International Bidirectional Extradition

“New Zealand software pirates risk extradition to the United States following a ground-breaking ruling against an Australian man accused of pirating software, games and music worth up to US$50 million.”

[link]

Short summary: An Australian citizen, who has never been to the US, who was in Australia, is being extradited to the United States of America for breaking the US’s copyright laws.

Certainly, trafficking in warez is illegal in Australia. However, he is not being tried in Australia.

“Oh well, he’s a criminal, he deserves it” is a common responce. So is “It doesn’t affect me at all”. However, this is a very dangerous precedent.

Imagine this scenario. A citizen of United States of America (or Canada, as would be more applicable to myself) stops in at a local Barnes and Noble, and buys a book critcal of Islam, or maybe write something claiming that the Chinese Government sucks. Will I be extradited to their countries for prosecution, as a bidirectional and fair international policy would dictate?

If not, how is this any different?