Obama Gave INTERPOL … Nope, Just Another Half-Baked, Right-Wing Nontroversy

One of the completely hyperbolic and inaccurate memes/conspiracy theories floating around the conservative blogosphere these days is that President Obama has transferred American sovereignty over to INTERPOL (the International Criminal Police Organization, not the band).

Here are some of the page titles appearing on the first page of results from a google search for obama+interpol:

• Did Obama exempt Interpol from same legal …
• Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?
• Did Obama give INTERPOL more power last week?
• Obama grants Interpol immunity as foreign ‘assets’ assigned to …
• Obama Surrenders U.S. Sovereignty: His INTERPOL …
• O’s INTERPOL Executive Order: immunity for Obama?

Yeah, yeah. We know. New World Order. Obama’s a communist, fascist, marxist trying to turn us over to the world’s police state … or something like that.

Since I generally don’t believe what I hear from the Glenn Beck/Alex Jones crowd, I decided to go beyond the first page of search results and find out a little more about what was actually involved in this executive order.

So, I found out a bit about what INTERPOL actually is and does (skip past these quotes for a summary):

Contrary to its portrayal in some movies, Interpol has no police force that conducts investigations and makes arrests. Rather, it serves its 188 member countries by working as a clearinghouse for police departments in different nations to share law enforcement information — like files on wanted criminals and terrorists, stolen cars and passports, and notices that a law enforcement agency has issued an arrest warrant for a fugitive.

In the United States, a bureau at the Justice Department staffed by American officials transmits information between law enforcement agencies and Interpol. If a foreign country issues an arrest warrant for a person inside the United States, it is up to the United States government, based on its own laws, to decide whether to apprehend the suspect.

“We don’t send officers into the field to arrest people; we don’t have agents that go investigate crimes,” said Rachel Billington, an Interpol spokeswoman. “This is always done by the national police in the member country under their national laws.”

And a bit of background information on the executive order:

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

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

There are about 75 organizations in the US covered by the [IOIA] — including the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, … even the International Pacific Halibut Commission and Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission.

Recognizing a group under the [IOIA] means officials from those organizations are exempt from some taxes and customs fees, and that their records cannot be seized. This … is so these organizations can work throughout the world without different countries spying on each other by accessing the records of these groups.

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

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

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

So, to summarize:

• INTERPOL is an organization that facilitates in international police cooperation
• INTERPOL has no police force of its own, all arrests and police activity are done by the national police in the member country under their national laws.
• In 1983, President Reagan signed an executive order affording INTERPOL the privileges under the International Organizations Immunities Act.
• Immunities involving taxation and “search and seizure” were not included in this order because INTERPOL did not have a permanent office in the US at the time. Basically, there was nothing to tax, search, or seize at the time.
• INTERPOL established a permanent US office in 2004, so the IOIA exemptions from the 1983 signing were now relevant. There is now something to tax, search, and seize, so President Obama signed an executive order granting these immunities which are afforded to other IOIA organizations.
• Search and seizure immunities exist under the IOIA because because records in such organizations can belong to foreign nations, and these nations may not wish to have their information and property seized by the US government.

And finally, here is the text of the executive order signed earlier this month:

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.