Dec 17 President Obama signed an executive order that revised the language of a Reagan era directive.. Executive Order 12425.Obama's order removes protections placed upon INTERPOL by President Reagan in 1983.Reagan granted Interpol the status of diplomatic personnel in order to engage more constructively on international law enforcement. But in Executive Order 12425, he made two exceptions to that status. The first had to do with taxation,The second was to make sure that Interpol had the same accountability for its actions as American law enforcement .They had to produce records when demanded by courts and could not have immunity for their actions.

The effect of the changes Obama ordered gives INTERPOL( international police force ) immunity and restraints from American law; and rights on American soil that place it beyond the reach of our own law enforcement agencies like the FBI.

They are now permitted authority to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests .“Property and assets,” including the organization's records, cannot be searched or seized.
Andy McCarthy former prosecutor for Fed District #2 in NY wrote that
This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? - Andy McCarthy - The Corner on National Review Online=

He asks the following pertinent questions
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?

The President seems determined to subjecting American citizens to the whims of the International Criminal Court ,for which INTERPOL acts as it's law enforcement ageny.

Step by step the party in power insists on relinquishing our sovereignty and subverting our constitution. This is an outrage.

Each of these developments makes me think more and more of the phrase "defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

My top guess on this is Obama is paving the way for the prosecution in Europe of Bush administration officials.

If there is any sanity left in this country, this should be grounds for impeachment.

Surely your statement is pure paranoia. No country, not even the sainted United States is above it's treaty obligations. When your country signed on to the UN charter, agreed by your legislature, you agreed to whatever came with it and that includes law enforcement. All of this is done in full cooperation and allows your country to both prosecute and subvert the law of other nations by requesting the arrest of people (citizens) in other places who have broken your laws. You can't have it just your way. I'm waiting for GWB to be prosectued for war crimes for acting outside the UN Charter and invading Iraq.

Interpol is not a UN enforcement agency .It began as a quasi-European police force that has expanded world wide.
Where galveston has it wrong is in the fact that it was an executive order that is being amended. Executive orders like this we may not like... but they are constitutional.

Obama thinks the outcry over this is much ado about nothing... But the Interpol chief Ronald Noble has heard it and is trying to reassure us that in his words. "The executive order gives Interpol no law-enforcement or investigative powers to engage in activities on U.S. soil,", including "searches, seizures or arrests in the U.S."

But if that is the case ;then why do they need diplomatic immunity ?

Right after it passes a resolution rescinding resolution 1441 and finally votes that a unanimous vote in the Security Council is required to authorize military force, then he can be prosecuted ex post facto.

And UNSCR 1546 established the Multi-national force .It was extended twice and when it ended the US willingly gave control of the nation to the duly elected Iraqi government .

Before that the CPA ran the country under UN res. 1483

Easy for you to say! It's not your sovereignty that is being weakened.

PS, It might surprise you how many of us don't want GWB or any of our intelligence people, or any US citizen, for that matter, prosecuted in ANY foreign court.

Maybe we could consider a different label for Obama than "Socialist".

Would "Globalist" be more accurate?

Hey our soveriegnty has been weakened a number of times by our membership of the UN. Our Government has even used the international treaty obligations to override internal laws and we have real problems dealing with refugees and illegal aliens because of the UN. It might surprise you to know that we don't want any of our citizens to be prosecuted in a US court for acts committed in their own land but such things are possible. Recently a US citizen had a sentence imposed in US court for a crime committed here after it had been dealt with by our courts. I think that is called double jeopardy. We get the idea from their actions that the US has set itself up as some supreme authority.

The fact is that if a US citizen contravenes the law of the country they are in they are liable to prosecution whether you like it or not and whether they have fled to the US

How about "Neo-Feudalist" since excon thinks we should be termed "neo-Conservatives."

I like the one I registered at the election commission: Constitutionalist.

Not what I'm talking about. What you say here is fair.

I'm talking about some US citizen being accused of breaking some UN law and being tried in a foreign court.

The dream of the lunatic fringe left is to try G. Bush and associates in a foreign court, and I say there should be a war before we let that happen.

I think the term statist or fabian socialist best applies.One could also look at de Tocquville's definition of soft tyranny ,although it is more a modus operandi than a philosophy.

"Narcissist" is also applicable.

There are people being accused before international courts all the time. The Israeli foreign minister was indited in a European court recently, the Japanese whalers are accused of piracy in a Dutch court for actions in the Southern Ocean, they indited the former President of Chile in a Spanish court. What you are talking about is judisdiction, the idea that some crimes are universal such as crimes against humanity and the right of the victims to be heard

Want to bet the Israeli foreign minister will ever go to trial in that European court?

What happens in international waters may be somethling elese. I really don't know.

GWB and members of his administration were operating within US jurisdictiion in the matter of Guantanimo, and as for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congress of the USA voted for it (before they voted against it).

Should they ALL be tried in foreign courts?

I don't think so.

Hi Gal
Lots of different views here, they have already withdrawn the charge against the Israeli Foreign Minister, sometimes they understand what political grandstanding is without going to extremes, something GWB and the US Congress did not understand. Piracy is something that all nations are free to take action against and maybe terrorism should be in the same category as action against individual perpetrators but dumping on a nation because a few individuals are out of line smacks of big brother

Yes, they should all be tried in international courts because they gave consent to immoral and unethical acts resulting in the death of large numbers non combatants, an act sometimes called genocide.

You make it sound like it was the US and allies that planted IEDs ;used suicide bombers in markets ,and ethnically cleansed neighborhoods. If that is what you believe then of course you would think that President Bush was a war criminal .But of course you know that is not the case.

You will note that all the holier than thou's conveniently thought up the concept of international court after they strategically bombed the cities of Germany into the stone age. I guess there's a statute of limitation for them .
Why has Putin not been hauled before this criminal court for Russian actions in Chechnya and Georgia ? Don't hear a big outcry there .

Livni's charges were dropped because they were an embarrassment to the Brits .A rogue judge issues them after lawyers working for Palestinian terrorists convinced him to be part of their lawfare against Israel. The charges were trumped up nonsense from the Israeli raid into Gaza after they defended themselves against repeated rocket assaults against Israeli villages and towns. I guess in the moral relativist world defending ourself is a crime.