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SOS Admin wrote on 1267395234|%e %b, %H:%M (%O ago)
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A little-discussed executive order from President Obama giving foreign cops new police powers in the United States by exempting them from such drudgery as compliance with the Freedom of Information Act is raising alarm among commentators who say INTERPOL already had most of the same privileges as diplomats. And that this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American Constitutional civil liberties.

Obama's order said he was removing the Reagan limitations on INTERPOL:

AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and 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 Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.¹

At the ThreatsWatch.org website, authors Steve Schippert and Clyde Middleton gave their interpretation of the result.

"When the paths on the road map converge," they write "it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body whose INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement."

What many people don't know is INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department right now. "That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with 'inviolable archives' from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds!" say Middleton.

"Ultimately," Schippert writes "a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil."

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.²

Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical. This hedge of protection has now been removed.

Did America Just Outsourced A Secret Police Force?

Whether you think the US government will use it as such is up to you, but that facts clearly show they can, and if they did who would know? Thanks to Obama's amended Executive Order 12425, INTERPOL is now beyond the reach of American laws and media scrutiny.

Federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy notes:

Why would 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 which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?³

An INTERPOL branch in the US now cannot be searched, it’s files are not subject to legal subpoena nor discovery. If any branch of government wants to keep documents out of the hands of the court system, all they need to do is just hand them over to INTERPOL until the smoke clears. In effect, Obama just declared INTERPOL America new secret police force.

Just in case your not getting the drift here, let me repeat, by Executive Order, Interpol is now immune to any investigation or scrutiny by ANYONE; Interpol is now immune to Freedom of Information requests and they are now able to maintain files on US citizens—without ANY oversight.

This executive order has alarmed conservatives and civil libertarians, who view it as both an erosion of national sovereignty and a threat to freedom. This underscores the need to elect a Sheriff who can stop the agents of the New World Order at the county line.

Mark Matthews
Save Our Sheriff.com