Thread: Obama Gives Interpol Unprecedented Liberties to Control US

WHERE IS THE CONSERVATIVE OUTRAGE?

Obama Gives Interpol Unprecedented Liberties to Control Americans

By Jerry McConnell
Friday, January 1, 2010

It is the first day of the calendar year 2010; the year in which true Americans hope to rid our country from the scourge of traitorous and anti-American behavior so prevalent in the Congress and Administration.

But few people have heard about a potential act of infamy by Barack Obama when he signed an Executive Order on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 amending already existing Executive Order 12425 “in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words “except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Actâ€

Obama gives Interpol free hand in U.S.

Examiner Editorial
December 30, 2009

No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it.

There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA.

The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to think otherwise, it seems clear that Executive Order 12425's consequences could be far-reaching and disastrous. To cite only the most obvious example, giving Interpol free rein to act within this country could subject U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence personnel to the prospect of being taken into custody and hauled before the International Criminal Court as "war criminals."

As National Review Online's Andy McCarthy put it, the White House must answer these questions: Why should we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files that will be beyond the scrutiny of Congress, American law enforcement, the media, and the American people?

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 91137.html

I know that most democrats dont give a damn what happens to our nation. But where is everyone else on this one? Obama cant do that can he? I am getting sick and tired of the msm hiding facts that should be bought forward and made public.

Just What Did President Obama's Executive Order regarding INTERPOL Do?
December 30, 2009 1:22 PM

Some viewers/readers have asked me about an executive order President Obama signed earlier this month regarding INTERPOL, an issue that has exploded on the conservative blogosphere with all sorts of nefarious insinuations and accusations.

Here are some background and the facts:

On June 16, 1983, President Reagan signed Executive Order 12425, which designated the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) as a public international organization entitled to enjoy the privileges, exemptions and immunities conferred by the International Organizations Immunities Act.

The International Organizations Immunities Act, signed into law in 1945, established a special group of foreign or international organizations whose members could work in the U.S. and enjoy certain exemptions from US taxes and search and seizure laws.

Experts say there are about 75 organizations in the US covered by the International Organizations Immunities Act -- including the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Monetary Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, even the International Pacific Halibut Commission and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.

(These privileges are not the same as the rights afforded under "diplomatic immunity," they are considerably less. "Diplomatic immunity" comes from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which states that a "diplomatic agent shall enjoy immunity from the criminal jurisdiction of the receiving State." That is NOT what the International Organizations Immunities Act is.)

Basically, recognizing a group under the International Organizations Immunities Act means officials from those organizations are exempt from some taxes and customs fees, and that their records cannot be seized.

This, I'm told, is so these organizations can work throughout the world without different countries spying on each other by accessing the records of these groups.

Each president has designated some organizations covered by the International Organizations Immunities Act.

President Nixon did it for the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property.

President Reagan bestowed these privileges to the African Development Bank, the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico, and the World Tourism Organization, among others.

President Bush through Executive Orders covered the European Central Bank, the African Union and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS Tuberculosis and Malaria.

INTERPOL is course a different type of organization -- it's an investigative law enforcement body. In fact, it's the world’s largest international police organization.

Created in 1923, INTERPOL has 188 member countries including the US. Its purpose is to facilitate cross-border police co-operation and to work with other legitimate law enforcement organizations worldwide to prevent and combat international crime, with a focus on: drugs and criminal organizations; financial and high-tech crime; fugitives; public safety and terrorism; trafficking in human beings; and corruption.

The US historically has participated whole-heartedly in INTERPOL; the current Secretary General of INTERPOL is Ronald Noble, a former Undersecretary of Enforcement of the Department of the Treasury during the Clinton administration.

"The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have closely coordinated with INTERPOL for many, many years," a former counterterrorism official who served during the Bush administration says approvingly.

In Lyon, France, 2003, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke to INTERPOL and said to Noble, "INTERPOL was already a top-flight law enforcement organization, but your dynamic leadership has brought new dimensions to this global crime-fighting resource."

Reagan's 1983 executive order, however, did not provide blanket exemptions for INTERPOL officials, who at the time did not have a permanent office in the US. The provisions of the International Organizations Immunities Act that INTERPOL officials were not exempt from included:

• Section 2(c), which provided officials immunity from their property and assets being searched and confiscated; including their archives;
• the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes;
• Section 4, dealing with federal taxes;
• Section 5, dealing with Social Security; and
• Section 6, dealing with property taxes.

I'm told INTERPOL didn't have a permanent office in the US until 2004, which is why it wasn’t until this month afforded the same full privileges given, say, the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission by President Kennedy in 1962.

In September 1995, President Clinton updated Reagan's executive order with Executive Order No. 12971, giving INTERPOL officials exemption from some of the customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes’.

Then in his December 17, 2009, executive order President Obama exempted INTERPOL from the rest of the exceptions Reagan listed -- Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6.

So what does the counterterrorism official from the Bush years think of this?He can't believe it's taken this long.

"To the extent that granting these immunities to INTERPOL furthers the efficacy or ease of information-sharing or joint action on an expedited basis to act on warrants
seems like a no brainer to me," the official says.

"Conservatives can't have it both ways," the official says. "You can't be complaining about the hypothetical abdication of US jurisdiction at the same time you're complaining the Obama administration is not being tough enough on national security."

Obama administration officials say this new executive order doesn't allow INTERPOL to do any more than they were allowed to do once Reagan recognized them as a public international organization. Though clearly the Executive Order does prohibit US law enforcement from searching and seizing INTERPOL records, officials say, those provisions can be waived by the president if need be.

- jpt

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch ... ol-do.html