This is huge.
While you were sleeping, President Obama did something that has serious implications for your rights and freedoms.
On December 17th, he amended Executive Order 12425 in a significant manner to allow InterPol to operate freely on US soil out of our own Department of Justice, making them immune from all the Constitutional protections American normally enjoy regarding law enforcement agencies.
InterPol, for those of you who don't know is essentially an offshore information repository and data base on criminals that American and European law enforcement officials can have access to for crimes that cross international borders. Obama just changed it into a full fledged police and investigative agency with arresting powers freely operating on US shores with no US oversight and not subject to US laws:
Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")
Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Context: International Criminal Court
The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.
We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).
29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
This essentially has the potential to put Americans under UN and ICC jurisdiction. Not only are US Constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure voided, but Americans can be tried under 'international' statutes.
For instance, American military personnel accused of 'war crimes' or Americans interrogating Islamist terrorists could face arrest and trial under international warrants and remanded to third world hellholes for trial. Commentators and authors found guilty of 'hate speech' could be forced to defend themselves before Human Rights Tribunals ( ask Mark Steyn about that). And allies visiting America from countries like Israel could be met with warrants issued by the ICC, effectively prohibiting them from coming to the US. That's already happened in the EU, where the member countries honor ICC jurisdiction.
Another interesting thought..you all remember the infamous Department of Homeland Security report identifying 'right wing extremists' and mil veterans as the chief threats to the nation's security? Imagine if Prez Zero plans to use his new InterPol pals with their Contitutionally exempt surveillance, search and seizure powers to ferret out a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Can you say 'Reichstag Fire incident', necessitating lots more emergency powers for the White House ? Sure you can.
This should be front page headlines all over country, and its constitutionality needs to be challenged forthwith. It's just like the current occupant of the White House to pull this when Congress is not in session and the country is distracted by the Holidays.
Get fighting mad....and let your representatives in Washington know that this is not going to stand.
Here's a few links to other articles on this at:
The Patriot Room
Andy McCarthy – National Review Online – Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?
Atlas Shrugs – Obama Throws Americans, Constitution Under the Bus: Gives Interpol Immunity
Ed Morrisey – Hot Air – Did Obama exempt Interpol from same legal constraints as American law-enforcement?
Bookworm Room – Barack Obama and Interpol
Dr. Melissa Clouthier – More On President Obama’s Executive Order
2 comments:
Surely no-one is surprised at the this. The slippery slope of left-wing thought and action in the country has increased its steepness each year for the last 2 decades, and with the election of BarryO, has finally reached perpendicular.
The two questions now, as we accelerate downward, are just how long it will be before we hit bottom, and whether there will be a bounce, or only a sickening splat.
Might this be a prelude to trials against former President Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and other members of the former Administration? I think it is entirely possible.
If they were to try them in the United States, they would have to deal with things like due process and other things they probably would not have to deal with in the ICC.
While no prominent attorney or law firm is going to accept the job of defending former Administration officials, as they are wildly unpopular and none of them want to be associated with them, the public defender could drive huge holes through the government's case. This would be potentially embarasing. As such, far less risky to try them in the ICC.
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