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INTERPOL Granted Diplomatic Immunity In the US
ShakaUVM writes "A couple of weeks ago without any fanfare or notice in the media, President Obama granted INTERPOL full diplomatic immunity while conducting investigations on American soil. While INTERPOL has been allowed to operate in the US in the past, under an executive order by President Reagan, they've had to follow the same rules as the FBI, CIA, etc., while on American soil. This means, among other things, the new executive order makes INTERPOL immune to Freedom of Information Act requests and that INTERPOL agents cannot be punished for most any crimes they may commit. Hopefully the worst we'll see from this is INTERPOL agents ignoring their speeding tickets." Update: 01/05 02:57 GMT by KD : Reader davecb pointed out an ABC News blog that comes to pretty much the opposite conclusion as to the import of the executive order.
This country soverignty has been slowly eroded over the years. The founding father's effort is now all lost. Time to fight the 2nd Independence war in 2012.
New Economic Perspectives
This is really a change of a default assumption than freedom to do anything without penalty. If INTERPOL starts going crazy, it only takes a presidential signature to take this exception back.
So if the INTERPOL guy says "I won't, and I don't have to!" and the fed guy says "It's a matter of national security!"... all he needs to do is get the message up to the top of the chain-of-command, and suddenly that fed guy can grab whatever info he wants.
Yeah, high standard, but it's not going to change things much.
This means, among other things, the new executive order makes INTERPOL immune to Freedom of Information Act requests and that INTERPOL agents cannot be punished for most any crimes they may commit. Hopefully the worst we'll see from this is INTERPOL agents ignoring their speeding tickets.
I'm sold. INTERPOL, sign me up!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But the question on everyone's mind is, can RadioHead expect the same deal?
They spy on us with impunity and share the intelligence with our government. In return our government does the same for them.
Both countries get to perform full-scale spying on their own citizens without violating any laws or causing an uproar.
the headline says:
INTERPOL Granted Diplomatic Immunity In the US
The actual article says: "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.
The headline seems to be wrong.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Not quite sure this story got filed right. Nothing to do with our online rights... this has more to do with all our rights.
Come on, you're telling me that INTERPOL now has the same protection as the "International Pacific Halibut Commission and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission".
Yeapsireee, gotta watch out for those rouge Halbut operatives. Goodness me.
More seriously, remember INTERPOL actually has very little power - they're a coordination agency. They have no powers of arrest. They don't even DO investigations. What they DO is if a cop in Australia is tracking down a criminal who's fled to Los Angeles and therefore needs the LAPD assistance, INTERPOL is the agency that makes that inter-police-force connection happen. There are no "INTERPOL" officers in L.A. that do the arrest - that's for the LAPD (or FBI).
Indeed, and the reason that diplomatic immunity is not a "do whatever you want" license is that any laws you break result in embarrassing complaints to your home country, who will recall you and punish you in their own system.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Read the article.
INTERPOL has not been given diplomatic immunity.
They've been granted a very limited immunity from certain taxes and from records seizure.
They are not, as the original submitter suggests but the article refutes, immune from "most any crimes they may commit".
This is not diplomatic immunity. This is just protection against searches, IRS, etc. This basically allows a law enforcement officer to carry out his duties. It is identical to when the FBI comes to a local town to investigate, they can not be hindered or stopped by the local law enforcement. This is obvious and should not raise any issues.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Diplomatic Immunity doesn't mean they get to violate our laws, it just means they don't go to jail for violating our laws. If complaints start to pile up (thanks to the ACLU I'm sure) then they will loose their immunity.
Right? Or am I acting like a sheeple?
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Think about this in context. We just had a near-disaster of a plane exploding in Detroit and US airport screening is worthless to block this threat because the attacker boarded elsewhere. So, the response is to give INTERPOL agents here more power, and most likely the hope is that our INTERPOL guys elsewhere get the same powers so they can do their job there are we don't have to worry about who's being flown in here.
The title and summary are pretty misleading, it appears the only thing Obama did was exempt INTERPOL from certain taxes and provided them with immunity from search and seizure. The article explicitly states that it is not the same thing as diplomatic immunity.
How would you feel about any other police agency that was immune to FOI requests or legal challenges to misbehavior? How about legal authorities working on behalf of the RIAA? Isn't filesharing international? Another brilliant move from this administration. What could go wrong?
Embassy staffers generally do not run around with guns 'investigating' crimes .. with carte blanche to break every local law.. up to and including murdering the suspect.
"this guy fled to america, go shoot him while trying to escape, its cheapr than a trial here in anyhow.."
I would say its a VERY far cry from giving ambassadors and their families immunity from traffic tickets/full body searches
Because it is not a US government agency, Interpol has never been subject to FOIA requests, therefore this change does NOT make them "immune to Freedom of Information Act requests."
There's no such thing as an interpol agent. They delegate to national agencies (ie the DoJ) who do /not/ get immunity. What they do have is a bunch of committees and advisors, and a (shared) database of people 'of interest'.
Somebody's been watching the man from UNCLE a few too many times
Yes, except an Embassy is an area of land, and its Ambassadors have very few diplomatic immunities when they leave that area of land. And even SOME restrictions are imposed on that land (meaning I can't set off a Nuke in the Canadian Embassy and think I'll be free of all American Charges in California).
Interpol however, is an Organization of international police officers, and from time to time we've observed that police officers get corrupted. They've essentially granted a Gestapo Force in the States that is not directly controlled by the countries own government.
Now - I have nothing against Interpol, and as far as I know they're a great organization that go after drug busts and murderers. I just don't see why they can't operate under the same rules as the local Police (Essentially the same job) as the country they are working in.
And this is why you should not pretend to be a lawyer. Ready?
Interpol has no police force. It conducts no investigations. It doesn't arrest anyone. As an international organization it was not subject to FOIA requests anyway, because it's not a department of the federal government.
As a previous poster noted, this is NOT DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY. This is immunity from attachment of any property that Interpol may have in the USA. Any employees of Interpol, if any, stationed in the USA can and would still be arrested for crimes they commit. In summary, both the original submitter and basically every comment I've seen so far are not just wrong, they are comically wrong.
. . . there's an app for that!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Hell, all they have to do is say that filesharing is an international crime, pay off some corrupt UN bureaucrat to sic INTERPOL on folks, then all those pesky FOI suits go away. And that is only one of the least damaging outcomes. Obama just wants to kiss multinational UN ass.
Embassy personnel are representatives of their countries. The diplomatic immunity is just something they threw in to benefit themselves. It also makes negotiating easier because the diplomats can't be beheaded like they used to be. If they screw up or get caught spying or kill some family in a drunk driving accident, they can be declared "persona non grata" and expelled. This happens regularly.
Also of note is reciprocity. America grants diplomatic immunity but also receives it at embassies abroad. Where is the equality with a non-state actor like INTERPOL? How do you declare them persona non grata and expel them? Where would they go to, they're an international organization just like the UN.
This is just a move towards internationalisation. The dream of the UN and other transnational progressivists is sort of a Star Trek-type or Futurama-type "Earth Government". It's not like they're making a big secret of it, either. I mean, what the hell, US law has just been trumped! An in a very incomprehensible way, too. "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." WTH is this crap? What happened to Obama's vaunted transparency in government?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Nevermind, this is more evidence the Alex Jones crowd blows things out of proportion.
In countries like Paraguay, Argentina and others in South America, this is pretty standard. Now (since very few years) with left governments immunity is being revoked.
From 2005 in Paraguay:
"the U.S. troops in Paraguay could not be taken before the International Criminal Court if they were accused of crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes. "
In Argentina, joint naval exercises like Unitas are cancelled because our government don't want to give immunity to US army.
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
This puts them on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission.
Interpol is not a police agency; it has no agents, and they don't investigate and prosecute crimes. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse organization that has bureaucrats and committee members.
You can come out from under the bed now.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Here are the sections that were addressed by the order, according to the linked article:
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.
Whether or not they have criminal immunity (don't know offhand), there doesn't seem to be ANYTHING in the above executive order addressing such matters. Might have FOIA implications, but doesn't seem to have anything to do with punishment of crimes committed by agents. Summary is wrong.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
I mean... it seems like an article posted by him. Inaccurate headline (they did not get a grant of full "diplomatic" immunity). Inaccurate summary (agents? INTERPOL is a coordinating entity - there ARE no agents!).
My first reaction is WTH, but on the other hand don't embassy staffers have pretty much the same deal?
Yes, but embassy staffers aren't law enforcement agents. They don't have the job mandate or inclination to go around arresting people and removing them to foreign jurisdictions. With diplomatic immunity what's to stop Interpol agents from arresting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and taking them off to the Hague to stand trial?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
I didn't RTFA because I am on my way out the door, but does anyone know whether or not INTERPOL has to respect our Constitution while operating here? As in, no unlawful searches and seizures, no requirement to house troops (would an international police agency qualify as troops?), protection against self-incrimination, etc. What about Miranda Rights, does INTERPOL know about them? Anyone?
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There's no such thing as an "Interpol Cop". They have no police agents; they make no arrests and don't investigate crimes. They're an information sharing clearinghouse with a bunch of bureaucrats and a nationally designated committee members.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Why are you linking to this "article"? It contains no information, only the Obama-bashing expected from your American right-wingers and unsupported hypotheses.
If you care about facts, you can find them, a few seconds of searching revealed this for instance.
Quote:
In other words there appears to be nothing to get worked up about. Even if you believe whatever republicans do is right. Because they would have done the same.
You Americans are crazy.
No, it just keeps their records from being seized and they don't have to pay some taxes/duties. The privileges granted to them have absolutely nothing to do with immunity from the law, or having a license to kill.
If International Organisation Immunity were actually diplomatic immunity, which it isn't, it wouldn't be a "license to kill". It would be a license to be expelled from the country and tried by your own country, possibly for treason (or whatever your own country does to people who cause international incidents) as well as whatever you did.
Diplomatic immunity is granted to ambassadors and an awful lot of embassy staff already*, including those of countries that don't get on well with the host country, but international organisation immunity is not the same thing. For a start, it doesn't grant immunity from local prosecution (except for official acts - which murder is most certainly not).
* This works fairly well, apart from things like traffic violations, which aren't really worth expelling ambassadors over and are therefore commonplace amongst diplomats the world over.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Are you shitting me? Are you really so ignorant of 1) what Interpol is, and 2) what Obama signed that you're actually believing Alex Jones now?
Obama granted Interpol the same diplomatic status as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they investigate no crimes and bring no charges. They're an information sharing/clearinghouse staffed by international bureaucrats, and nothing else.
Now, go change your underwear, and quit listening to Glenn Beck, and to your coworker who repeats everything he says.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
They had diplomatic immunity since Reagan's executive order. The statement in the original post that "the new executive order makes INTERPOL immune to Freedom of Information Act requests and that INTERPOL agents cannot be punished for most any crimes they may commit." is factually wrong. The infallible mr. Reagan's executive order did that ... it and not the new executive order gave Interpol the following :
"(b) International organizations, their property and their assets, wherever located, and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy the same immunity from suit and every form of judicial process as is enjoyed by foreign governments, except to the extent that such organizations may expressly waive their immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of any contract."
AND
" (a) Persons designated by foreign governments to serve as their representatives in or to international organizations and the officers and employees of such organizations, and members of the immediate families of such representatives, officers, and employees residing with them, other than nationals of the United States, shall, insofar as concerns laws regulating entry into and departure from the United States, alien registration and fingerprinting, and the registration of foreign agents, be entitled to the same privileges, exemptions, and immunities as are accorded under similar circumstances to officers and employees, respectively, of foreign governments, and members of their families.
(b) Representatives of foreign governments in or to international organizations and officers and employees of such organizations shall be immune from suit and legal process relating to acts performed by them in their official capacity and falling within their functions as such representatives, officers, or employees except insofar as such immunity may be waived by the foreign government or international organization concerned."
Reagan gave Interpol diplomatic immunity, Obama removed their duty to pay taxes and extended their immunity to an immunity to searches.
Interpol doesn't investigate crimes, you moron. They don't have agents, they have bureaucrats who co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies. They're on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission now, and about as dangerous.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
If George Bush would have signed the exact same executive order, this post would be modded +5, insightful, and with that said, the very people who are heading for the hills because Obama signed it would be trying to defend Bush in that onslaught.
So really, all that is changed is that we substituted one guy for another, but the erosion of liberty continues at pretty much the same or even accelerated pace.
This is my sig.
How fucking classic is it that the submitter linked the words "granted INTERPOL full diplomatic immunity" to an article that explicitly states in caps and everything that this is NOT a granting of diplomatic immunity?
According to the article titled "Just What Did President Obama's Executive Order regarding INTERPOL Do?", what it didn't do is grant diplomatic immunity, and what it did do is grant a limited amount of immunity mostly related to taxes and document seizure. The idea seems to be to to allow international organizations like Red Cross, IAEA, IMF, and now INTERPOL to do their work without participating nations worrying that the U.S. will spy on them by reading these organization's records.
Now I'm not sure I like granting a police force any more immunity of any kind, but that's a hell of a lot less than diplomatic immunity and not as hard to revoke. Maybe other countries were getting concerned about the U.S.'s nosiness and this will enhance international cooperation. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I do know the summary was classic bullshit.
The enemies of Democracy are
See, now, you have a reasonably low uid. You should know better than to think an inflammatory article summary is accurate.
Interpol doesn't investigate crimes, you moron. They don't have agents, they have bureaucrats who co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies. They're on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission now, and about as dangerous.
No, actually, the fishing commissions are far more dangerous than INTERPOL. See Canada's infamous Turbot War with the Spanish for a recent example. Shots fired! Ships seized! Speeches made!
Yes, I'm being silly, but this whole tempest in a teapot over INTERPOL (which really is probably one of the more innocuous international agencies around) is silly to begin with.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Interpol is basically an information exchange entity between national police forces of member countries. Interpol doesn't not have its own officers making arrests, extraditions, etc--they are not a police force.
The order signed by Obama puts Interpol on the same diplomatic footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Interpol has no agents; they don't investigate crimes or bring charges, and they certainly don't do anything that would deprive anyone of any rights. They're an information clearinghouse amongst worldwide police agencies. They're staffed by bureaucrats and hold a lot of committee meetings. That's it.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
It would mean that, if that's actually what happened. I suggest reading the article misleadingly linked as "granted INTERPOL full diplomatic immunity", since it will inform you that this is definitely NOT what happened.
The enemies of Democracy are
After Lethal Weapon 2, the words "Diplomatic Immunity" will always sound a certain way when I read them in my mind's eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXNUaSjXRY
In theory, it makes for a handy way around Constitutional protections: the Interpol cops can tap phones, conduct illegal searches, etc. and then hand over the results to US authorities who can use it (if not admit it at trial.) However, in practice the Bush and Obama administrations haven't bothered with warrants for wiretaps, searches, etc. anyway.
Domestic cops can get away with crap like shooting an unarmed and unresisting "suspect" dead (on video camera!) and still avoid prosecution, so it's not like diplomatic immunity matters all that much either.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Except they don't have police officers, they have desk people who work to help each country police by sharing information and requesting assistance. They don't actually do anything directly.
http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/default.asp
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Do you know where the text for the original Executive Order is? Why is it so hard to find? Why is the White House refusing to talk about it? Why should an international organization's rights differ from any domestic entity?
No, diplomatic immunity doesn't mean that, but that's beside the point, because Interpol didn't get diplomatic immunity. They got a lesser form of administrative consideration that puts them on the same footing as the International Pacific Halibut Commission (among others).
But beyond that, you ignorant twit, Interpol has no agents, they don't investigate crimes, and they certainly don't kidnap people. They co-ordinate information sharing between police agencies--that's it. They're staffed by international bureaucrats, and all they do is push paper around all day, between committee meetings.
If you learn not to wet your pants so much, your laundry bills will be lower.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
So your in government and you want your office to keep certain records and info free from FOIA. You also want to keep tabs on the "other team" but on the DL...
What do you do?
1) Give all your records to an outside organization.
2) Grant that organization immunity from FOIA.
3) And for an added bonus make this organization immune from search and seizure laws..
4) ???
5) Profit!
Now they can do all your digging for you with out the hassles of warrants or probable cause.. and anything they find is untouchable..
It really is a brilliant idea.
I have to return some videotapes...
Nevermind, this is more evidence the Alex Jones crowd blows things out of proportion.
Sir, please award yourself 100 Internets for recovering from your kneejerk.
I, too, was almost willing to believe Obama handed INTERPOL diplomatic immunity, and thought "gee, that sounds important enough that I should read the article!" and discovered that it was quite clearly nothing like diplomatic immunity.
Now, thanks to a really (and a good chance deliberately) shitty and misleading summary, a lot of people now think INTERPOL can break into their house and butt-rape their dog and nobody can do anything.
The enemies of Democracy are
>>Indeed, and the reason that diplomatic immunity is not a "do whatever you want" license is that any laws you break result in embarrassing complaints to your home country, who will recall you and punish you in their own system.
Sometimes. America is well known for not removing immunity from its staffers overseas so they can be tried abroad. Other countries have been willing to remove immunity the other way though.
However, the parking tickets outside the UN are a rather famous sort of ongoing joke between the ambassadors and the NYPD. Or perhaps, "on the NYPD, by the ambassadors" would be a better way of putting it. Around 2002, the state department put the screws to the foreign countries that owned money by witholding foreign aid to countries that didn't pay their parking tickets, and that stopped most of it, but there's still something like *twenty million dollars* of unpaid tickets still owed by the ambassadors and their staff.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-classified-national-security-information
This EO allows various people to classify or reclassify documents.
But most specifically, Section 1.7(d) states:
Your absolutely and utterly incorrect, thanks for playing though.. They are in fact the EU equivalent of the FBI, they are not an entirely desk oriented organization. Perhaps you should do a bit more investigating of your own, before just shitting out what you came up with in your head. Interpol,in addition to acting as an information exchange organization, also investigates things that cross borders between member countries, where local police are unable to follow for various reasons. Which is why.. every member country has a national central office/bureau staffed with national law enforcement/police.. By your own misguided understanding of just what interpol is, you seem to not get that "if they didnt have people in the field.. why do they need diplomatic immunity? Answer.. because in addition to maintaining worldwide databases on a variety of matters, they are also an investigative unit..
INTERPOL employees are not law enforcement agents, either. They also do not have a job mandate to "go around arresting people and removing them to foreign jurisdictions". Where do you people get your information, anyway?
"...what's to stop Interpol agents from arresting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and taking them off to the Hague to stand trial?" could it be...US law?
The immunity belongs to the organization, not the people (even when sometimes they attach to people because of their relationship to the organization.) Like much stronger diplomatic or consular immunities, they are not individual rights; particularly, the institution to whom they are granted may waive them, whether or not the individual affected wishes them to. The rights exist to protect the operation of the institution (particularly, for the protections granted to international institutions, they exist principally to get other countries to cooperate fully with the institution by assuring them that the host country of the institution's facilities won't either use them to seize property acquired by other nation's funding of the organization or to seize sensitive information shared with the organization outside of the scope of the information sharing carried out under the procedures of the organization.)
The immunities at issue that INTERPOL was previously specifically excluded from that apply to international organizations are:
* Immunity to search and confiscation of the organizations premises, property, and archives
* Freedom of customs duties for baggage of staff
* Immunity from various taxes (Social Security, property taxes, federal income taxes)
(Note, all of this is laid out in TFA)
The personal immunities that apply to international organization staff (exemption from immigration controls, and immunity to suit based on official acts) already applied to INTERPOL, because the Reagan Administration order that added INTERPOL to the list of organizations getting the standard set of protections set out for such organizations in US law didn't exclude those personal protections, just some of the institutional protections. All the Obama order did is remove the special limitations that were applied to INTERPOL (and which were irrelevant at the time of the Reagan order, since INTERPOL didn't have offices in the US at the time.) No special privileges beyond those usually granted to international organizations that the United States participates in (and some that it doesn't!) have been granted to INTERPOL.
Means they can break into people's houses to conduct illegal searches without recourse?
And kidnap Americans, to take them across the border, for interrogation, also without judicial recourse?
Doesn't it?
Yes, that's right. It also gives them special X-Ray Vision, which allows them to see hot chicks nekkid in their clothes, as well as giving them their own drive-through lane and allowing them to bowl free on Wednesdays.
But that's not all it does. President Obama has also exempted them from the laws of thermodynamics, so it won't be long before mustachioed INTERPOL agents in their secret mountain lair will be aiming their death ray at the Pentagon while anti-grav ships hover menacingly overhead.
But wait! There's more! INTERPOL also received permission to travel in time and fuck your mother when she was still hot. So when INTERPOL comes for you, young Skywalker, before you reach for your light saber, consider that the big guy in black with the asthma problem just might be your dad.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
It doesn't give them universal immunity to do as they will within our borders. Interpol has no police force. It's just an administrative organization that basically acts as a go-between between countries.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/interpol.asp
This modification specifically allows INTERPOL the ability to enter into contracts, own and dispose property and has some ancillary language regarding taxes and immigration.
The real provision that is possibly dangerous is Section 7. (b) Representatives of foreign governments in or to international organizations and officers and employees of such organizations shall be immune from suit and legal process relating to acts performed by them in their official capacity ... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/International_Organizations_Immunities_Act#Title_I
If an agent of INTERPOL is "just doing his job" then he can do whatever he wants. Fortunately for us INTERPOL is very limited in what it can do.
INTERPOL's constitution is very clear as Article 3 states: It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character. http://www.interpol.int/public/icpo/legalmaterials/constitution/constitutiongenreg/constitution.asp
Thus, we are safe from the administration asking INTERPOL to conduct operations on US soil. If that charter were to change though... it would be a different story.
Also, Obama's actions have had no change on their status in this regard. They have always had this status.
But... Ob... err... But Obam... err.. But Interpol.... I... err.. I... ....
You win.
No. The summary is wrong. Obama did not give them diplomatic immunity. The article says so quite clearly. What Obama granted their organization was an exemption from some taxes and customs fees, and that their records cannot be seized.
This flat out lying on Slashdot for the sake of pushing politics has to end. Anyone can read Obama's executive order. It's on the White House website. All it does is give INTERPOL the rights from the 1945 International Organizations Immunity Act. Previously, there were some exemptions placed on INTERPOL that the new order removes. It grants nothing beyond the original 1945 act, however, which is completely different from diplomatic immunity. The article summary is flat out sensationalist nonsense.
"You are, officially, an asshole."
He's become quite Republican since winning election, which makes sense if he wants to win the next one.
Obama can take Democrat votes for granted, so all he need do is split the Republicans (with the eager if unintentional help of Sarah Palin and the Teabaggers).
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You only just figured this out.
Allow me to clue you in, all politicians are arseholes, automatically assume they are going to be arseholes from the outset and you avoid this unpleasantness.
There are two saving graces however,
1. We get to pick which arsehole we don't want running the show.
2. Every now and then they remember they are our arsehole.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
They don't have any of those things, still...they have immunity from search and seizure, meaning they can now send things to and from the USA via diplomatic packages, something they can do in almost every other county in the world, now. The FOI immunity is retarded, because you've never been able to, and it certainly wasn't anywhere in the executive order. The reason you've never been able to, is that INTERPOL isn't part of the US government. You can't send FOI requests to the Canadian Consulate in NYC, either. Well, I'm sure you can send them one, but don't expect an answer. Additionally, this is INTERPOL itself. This means, yes, official documents sent by them can't be searched at the border, and their offices can't be searched, either. It doesn't mean a person who happens to work for INTERPOL can't be searched if they're suspected of a crime, unlike a diplomat. They can be searched, and they can be arrested. I imagine they could say "That suspicious package is property of INTERPOL, not me, you can't search it." Which is true, but if somebody else at INTERPOL says "No it isn't" they can go ahead and search it. No diplomatic plates for their car, either, they can still get a ticket. Further, they don't even actually have their own office, they use desks at the DoJ, so there's no real reason the DoJ would ever need to be trying to search their stuff, anyways! So if it doesn't matter, why make an executive order of it? Like I said, now they can use diplomatic pouches for sensitive information, so it does matter. Finally, as you've already been told, INTERPOL isn't a police agency. Only in "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" do they have actual powers to arrest people. They're just a agency responsible for forwarading information on international criminals from one nations police to others who might need to know about it. An INTERPOL "agent" can't arrest you, he can tell the FBI that there's an outstanding arrest warrant for you in France, and then the FBI goes and arrests you, while the INTERPOL "agent" stays at his desk at the DoJ.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
If an MI6 agent performed an assassination on an American target on US soil do you honestly think they'd be doing it without US permission? Certainly not in the last 50 years. Same with INTERPOL, this is just making the unofficial courtesy official.
The US isn't like performing an assassination in the ME or Asia, chances are if MI6 really needs a yank taken out, with the level of intelligence sharing between the US and UK they'll just handball it to the yanks. After all why risk a British agent when there are perfectly good American agents with more local experience.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I have no idea who Alex Jones or Glen Beck are, but an international information sharing entity that is exempt from prying eyes through immunity. Think about it.
Have you ever known someone in politics to do anything unconditionally or altruistically? I can't say that I have.
As for FOIA, they were never bound by the FOIA, since they are not a part of the US Government. If you tried to sue them and use discovery to gain access to their records, that was not possible since they were already covered by Section 2(b), which protects them from judicial processes.
Cause you can't get a tan from an amber monitor. If you do, there is something horribly wrong.
You're blick.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It seems like for many criminal offenses, the US laws are more severe than the international counterparts anyways; as far as I know very few international fugitives would ever opt to hide out here. So why would interpol even bother to poke around here? I suspect there are more than a few people here in the US who would like to see interpol start enforcing US-style laws in other countries; especially when you see how rabid some Americans get when it comes to international spammers / phishers.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Technically they were already immune? That's a rather important technicality ... because you explicitly blamed Obama for giving them immunity from prosecution. In actuality 12425 is the executive order which gave them that ... the one with Ronald Reagan's signature below it.
INTERPOL employees are not law enforcement agents, either.
Err, I think the "POL" in INTERPOL stands for police.
"...what's to stop Interpol agents from arresting U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and taking them off to the Hague to stand trial?"
could it be...US law?
Which INTERPOL is now immune to, thanks to President Obama.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
If you'd read your own fucking article, you'd know that 1) the pictures of men with guns weren't Interpol agents, and 2) the Interpol guy was a pencil pusher working at the U.S. Embassy who was slipping info to the cartels.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
FFS Interpol is not a police force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
If these agents work for INTERPOL, doesn't this order (and it doesn't really matter whether it was Reagan or Obama who authorized it) give those INTERPOL members immunity?
What does President Obama expect Interpol to do that would require this immunity? What are they expected to do with this immunity that they could not do without it? Why make this change?
Because the Slashdot editors mangled my entry. There was no link to the ABC News article in what I submitted, but I did have a link to the story on unpaid UN parking tickets.
Ah, so a slashdot editor actually managed to improve a submission by linking to accurate information? I'm honestly shocked.
What really irks me is that this actually is a granting of full diplomatic immunity. If you go through the list of all the possible options for diplomatic immunity (it comes in different kinds), INTERPOL now has them all. So, yeah, I called it full diplomatic immunity.
No, it isn't, as your own links state.
Either you don't understand the difference between "immune to prosecution" and "immune to prosecution for official acts", or you don't understand what INTERPOL's official business is in the U.S. Or you somehow think "immunity for some actions" is the same as "full" immunity.
FULL diplomatic immunity means free from prosecution for any and all acts.
Let me spell it out for you.
If I was the French Ambassador to the U.S., and I was caught in L.A. snorting cocaine from from the ass crack of a dead 12 year old boy who I'd just raped and killed (not necessarily in that order), then the worst that the U.S. or local governments could do to to me would be to kick me out of the country -- unless of course France revoked my immunity, which you can certainly imagine happening in this case, but you get my point.
Now if I were an employee of INTERPOL, I would be prosecutable under U.S. and local law. As in NOT full immunity.
Unless you can explain how rape, murder, and drug use are official actions,
And you know what INTERPOL's official business is in the U.S.? Handing information provided by other nations' police forces over to U.S. police forces. That's it. That doesn't cover a very wide variety of actions, thus doesn't provide immunity for a very wide variety of actions, and thus only someone either completely foolish or deliberately stirring shit would call that "full immunity".
If you weren't wrong, I'd agree with you.
If you were any judge of right and wrong, you wouldn't have written such a shitty summary to begin with.
The enemies of Democracy are
He's become quite Republican since winning election, which makes sense if he wants to win the next one.
But Fox News told me that Obama is a dangerous liberal Marxist fascist radical!
This whole "socialist" meme is getting tiresome. Obama is a center-right politician, like 99% of the people in Washington today. The center moved so far to the right under Reagan and Dubya that even someone in the (actual) center is a socialist by comparison to someone like Limbaugh.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europol
I think you got these two mixed up.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
The same thing that stops the International Red Cross from doing the same, of course. The fact that it's absurd! They do have the exact same immunities, by the way, and have for decades. What stops the Red Cross from doing this, is the immunity is only insofar as they are performing their official duties as members of a public organization. Arresting people isn't in the official duties of a Red Cross employee, and it's only in the official duties of an INTERPOL clerk if play "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego", and if you're gauging their powers off of that, INTERPOL also has a fucking time machine. Did I say clerk, not "agent"? That's right, they're not agents, their only job is to facilitate communication between national police and investigatory forces. They forward warrants and notes on investigations. If somebody robs a bank in Germany and escapes, they forward information about him to all the countries he's likely to have fled to. So, the FBI gets a mug shot and some other info in the mail. Well, the INTERPOL staffer hands it to somebody at the DoJ, and that somebody hands it to the FBI. They can't investigate, and they can't arrest. And Regan gave them immunity from arrest and civil suit. Obama just extended that to the right to use Diplomatic Pouches, just like the Red Cross has. Why does the Red Cross need immunity from search? I dunno, ask them! But I can see why INTERPOL does. When you're at the airport, and that dour security guard wants to search your briefcase and read your notes, do you know he works for? A private security firm. That's a potential security breech, right there. Do you want him having a glance at the FBI's classified files on potential Al Quida cells in France? The FBI doesn't either, so they can't possibly use INTERPOL to forward that info around, they'll have to go through diplomatic channels, which can be slow.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Interpol just handles exchange of data - they would have to ask the relevant US Police agency to arrest them, and then to extradite them to the Hague - which in most cases requires that the crime being extradited for is recognised as a crime by the US. Which obviously leaves two separate opportunities for the US to say no thanx.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Interpol is an organisation whose member are nations and their police. They coordinate information sharing between member states. They don't do police work themselves. The only Interpol employees stricto sensu are administrative staff. That's it. The only "agents" are those of the FBI in the US, or the RMCP in Canada, and so on and so forth for other members. Nobody's going to show up at your door with an Interpol badge -- ever. Or maybe as a joke or a fraud.
That slashdot falls for this right wing scaremongering bullshit is disheartening. Goddamn it, it's not that hard to look shit up on Wikipedia, morons.
They act as points of contact rather than as agents, as far as I know - but its a good question if they get immunity. Given that every major police force in the US would have such officers already - and this law was brought in because INTERPOL opened an office in NY with half a dozen folk - I would think not.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Sorry, the article has diplomatic immunity.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes, I agree. Its amazing that fictional entertainment makes things up to entertain people. I know that when I think "accuracy," I think "Hollywood."
If by "agent" you mean anything like "FBI agent" or "CIA agent". The only "agents" it can be seen to have in the US are those of the FBI, but they will only do Interpol's bidding insofar as the Department of Justice wants them to. Interpol has no direct authority over said agents. It doesn't even have indirect authority, for that matter. What happens is that a member state will ask the US representation for cooperation on a criminal matter, and the Dept. of Justice will do what it wants.
It's just a way to share information and to have a single point of contact. There are 188 member states. If you find that a national of one of those 187 other members has killed someone, and time presses to to catch him, you don't want to have to find out who to contact, and possibly realise that you can't speak his language, or have no idea how to present the request to make sure that it doesn't get rejected on a technicality or that it gets forgotten or something. You just call interpol, they handle this, and put you in contact with the right person and handle the paperwork.
And by "you" I mean a DEA agent, a Wichita police officer or a NY DA.
Interpol doesn't not have its own officers making arrests, extraditions, etc--they are not a police force.
That we are aware of, and at this point in time, that is probably true. We can rest assured, however, that law enforcement agencies never have or create secret undercover departments or seek to expand their scope and power, so everyone can go back to watching American Idol.
This is part and parcel of the trans-national views held by many on the left that now find themselves with federal power instead of being relegated to moonbat status. They wish to reduce the US' sovereignty however they can, as they view the US as evil and rightly view it as *the* major threat to a trans-national world-government framework. They'd love to have Interpol investigate, and possibly extradite to the Hague under war-crimes charges, thorns in their sides like Dick Cheney among others, and possibly even Bush Jr. This is an incremental step in that direction.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It's different from embassies because diplomats have diplomatic immunity, and despite the lies in the summary, TFA notes that INTERPOL was not granted diplomatic immunity. In particular, a diplomat is immune from prosecution while in the USA. An INTERPOL staffer is immune from civil suit insofar as his/her actions were performed as an official duty. Meaning, if in his official capacity, he wrongs you, you can't sue him. If, in his official capacity, he commits a crime, he can't be arrested. But all INTERPOL staffers in the USA work IN the DoJ building. IN IT. There categorically is nothing they could do in an official capacity that is illegal, because ALL they do is forward warrants and other useful bit of information between the police and investigatory agencies of the 188 countries that are INTERPOL members. So, their immunity from civil suit really just means, that if they pass on bad info to the FBI, who arrests you and tazes you, you can't sue INTERPOL, I guess. Not that you'd really have much of a case if you could? But if that same staffer calls you stupid and smelly on national television, go right ahead and sue him all you want. Unlike a diplomat, he's only immune as part of his official duties. Anything that's not his job, is fair game. Oh yeah, one final thing? Regan gave them their so-called "diplomatic immunity". Obama just removed a couple of the exceptions Regan tacked on, the only "worrisome" one is that they're now immune to search and seizure, just like the Red Cross and the Pacific Halibut Committee. And unlike those two, they actually do have a potentially legitimate reason for wanting to use diplomatic pouches to send sensitive information to their branches in other countries.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
No, I was correct, and you're the moron.
No, they're not. You may have been thinking of Europol, or you may be lost in your own delusional fantasy. Either way, you're wrong. Interpol has a staff of around 600 people, and a budget of $60 million; the FBI has 32,700+ employees, and a $7 billion budget.
This is, in fact, correct. They are national law enforcement police who are subject to national laws. An FBI agent on loan to Interpol's office in New York receives no immunities or privileges he didn't have as an FBI agent. Obama's order is regarding the organization itself, the Interpol General Secretariat.
From the Wikipedia page on Interpol:
Read that closely: When two police agencies need to co-operate across borders, they go through Interpol. Interpol doesn't investigate and arrest them; national law enforcement does, with Interpol acting as the co-ordinating agency. They don't originate investigations, and they don't make arrests on their own authority--that's the whole point of each country setting up an NCB staffed by locals with the authority to be police officers.
And to be perfectly clear, a national law enforcement officer in the NCB receives no benefit from the order Obama signed, which doesn't confer diplomatic immunity anyway--it's a lesser form of organizational immunity granted to international organizations that applies to Interpol's records and bureaucratic operations, not to their personnel.
Got that? Interpol doesn't have diplomatic immunity, they have International Organizations Immunity:
In other words, if someone from the general secretariat works in the NY office, they don't have to pay NY taxes and their paperwork can't be searched. If they jerk off on the subway, they can still be arrested for indecent exposure.
Thanks for playing, though.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
As WP and the law itself clearly states, agents of International Organizations are immune from prosecution for official acts only.
That is nothing like "full diplomatic immunity", which is immunity from all prosecution.
INTERPOL's official business in the U.S. is one of information coordinator between the police forces of various nations, NOT anything related to actual investigation or law enforcement. They do not arrest. They do not investigate.
So to answer the salient question raised by the summary: Can INTERPOL agents now violate due process or other Constitutional protections within the United States with impunity, is a big fucking NO because any such action would not be an official act and thus not protected.
The enemies of Democracy are
And by "operate" I mean fill forms, translate documents, maintain a directory, do some criminology research and hold lots of committee meetings.
There are no "Interpol agents". The only "agents" are those of the FBI or local police, and they don't need fucking Interpol to infringe on your rights. And Interpol doesn't even tell them to do anything, they just inform them that such or such member state's police needs or has info on the activities of a suspect that has been or may come to the US.
That's it.
Stop the conspiracy theories. Interpol has a tiny budget, in the tens of millions of dollars, and they have 188 member states -- they couldn't even pay the salaries of one lonely "agent" in each member country! Instead, each member has people they delegate to work with interpol.
It has an office, it has employees, it has files. They are now immune to search and seizure by the federal government.
The only office that belongs to Interpol are in Lyon, France. (There are also a few small branch offices around the world but none in the US). Good luck searching and seizing that.
The only "office" they "have" in the US is those of the employees of the DOJ that have been charged with coordinating with Interpol. They do not belong to Interpol, they are employed by the DOJ, just like my accountant and his file cabinets do not belong to the tax administration even though he files my taxes.
Seriously, what do you think they do when they travel to the US?
For fuck's sake, you people are so fucking ignorant.
Interpol. Is. Not. A. Police. Force.
It's not a force.
And they don't do police work, any more than the World Postal Union carries letters. They help various member states coordinate police work. They have people's phone number, basically, that's about it. They also have a "most wanted" list or something. Scaaary.
Yes diplomats have immunity but they aren't police officers and don't work for a police organization. In fact, most lower level diplomats don't have immunity either.
Thing is, Interpol members are STATES.
A person cannot be a member of Interpol. Only a STATE.
Go ahead and try to apply for UN membership. Same difference. You can't.
Yes, and in the United States, the NCB is staffed by members of the Justice Department www.justice.gov/usncb/
That does not exist. Just like the Universal Postal Union will not deliver letters to your home, nor will you ever be able to lease a phone line from the ITU.
Goddamnit, you people are so fucking stupid, it's unconscionable.
Actually, the Mounties should have been given the responsibility, since the crime was committed over the village of Petrolia, Ontario (;-))
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
The US was bound by treaty to finance parts of the UN, and they weren't paying what they had promised. So that's a bit hypocritical right there.
The EU can vote "directives" which member states are forced to implement.
Interpol has no such authority over members. It has a phone directory and can forward mail or phone calls. Actually it will probably not even do that, it will just give members the contact info of the person they need to contact. That's about it.
Actually it turns out that they already have diplomatic immunity.
Hint: they don't deliver letters. How come there's "postal" in their name?
Of a limited sort... For official acts only, and INTERPOL's official acts are rather limited.
The enemies of Democracy are
In December of 2009 the FDA duped Interpol to achieve illegal kidnapping and deportation of herbal formulator Greg Caton: http://www.naturalnews.com/027750_Greg_Caton_FDA.html Whatever you may think of Greg Caton and his herbal products, this was an illegal kidnapping by US officials. This executive order was likely to cover their asses after the fact.
If I hadn't seen all the bullshit in this thread I would be inclined to think that you're trolling, but given the amount of disinformation and psychotic paranoia we're witnessing here, it's not entirely unlikely you're serious.
Interpol does not have investigative powers. They do not have investigative staff. They do not do that. They can't do that. They do not have any power over anyone. Member states provide contact information and some meager funding, so that other members know who to call and can request assistance in formulating requests to other member states' police. That's IT.
For fuck's sake, their budget is in the few dozens of millions of dollars, and they have 188 member states! That'd be barely enough to pay for one full-time employee and his office supplies in each member state, not even counting the head office staff!
My Bad i confess to being trolled should have RTFA first
It's an international organization.
is probably guaranteed by the Constitution.
It doesn't make them real, though.
Imagine Interpol mistakenly tells the FBI that you, iammani, are a wanted fugitive from Cameroun.
Turns out it's not true.
You can't sue them for libel or something.
That's about it. That's about the worst they could do to you.
Goddamnit. They have no power. They're an information center.
Long gone. Have you ever had any to begin with?
Tell me, do you know where the closest Universal Postal Union post office is?
...by staying home on election day dressed up as a clown!
As WP and the law itself clearly states, agents of International Organizations are immune from prosecution for official acts only.
Since they and their property are immune from suits, how does an ordinary citizen protect himself from them, obtain redress if they have damaged him by their illegal behavior, or even determine that they have committed a crime so he can beg a federal prosecutor to act?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's not an "Organization of international police officers", it's an international organization of police forces, in the same way as the Universal Postal Union is NOT an Organization of International Postal Workers, but an international organization of postal services.
Do you know of any UPU post offices? Ever gotten a letter delivered to you by an UPU truck? No, you haven't, because such things are just as unreal as an Interpol police officer.
The bizarre world you suggest where diplomatic immunity grants you the right to snatch and grab others obviously doesn't exist. Otherwise, why use INTERPOL? Why not just get a diplomat from another country to do it?
Considering they're almost all US citizens employed by the DoJ, I'm wondering.
by this logic, why not just use the military, after all NATO has diplomatic immunity and our forces are part of NATO. This article is just tinfoil hat wearing.
If you read the supplied Snopes link, it will tell you that the local governments have the right to decide upon the legality of warrants passed on by Interpol, meaning they are allowed only as much latitude as the states deign to grant. The local governments decide on the legality, the local governments send law enforcement if needed, etc. Interpol does not of those things. Interpol doesn't even issue warrants, it requires one of the member countries to do so. They simply pass them on to the necessary recipient.
Interpol does NOT have a police force, it does not conduct criminal investigations, and it does not make arrests. It acts as a data manager of sorts, for any member nations, coordinating information, passing warrants as needed from one member country to another, etc. They are basically an administration/secretarial service on an international scale. Whatever odd idea of Interpol people may have gotten from the Bond flicks or whatnot, are not quite accurate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol
For those that don't want to read through all of the Snopes/NYTimes information:
These are the same standard rights that are granted to some 70+ other international organizations. These additional rights were not granted to Interpol because it did not have a local office on US soil at the time. This was submitted prior to Bush leaving office and the State Department suggested approving it so that Interpol had the same legal status as other international organizations. It was not completed before Bush left office however. This is a bit of house cleaning to complete the request.
The bizarre world you suggest where diplomatic immunity grants you the right to snatch and grab others obviously doesn't exist. Otherwise, why use INTERPOL? Why not just get a diplomat from another country to do it?
Desire to not cause an international incident (and to split infinitives)?
$ make available
Almost all of what Interpol does is send info around. So if it sends info to the US, it's for the US DOJ. When it's in the DOJ's hands, it's in the DoJ's hands, and it's not magically tainted as immune to laws or something just because it was sent through Interpol -- that's just retarded.
No, what it protects is that if information sent by Interpol to a third member transits through the US for some reason (say, an Interpol employee or, more likely, a member states' delegate transits through the US with a bag of papers) it can't be seized. Not because Interpol wants to hide things from the US (although I can't stop you from believing that) but because it could be used to harass the organization (think subpoena granted by some random judge), or, more likely, because security people in airports could want to have a look at it, and they shouldn't have to be trusted with that info.
Why don't you point the EXACT part of the site Interpol.int where they "do more than coordinate"?
Rhetorical -- we all know there is no such thing and you're full of disgusting shit.
Sure, the German Ambassador has a home country in Germany.
What is interpol's home country? If they cannot be tried here for crimes, who tries them? Where can I turn for justice if they commit a crime against me?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Yeah, but diplomatic immunity does not free you from prosecution in your home country--so if this person is an American, it is irrelevant.
Not necessarily. If you look at the quote, it states, "The NCB is the designated contact point for the General Secratariat, regional offices and other member countries..." There's nothing there that says that the officers at the NCB work for Interpol. In fact, most likely, they don't.
To analogize, Interpol does for warrants what a hub does for network packets. It handles the logistics of ensuring that all member nations of Interpol receive the warrant for an international fugitive. In this analogy, the NCB is like the host computer's network card. It takes the warrant from Interpol and ensures that the law enforcement agencies within the host nation know who to look for. Just as your network card is separate from the hub that sends the packet, the NCB isn't part of Interpol.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
The two things you quote mean the same thing.
You're quibbling over the meaning of "actual investigation". Interpol does not perform investigations. They collate the information resulting from investigation. I don't know how it could be clearer. Want an analogy? Google Maps does not make maps nor do they operate satellites. They collect maps and satellite pictures and display them. Want a car analogy? Ok. Ebay is not involved in car making. However you can buy a car on eBay. But they won't even deliver it to you. But you can use their services to buy a car. OMFG you just said they're not involved in making cars, yet they're making cars available!
I mean, it's possible.
Today, though, they don't make food.
And next time I go to the bathroom, I will be shitting turds of solid gold. Can you prove I won't?
exactly well... Mostly US Citizens. Why should they have immunity from our laws then? While I see your points in differentiation from a role... does that lesson the actuality? I'd be interested in how you feel about Swiss Banks? Should a UBS Warburg's employee working in the US be able to be compensated with funds outside of our taxable reach with the full secrecy of the Swiss system at their fingertips? Or should we not question or worry about indiscretions that might occur until they have been proven, regardless that the very system being put in place is making it more difficult to prove things?
Walk with Music;
INTERPOL isn't a police force, numbnuts.
How exactly was the US government going to search the records of INTERPOL anyway when it's headquartered in France?
Okay, so if I read this correctly, the only law enforcement officers in the NCB in the US are U.S. citizens, and work for the U.S. That takes care of my objection. Thanks for the information.
I mean, it's possible.
Today, though, they don't make food.
And next time I go to the bathroom, I will be shitting turds of solid gold. Can you prove I won't?
Smelly strawman, much?
I mean, I'm no statistician, but I'm betting the chance of rare metals being anally excreted by humans is (thankfully, as wearing a Rolex would never be the same) quite tiny as compared to the chances that a law enforcement/investigative/coordination organization will grow in size, scope, and reach.
At least, that's how it is on *this* planet. How is it on yours?
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
... left unstated (perhaps to save embarrassement) is what others are giving up to get the INTERPOL immunity. Perhaps US SecSvc or FBI dipl.immunity in the EU / G-8 ?
Diplomatic negotiations like these are always on a like-for-like reciprocal exchange, so I'd bet it is for US services to operate abroad as they do inside the US. There have been quite some incidents with the US SecSvc running afoul of national police during POTUS and other protectee visits.
Don't need no stinking FBI to do this. DHS (dept. homeland security) already has that authority granted under the Patriot Act. It's called Suspension of Habeous Corpus and the only agency granted that suspension was DHS. So they already have the right to grab you without warrant or charges and hold you as long as they like for any reason so long as the grab is done by DHS or under the Order plus they have to right to tell you to shut up or they can grab you.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
To split infinitives is English, always has been, and incidentally it is likely that 'to' should not be considered part of the infinitive. : )
Intelligent idiots are we. | Evil men do not understand justice.
NATO does not have blanket diplomatic immunity. Its deployments, short of all out war, are usual carried out under a Status of Forces agreement which details, amongst other things, which laws individuals can be held to account under and how transgressors will be brought to justice. Additionally, it will detail when a State is responsible for an action and when the individual carrying out the action will be held responsible. For example, if soldiers carrying out lawful orders attack an unarmed civilian group then it is usually the State that controlling those soldiers that is responsible. If the soldiers commit the atrocity while not under under orders then they are responsible for their own actions but the SOFA might specifically say that they will be punished by legal means in their own country rather than in the country in which the offence occurs. This prevents soldiers, for example, from being awarded a death sentence if their own country does not support the death penalty. The problems usually arise (but not exclusively so) when a crime is committed yet those committing the crime are not punished by the State that sent them. This is a breach of the SOFA and tends to devalue the SOFA for ALL nations and not just the one involved with the incident. In wartime, a completely different set of laws are applicable, include national laws and the Geneva Conventions.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
Well, that convinces me. I, for one, promise to be more trusting and less vigilant in the future.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Don't the tinfoil-hat brigade even bother to read articles before deciding they confirm their worst nightmares?
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
The issue is not whether or not they have immunity but what they have immunity from. They will only get the same level of immunity as Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission. They still have to pay their parking tickets. They cannot have their records seized. This is the blindingly obvious requirement for an unbiased international police force. A requirement that any clear thinking person would expect them to have in any country in which they operate. Only the xenophobic would expect their country to be exempt.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Yes, I'm quite terrified that the International Pacific Halibut Commission is exempt from prying eyes.
Any information in Interpol is available to all members of Interpol--that's its whole point. You wouldn't put information in there if you didn't want it to see wide distribution, and for all intents and purposes it's not secure, so no government will put something in there they don't want others to see.
Interpol itself has only about 600 employees--the rest are national law enforcement officers seconded to a local National Crime Bureau. In other words, the New York NCB is staffed by FBI, the Ottawa NCB by RCMP, etc., all of those people subject to national laws like FOIA just because they're local national law enforcement officers. What Obama did by signing his executive order was to give those 600 the same diplomatic protections with respect to local taxes, customs, and diplomatic pouches as the Red Cross.
This is not a powerful international organization, it's a co-ordinating committee.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Notice, the act protects the organization, as well as the property and assets, "from suit and every form of Judicial process". Now, as others have pointed out, it looks as though INTERPOL doesn't have any agents in the U.S. The only people stationed in the U.S. associated with INTERPOL are American law enforcement. But that doesn't mean that this will never be an issue. INTERPOL has a huge government bureaucracy, which can be seen here. How much immunity the people that constitute this bureaucracy have is a legitimate question, is it not? Again, this isn't about records, because the plain language of the act doesn't limit itself to the organization's records or assets.
They don't have "immunity from (your) laws." The organization is immune to some laws.
I'll tell you a secret. Most organizations are immune to some of your laws. Corporations can't be put on the sex offender list. Yup, that's right.
By your logic that would mean that anyone employed by a corporation could not be put on the sex offender registry.
Think about it.
Then think about it some more.
So you don't understand what UPU means and how it differs from the USPS?
Ambassadors are not members of the UN, even though their countries are, and they are members of their country.
I was going to explain it further but let's it keep simple: you suck at maths. It's hopeless.
How do state's rights fit in? If I lived in Texas could shoot INTERPOL agents for trespassing? They aren't United State law enforcement officers on official business, so the laws of some states likely are not prepared to grant INTERPOL agents the same protections.
I think people forget that it is very difficult to make a decision on a national scale in the US, and usually requires a fair amount of cooperation from the states. or at least not an excessive amount of non-cooperation from the states.
(ps-I don't think I'm allowed to shoot anyone in California, unless they actually committed murder against me first. Or maybe I just won't care about the civil and criminal repercussions postmortem)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Since they don't, the point is moot anyway.
Interpol has no agents.
Got it? No agents. They don't have them.
Do they have agents? No they don't.
How many agents do they have? None.
If you were to count the number of agents they have, what would be that number? That would be zero, sir.
Okay if you doubled the number of agents Interpol have, how many more would they have? They would have the same.
And if you tripled? Still the same.
Although I agree with most of what you said, why should they be except from paying taxes? Not sure what the IRS has to do with anything on what they do as a rule....but that bit is a little bit interesting to me. I just can't see how a paper pusher paying taxes is bad for an inter-national agency. Yes, give them the immunity to do their jobs, but give me the tax exemption instead please.
That's where the HQ is located anyway. In the same line of thought, the UN's "home country" is the US, since that's where the HQ is.
What kind of crimes could they commit against you anyway? Go ahead, give us an example.
Heh. The US embassy in London and the city have a long running dispute as to whether the congestion charge is a tax or a toll. If it isn't at tax, they owe a good sum by now...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
"Complaints" as in "please prosecute this individual or we'll hold your state responsible for his actions".
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
People who work for INTERPOL don't become citizens of INTERPOL or something, you know. They all still have passports from their respective home countries.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Obviously it's about their employees. You can be UN employee. You can be interpol employee.
Actually .... it mostly does. Jurisdiction is based on national boundaries. Except for very few crimes, you cannot be punished for comitting a crime outside of the U.S. by a U.S. court (or a court of any of it's states). Diplomatic immunity provides you with a blanket exception to getting sued by the only court that has jurisdiction. Ironically this exception is the result of muslim pressure (ottoman pressure to be exact), as they wanted to be able to violate for example divorce law, and have the ability to forcibly repatriate the ambassador's wife if she attempted to divorce him (happened in London).
This jurisdiction thing is e.g. why the RIAA put up such a big fight to make the court declare downloading from Holland as an act that at least partially took place in the U.S. (and why the UN pushed through that sending a byte from the U.S. to Europe only involves US and EU law, even if that byte passes through Iceland, or China and Russia (the backup connections))
Except "they" are American citizens, directly controlled by the elected president, DHS may employ and train the people that do the actual grabbing, but the order comes from Obama. Interpol is neither elected, nor accountable to anyone (they're more like the EU, or the UN. They're totally unaccountable except insofar as they could have member states leaving). And they do indeed grab people.
This is a pattern, there are few, if any, international organisations that are elected. Yet the EU (and especially the Lisbon treaty EU) is by far the most powerful unelected government in the world. One might almost think that in political circles, democracy is something that they'd mostly like to get rid of, but can't (yet ?).
This basically allows a law enforcement officer to carry out his duties.
Why, exactly, do they need this protection? Especially given that criminal infiltration of law enforcement is something to guard against.
It is identical to when the FBI comes to a local town to investigate, they can not be hindered or stopped by the local law enforcement.
What if they hinder otherwise interfere with the investigations of local law enforcement? What if they break the law in the course of their activities?
This is obvious and should not raise any issues.
Anyone being "above the law" comes with a whole host of issues. Even more so if they are "law enforcement".
Interpol does NOT have a police force, it does not conduct criminal investigations, and it does not make arrests. It acts as a data manager of sorts, for any member nations, coordinating information, passing warrants as needed from one member country to another, etc. They are basically an administration/secretarial service on an international scale.
In Which case why do they need any special rights in the first place? "Diplomatic immunity" is granted by treaty, which treaty is involved here?
These are the same standard rights that are granted to some 70+ other international organizations.
Do such rights make sense in any of these cases? Even if some are justified does it make sense to have a "one size fits all" approach.
These additional rights were not granted to Interpol because it did not have a local office on US soil at the time.
Which presumably means there are people to whom these special protections apply.
"Hopefully the worst we'll see from this is INTERPOL agents ignoring their speeding tickets" Good.. I hope they don't.. at least until the American Embassy in London gets round to clearing the > £200,000 they owe the city for their unpaid congestion charge.
A country is not a government either.
A country is not a language.
A country is not the set of its inhabitants.
A country is not just exactly a nation.
A country is not its flags.
Yet it possesses all of these things, more or less.
And yes, a country can be a member of an organization, just like a corporation or a non profit organization can be a member of another organization.
Again, you should have stayed in school and learned some set theory. It's not that hard.
Crimes defined as what and by whom? If it is the law of the sovereign nation that they are in at the time, no harm no foul. If it is some collection of laws determined by anybody else, it very well could be a violation of sovereignty. That would be a impeachable offense, in just about ant country I would imagine.
This is really not good, when you give a governing body a full pass on your laws...all the need to do in any event is to outsource perticular aspects of a case, (like planting wiretaps without a warrant) which could be challenged in court, and
then accompanied by charges for breaking the law, they get to do what they need without so much as batting an eyelash.
The FBI could call them when they need something beyond their power to get, and INTERPOL could get some extra money for using their "services" this way. No one is safe anymore...thank you Obama, thank you very much!
Obama's Executive Order is nothing more than a tax cut for international organizations!
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Real numbers are a set.
Functions over that set are a set.
No real number is a member of that set.
Persons are a set.
Countries are a set whose members are persons.
The UN is a set whose members are countries.
No person is a member of that set.
No matter how often you repeat that line, members of the UN are countries, and they do vote. You might not like it, but that's how it is. It sometimes lead to weird occurrences, such as when Taiwan was China in the UN, and mainland China wasn't, but that's how it is.
The Saudi people don't get to elect their government, yet the country is a member of the UN.
Go ahead, deny that fact.
But even if what you are saying where blanket correct this is irrelevant if the person from the US in in the US doing the act.
Actually, INTERPOL had a limited subset of the immunities available to international organizations under US law, which are far less than the privileges that attach with diplomatic immunity.
Damnit, now what will I do with my copy of wHole Invasion IV and INTERPOL application.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
That's your argument? That a person is doing the button pushing? That's fucking idiotic.
Hey let me as stupid as you are: since they vote electronically, it's a computer that's making the decision. There.
Duh.
How are the protections defined in a law passed by Congress in 1945 concerning protections for international organizations extra-legal? They are protections that (1) exist in statute law, (2) are given the INTERPOL by the process defined in the law delineating the protections available. They would seem to be legal, not extra-legal.
The protections at issue do not constitute "near unlimited authority".
Most jobs in international organizations are tax free. That include IMF, EU, etc. The organization is funded by the member nations, and salaries set to attract needed talent. The purpose of taxes is partly to force a certain behaviors. This may be to drive a Hybrid vehicle, send your kids to university etc. It is seen as important that an employee of an internationally sanctioned organization is not subjected to this 'local' pressure, but can act independently in the best interest of the organization. The organization, with the support of the signatory nations, sets all the needed requirements. This of course has nothing to do with diplomatic immunity, and any tax imposed on such an amployee, would just have to be paid back in increased salary, so really no use. It may only push the person to select a place to operate based on tax level, and not job performance.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Just what the Hell ever happened to Europol??? I thought they had changed their name from Interpol to Europol after the European Union came into existence? What the hell is going on???
Would somebody please keep the frigging nomenclature straight!!!!
Geez, aren't things bad enough already? First, we had the first Black Alberto Gonzalez (A.G. for Chiquita, Eric Holder) -- and everyone (that is, the faux crats who dare call themselves Democrats!!) was so delirious with joy: first Holder's Justice Department went after the whistleblower on that crooked Reilly's staff, who turned evidence for Gov. Siegelman, who was railroaded by the Karl Rove Gang, but to no avail -- then Holder's Justice Department extended the more nefarious aspects of the USA PATRIOT Act -- then Holder's Justice Department continued on the Bush Administration's legal case to kill habeaus corpus, and succeeded -- then they successfully put in jail that whistleblower from Switzerland's UBS (oopsy, Phil Gramm's evil bank) -- instead of jailing all those chronic and law-breaking tax evaders.
And now they can't even get Europol's name right.....