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 UK-US Extradition Hearing: Irish Amer Railroaded by US Senate 
  
 Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit 
  
 sent by Francis A. Boyle - Jul 22, 2006 
  
 Neo-Con Ringer & Irish America Railroaded by US Senate! 
  
 [In her testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the 
 Neo-Con Ringer Morris denied  that she worked for the US State 
 Department. Yet, her own CV posted on the Duke Law web-site clearly 
 says: 
  
 "Positions as Counsel/Advisor 
  
 Present:Provide consultation to the U.S. State Department, Office of War 
 Crimes (since 1999) Issues, and to the U.S. Under Secretary for Arms 
 Control and International Security, on international humanitarian law 
 and international jurisdiction." 
  
 It  is well known that Neo-Cons are pathological liars. In this  regard, 
 see John Dean's new book Conservatives Without Conscience. -Fab] 
  
 Irish America Railroaded by US Senate! 
  
 CALLOUT: 
  
 "Not only do Irish Americans feel threatened, but also this law 
 threatens both due process and judicial review as it pertains to all 
 United States citizens." LETTER FROM AOH 
  
  
 The Irish Echo 
  
 Accusations fly as revised treaty gets D.C. hearing 
  
 By Ray O'Hanlon 
  
 rohanlon @irishecho.com 
  
 More than just controversy over its precise provisions is swirling 
 around the revised U.S./U.K. Extradition Treaty, set for another hearing 
 in Washington this week. 
  
 Irish-American activists were up in arms at the outset of the week 
 claiming betrayal of a promise made by top members of the Senate Foreign 
 Relations Committee last November. 
  
 Leading the charge of accusers was Professor Francis Boyle of the 
 University of Illinois who, as of Monday, was being allotted all of 
 seven minutes to voice collective Irish-American fears over the treaty 
 at a Capitol Hill hearing set for Wednesday. 
  
 The latest hearing is part of what has been a drawn-out process of 
 ratification for a document signed almost three years and four months 
 ago. 
  
 Boyle's was the sole voice from among a long line of Irish American 
 objectors being permitted to speak and he reacted angrily to what he saw 
 as a diminution of Irish-American critical input. 
  
 By Tuesday, however, the Foreign Relations Committee had apparently 
 relented. The hearing was moved to Friday with Boyle's testimony to be 
 accompanied by additional, supportive statements from the Ancient Order 
 of Hibernians and the Irish-American Unity Conference 
  
 The revised treaty was signed in March 2003 by then U.S. attorney 
 general, John Ashcroft, and the British home secretary at the time, 
 David Blunkett. 
  
 In his remarks at the signing ceremony, Ashcroft made no specific 
 reference to any conflict, group or country. However, Irish-American 
 activist groups immediately saw Northern Ireland between the treaty's 
 lines. 
  
 Objections were immediately made, most notably in a letter from the 
 AOH to Foreign Relations chairman, Sen. Richard Lugar, and the ranking 
 Democrat on the committee, Sen. Joe Biden. 
  
 The letter urged both to examine "and then oppose" ratification of 
 the treaty. 
  
 "Not only do Irish Americans feel threatened, but also this law 
 threatens both due process and judicial review as it pertains to all 
 United States citizens," the letter to Lugar and Biden stated. 
  
 "This document recalls the extradition treaty signed in London on 
 June 8, 1972, which was subsequently amended by the Supplementary Treaty 
 signed in Washington on June 25, 1985," the letter continued. 
  
 The letter argued that those treaties were sufficient and there was 
 no reason to feel they were inadequate "with the exception that the 
 present Department of Justice wishes to curry favor with the United 
 Kingdom." 
  
 The AOH letter said that the latest treaty would remove the right of 
 U.S. citizens to protest against the government of the United Kingdom 
 without fear of frivolous charges. 
  
 "There is no need for this treaty to be ratified," the letter 
 argued. 
  
 Objections by the AOH, Professor Boyle, the Irish American Unity 
 Conference, the American Civil Liberties Union and others seemed to have 
 an effect. 
  
 Against a backdrop of such mounting criticism the Foreign Relations 
 Committee declined to vote on the revised treaty at the end of its 
 November hearing, this at a point where ratification had already been 
 delayed by more than two-and-a-half years. 
  
 Since that time it has become clear that the treaty's scope, if 
 ratified, would extend well beyond Irish America as evidenced in recent 
 days by the extradition cases in Britain surrounding the so-called 
 "NatWest Three" and accused computer hacker Gary McKinnon. 
  
 Irish-American critics of the revised treaty have not been 
 particularly focused on these cases although Boyle viewed the first 
 visit to Washington last week of current British foreign secretary, 
 Margaret Beckett, in the context of British government efforts to 
 finally seal the treaty deal. 
  
 Beckett was asked about the treaty, and the Senate's laggardness, 
 during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza 
 Rice. 
  
 Beckett replied that she could "understand and accept" that it 
 wasn't an American priority. 
  
 This, on the surface at least, seemed to play down the importance 
 once attached to the treaty by John Ashcroft. 
  
 However, a reports in the Financial Times indicated that Beckett, 
 together with a second British government visitor to Washington last 
 week, Baroness Scotland, was working to see the treaty advance to a full 
 Senate vote. 
  
 "Baroness Scotland and Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, 
 used meetings last week with senators and administration officials to 
 push for quick ratification of the pact," the paper reported. 
  
 It is into this convoluted mix that Francis Boyle will deliver his 
 argument on Friday. 
  
 Boyle, together with the AOH and IAUC representatives, will be 
 arguing against a trio of treaty supporters. One of the three is a Duke 
 University Law professor, Madeline Morris, who, according to Boyle, is 
 currently seconded to the State Department. 
  
 "According to her own CV posted on the Duke University Law School's 
 website ...Professor Morris currently works for the United States 
 Department of State, which is already on record as supporting the 
 extradition treaty," Boyle wrote the Foreign Relations Committee in 
 advance of the hearing. 
  
 Before the Foreign Relations panel changed the hearing date, and its 
 composition, Boyle had complained to the committee claiming that the 
 presence of Morris on a panel alongside him had violated the "solemn and 
 public promises" given to Irish Americans "by both Senator Lugar and 
 Senator [Chris] Dodd on Nov. 15, 2005 that we Irish Americans would have 
 a hearing all unto ourselves in order to present the case against the 
 treaty." 
  
 "She [Morris] is a ringer for the State Department. We are not 
 getting a hearing but are being set-up for a railroading," Boyle told 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
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