an Australian National.

This file was posted by:


Thomas P. Koltai
Ex Managing Director of Ausnet Services Pty. Ltd.
			(http://www/world.net)

Mobile: 1-503-260-3666

-- 
"I mean, after all;  you have to consider we're only made out of dust.  That's
 admittedly not  much  to  go  on  and  we  shouldn't  forget  that.  But even
 considering, I mean it's sort of a bad beginning, we're not doing too bad. So
 I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we're faced with we
 can make it. You get me?" - Leo Burlero/PKD
+---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+
|Julian Assange RSO   | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union        |
|proff@suburbia.net   | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID =     |
|proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 |
+---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

The following concerns a fragment from a message that seems to have been 
posted to "aus.legal" and to c'punx.  Please feel free to forward to 
aus.legal if you have access to that group.

On Sun, 3 Mar 1996, Julian Assange wrote:

> 
> Under USC 28, 1603, (B)(3) Ms. Wilson is an alien and the US
> Federal court has no jurisdiction over her.

Highly dubious.  The court has full jurisdiction over all non-ambassadors
in its jurisidiction.  Whatever passport they may hold.  The cited text
relates to the immunity of foreign states and their ambassadors and their
political subdvisions.  It is not an exemption for all tourists, foreign
workers or the like. 


A. Michael Froomkin        | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax)
Associate Professor of Law | 
U. Miami School of Law     | froomkin@law.miami.edu
P.O. Box 248087            | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin
Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's not warm here today.