Self preservation suggests that the passport cancellation program should be based on stopping prospective jihadists returning to Australia with increased skills in doing us harm rather than on trying to save the citizens of Iraq or Syria from suffering at the hands of these deluded individuals. After all the numbers of prospective jihadists departing Australia are not sufficient to materially influence the depredations that ISIS inflicts; reversing that involves a military victory over ISIS.
I therefore propose that Australia enact legislation allowing any citizen currently subject to passport cancellation to depart Australia on a valid Australian passport after they sign a form acknowledging that their Australian Passport will be legally and irrevocably cancelled three days post departure. This allows the prospective jihadist enough time to legally transit to their desired war zone but not to return after a meaningful period of terrorist training.
If international law precludes rendering such individuals Stateless then perhaps the Western nations need to aim to have that law redrafted or alternatively assert their individual sovereign interest over international laws that inadvertently give succour to terrorists hell bent on establishing a global caliphate through indiscriminate murder of our citizens.
Allowing departure facilitates the ability of such individuals to participate in producing propaganda with Western voices but it is hard to see that risk exceeding their remaining here and inflamed by an inability to depart

1. They travel in order to commit murder.
2. A state may only legitimately protect those who asked for its protection.
3. Iraq has asked Australia to protect its citizens.
4. The Kurds in Syria have also asked Australia to protect their people.

Therefore it is OK to take the necessary steps to prevent these murders, including the cancellation of passports.

This proposal, while legitimate, does not prevent the murders, hence it is inferior.

Those who clearly pose a danger within Australia, could be either detained indefinitely as enemy P.O.W's or even killed (by women!) - this is a legitimate case of self-defence. In fact, they could be used as collaterals to prevent the murder of Australians and others by the IS.

The problem of letting them go with their passports is they could still travel on them
even if they are cancelled. Many countries do not refer to data bases at the border.
The way to do it is seize the passport, and issue a travel document to a
particular country. The document becomes useless.
This is what deportees get when deported.

Ollie, I'd prefer to allow them to leave, then cancel their passports, because after all, just the fact that they are even considering leaving to fight for the IS is reason enough to boot them out.

Considering we are not actually "at war" with an independent State it's a bit of a legal problem - but it seems that now you're deemed guilty and have to prove your innocence.

If you're already in a country when war is declared, then what?

What about those many citizens who enlist in the Israeli army, kill Palestinians and then return home?

Not long ago Syria was "our enemy" - now they seem to be an ally. Is Syria a no-go destination or not?

I'm surprised that passports are actually required to enter some of these countries.

Logically it should be up to the countries they are entering or transiting through to stop these people.

A new definition of war is needed.
The old system of large national armies proceeding across countries has ended.
The government could declare war on the Islamic State.
Then anyone here who declares support for or who tries to leave to join
that army of that foreign country, could be interned for the duration.
That the war has been going for 1400 years is immaterial.
This is quite comparable with normal practice in wartime.

As Australia is not at war, then any person residing in Australia should be free to visit any country that they wish to, regardless of the politics/whatever of that country, and without any penalty on their return.
What they choose to do in countries that they visit is their business and unless they commit a crime there that that country wishes to charge them over, then we should only help if there is a treaty in place.

No country can be considered free that penalizes its citizens for the commission of something that is not a crime under its own laws.

Is Mise,
First it is a crime to engage in military actions in another country.
This is a very old law and came about because it compromises the
neutrality of the passport country.
I think it is called the Foreign Incursions Act.

Secondly, what makes you think we are not at war ?
As I said earlier we need a new definition of war.
The war we are currently in has been going on & off for 1400 years.

Is Mise,, these are not your true blue Aussies we're talking aout, these are extremists who call Australia home, simply because of our overly generous welfare system, and, because no other country is stupid enough to give them so much for so little in return.

These are scum bags of the lowest firm and if I had my way I would boot them out either way.

There is no place in our peace loving country for these types of scum and their crap.

Bazz,

"Secondly, what makes you think we are not at war ?
As I said earlier we need a new definition of war...."

That's why we are not at war.

Rechurb,

The Foreign Incursions Act never stopped Australian Military personnel, who were seconded to the British Army, from doing a few days/weeks active service in Northern Ireland, or anywhere else, to gain a bit of experience.

Regardless of the Act, an Australian citizen should be able to go wherever he or she likes without Government interference, if they change their security status by so doing then it is on their own head.

Is Mise, irrespective of the definition, while IS has not stated;
"A state of war exists between Islamic State and Australia."
All the rest of their public statements are equivalent.

So far governments have decided to ignore those statements because to
recognise them would be equivalent to acknowledging IS as a government.
Which of course is another argument for redefining war.

Yep all Ozzies should be allowed to go anywhere they desire, provided they take full personal responsibility for the consequences of their choice of destination. No crying that the Oz government is not doing enough to help them when they have stuffed up.

They should also have their passports cancelled, & never be allowed to return, if they go to any place declared off limits, or no return, by the government of the day.

We have no right to stop people doing anything they want, as long as it harms no other. When it has any potential to harm others, no matter how slight, personal choice, must be removed, & be replaced by public good.

is Mise said;
The Foreign Incursions Act never stopped Australian Military personnel,

Bit silly that statement, as they go on the orders of their government.
The governments can of course make whatever arrangements they like.
The act would I bet exclude members of defense forces, acting under orders.

Bazz,

They don't go on the orders of their Government they go at their own request, the govt. grants the request but doesn't order them.
They do it to add to their recorded experience.

So are you saying it is not with their governments approval ?
As I said silly statement !

Hasbeen,

"They should also have their passports cancelled, & never be allowed to return, if they go to any place declared off limits, or no return, by the government of the day."

Regardless of the political persuasion of the 'Government of the day'?

Are these people at war with Australia?
https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/25380378/muslim-kids-radicalised-in-shocking-new-video/?cmp=fb

Bazz,

You seem to be having comprehension problems; they don't go on Government orders but they do go with Government approval when the Government grants their request.

As I said the Foreign Incursions Act doesn't seem to affect Australian service personnel who want to get a bit of extra combat or policing experience when they freely decide that in would help their careers.

Northern Ireland being a good example of the complications that can arise, especially when they are voluntarily on the side of the illegally occupying power, backing up sectarian Government forces and supposedly illegal militias.

Oh Gawd !

Yep Is Mise, If we are ever again stupid enough to elect a redhead, we deserve what we get, & must accept their rulings, even if we bitch a little while doing it.

Bazz,

Then there was "....The Ustasha was a Croatian fascist movement that had been allied with Germany in World War Two and had active networks in Australia. Dreaming of overthrowing Tito’s communist regime, Ustasha supporters bombed Yugoslav diplomatic buildings and social clubs throughout Australia in the 1960s and 70s. In 1962 and 1973 they launched unsuccessful military raids into Yugoslavia."
http://andrewzammit.org/2013/03/23/the-murphy-raid/

With the tacit blessing of the Federal Liberal Government, whilst in power and while in Opposition. and the participation of Australian citizens.

The Scottish Republican Army also had a cosy relationship with the Liberals, the last that I heard of them was when they took a bomb that failed to detonate back to their headquarters in Glasgow, to salvage the components, and it blew up.

Wobbles
I think you are denying the right of society to take any preventative measures to protect itself when you say "Considering we are not actually "at war" with an independent State it's a bit of a legal problem - but it seems that now you're deemed guilty and have to prove your innocence."
My proposition does not find anyone guilty of a crime it just says to prospective jihardists that your behaviour indicates you have a desire to harm us and accordingly you have two options 1) Depart Australia and acknowledge you cannot return to harm us directly or 2) Stay in Australia and enjoy our great country but recognise your past actions mean you are likely to remain under serveilance until it is clear that you have formed a more positive view of life in Australia.
Discussing other "wars/noble causes" is fine but the government of the day is surely obliged to condider what actions (if any) need to be taken to mitigate the risks to society posted by individuals expressing hatred of our society.
Tolerance should not extend to accepting intolerance of the core values of our society. These core values include democracy, the rule of law and the right to live peacefully in a secular society.

Is mise,
The Liberal's support for Anti Communist irregulars in the 1960's and '70's is no different to their providing supplies and close air support for the Marxist Kurdish militias at Sinjar, it's simply a case of my enemy's enemy is my friend.
Communism was a threat to Australia in the 1960's, Islam is a threat today, it just so happens that the most effective force on the ground in northern Iraq are Marxist-Leninist militias. There's no hypocrisy or double standard in what the government is doing, the only debate is over whether they should be intervening at all.
There was an interview published yesterday in the Age with the head of Iraqi police intelligence, he's planning on physically exterminating IS fighters, he said that killing every single one of them is the only way to take the provinces back, so that's the operation the Australian government has signed up to, search and destroy.

Well Jay, survival puts a different complexion on things.

Ollie A.

I don't think hysterically reacting to postings on social media and the rantings of a few crazed individuals warrants re-organising our entire society and legal system.

Sending 800 police on a dawn raid and coming up with a plastic sword and only one individual "charged" was little more than a PR stunt.

It did make for good local politics and media sales.

If anybody seriously wants to "do us harm" they are more likely to be off the grid and invisible to the authorities until they choose to act, not parading about with a flashing light on their head.

We had a similar fear debate during the Howard/Hanson era but back then it was un-assimilating Asians wanted to "swamp" our society and hordes of Triad gangsters plotting to undermine our personal safety.
In the fifties and sixties it was the European post-war refugees that were going to do similar things.

The trouble with surrendering our personal freedoms is that we never ever get them given back and will eventually find ourselves living in a Police State.

Even now we are surrendering aspects of our personal privacy via metadata legislation.

What will it be next I wonder?

So you haven't been to Cabramatta then wobbly? If you had you would know those fears were true. Whilst not a no go area, like many areas taken over by our Muslim intake, it is still a haven for many criminal activities.

It is always difficult policing people of different ethnicity. It is much harder to read body language, & even the very best still carry a certain amount of ethnic loyalty to their fellows. They are very loath to "put in" a brother.

Wobbles
You are welcome to believe that islamic fundamentalism is not a threat to the freedoms you currently enjoy. Others respepecfully beg to disagree with you. Terms like "hysterically" are not conducive to logical debate. Regretably there is a conflict between delivering physical safety and preserving civil liberties which is worthy of careful consideration.

Dear Ollie,

<<You are welcome to believe that islamic fundamentalism is not a threat to the freedoms you currently enjoy.>>

Islamic fundamentalism IS indeed a threat, currently.

But if those freedoms that we currently [still] enjoy are taken away by government, then Islamic fundamentalism would no longer be a threat - because there will be nothing further to take.

Yuyutsu,
What freedoms are being taken away? "Privacy"? It is to laugh.
The government agencies and corporations can already access all your personal information whenever they want, you know those little pop up windows labeled "terms of service" which appear every time you sign up to a website or open an online account? When you check the "I agree button" you're consenting to handing over all the data you enter into that system and the proprietors of websites as well as the web hosting companies are required by their "terms of service" agreements with the government to allow access to your information subject to certain conditions.
You'd also be aware that in societies dominated by Islam the governments are always weak and the people pretty much just wander about doing whatever they want which often includes forming militias like ISIS or Hezbollah. ISIS,Hamas or the PKK couldn't have formed in a Western society, there are too many rules and regulations, too many eyes on them, that's why they chose Raqqua and Anbar province as the poles of their new Caliphate rather than the relative comforts of the West.
Sure, extremist groups can form in a society like Australia but they're totally dependant upon the smoke screens sent up by stupid White leftists and Libertarians for any success they have, if it wasn't for "social justice" lawyers and preachy methodists gaming the system things wouldn't even have come this far.

Just too true Jay.

Dear Jay,

I was not referring to the internet, but since you mentioned it, any serious militants wouldn't use the world-wide-web and similar public interfaces, but use their own protocols instead based directly on UDP or TCP/IP, encrypted and channelled through several servers in different countries. No decipherable meta-data is then produced. The only ones being spied on would then be ordinary people like us. Also, according to the new legislation, ISP businesses can be coerced to act immorally against their conscience (or otherwise close down) - it's one thing for police itself to gather information, yet another to force innocent people to do police-work themselves whether they like it or not.

Likewise, if an Islamist is intent on travelling to join the fighting in Syria, all they need is to purchase an innocent-looking trip to Bali (or to one of those fashionable "climate-change" conferences). Real underground is not captured by such clumsy means, but ordinary innocent travellers do suffer.

Now I understand that you can't think at the moment about anything but Islam, but the world did have other issues before, still has and will still have, which have nothing to do with Islam. The Nazis and communists were not Islamic and the first revolt against Assad in Syria was not by Islamists.

More important than pretending to keep Islam away is to ensure that if we are ever besieged by a totalitarian regime, there would still be the technical means for popular resistance to form and succeed.

Any terrorist or anyone else who wants to keep private messages private only needs to use a simple unbreakable code.
Then the 'Powers' can only guess about the contents.

Example:
3-1-2-3-4-5-6-16-28-9-10-11-12.
5-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13.

Go for it, a lucky guess will be better than a computer programme.

Dear Yuyutsu,
You wrote "But if those freedoms that we currently [still] enjoy are taken away by government, then Islamic fundamentalism would no longer be a threat - because there will be nothing further to take."
This is a true statement for the hopefully unlikely scenario of this and/or future governments removing our current civil liberties to an extent rendering us akin to those prevailing under IS or other past totalitarian regimes.
I do not think the "thin edge of the wedge" argument should preclude a nuanced discussion of what restrictions to civil liberty might be justifiable in a variety of situations.
I am a strong supporter of civil liberties and do not approve of the recent section 35 legislation or section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.
To anyone interested in free speech I would recommend "In defence of freedom of speech from ancient greece to Andrew Bolt' by Chris Berg.

Encyphering your messages is a great way to attract attention.
PGP is very good and would take the authorities so long to crack that it would be far too late anyway.
Anything that is on the internet can be traced in a little time and
I would be very surprised if the you know who don't run many of the proxies.
There are limited ways in & out of the country and to get to the proxies you must use them.

There is a way to do it and it would take the authorities ages to first wake up to its
existence and then work out what is needed to decode it, then decypher it to get the text.
The next problem is to find out who was receiving it.

Dear Bazz,

PGP is OK, but nothing is as good as writing your own encryption method.

Theoretically, your method could and is even likely to be inferior, but governments would never have the resources to run after and crack everyone's private encryption method.

No Yuyutsu, I will guarantee my method would be not only
have the pgp encyphering but I seriously doubt any government agency would
even know it was there.
Because I realise the power of it, I am not going to describe it except to say
that it does not use the internet.

Just like systems like power grids should never be on the internet.

Dear Ollie,

<<I do not think the "thin edge of the wedge" argument should preclude a nuanced discussion of what restrictions to civil liberty might be justifiable in a variety of situations.>>

Sure, but it cannot just be "I like this restriction, so it's OK, I hate that one, so it's not". I believe that one should adopt a consistent philosophical model for what's acceptable and what's not.

My personal conviction is that while one can be excused for using counter-violence in self-defence, it is not OK to use violence to forward one's dreams and aspirations, be they personal or social.

Yuyutsu,
I agree and I do not think any of my posts have advocated violence.
A broad philosophical position is very important but that still requires a nuanced assessment of what policy is appropriate to a specific situation or like situations.
I had hoped to trigger a broader discussion of what action can be justified in dealing with the current threat posed by supporters of IS living in Australia.
David Kilcullen's "We need a strategic rethink" in the weekend The Australian is interesting reading.