HT Media Mythbusters & HOT AIR

This has been bouncing around the Net today.  I’ve posted several comments at Police Futurist Intl of which I’m a member:

Here’s an interesting post that has nothing to do with either the pros or cons of this executive order but the MSM giving a pass to the Obama administration on this:

Not News: Obama EO Removes Restrictions on INTERPOL

Now here’s a valid question re exemption from FOIA requests:

Did Obama exempt Interpol from same legal constraints as American law-enforcement?

During his presidency, Ronald Reagan granted the global police agency Interpol the status of diplomatic personnel in order to engage more constructively on international law enforcement.  In Executive Order 12425, Reagan made two exceptions to that status.  The first had to do with taxation, but the second was to make sure that Interpol had the same accountability for its actions as American law enforcement — namely, they had to produce records when demanded by courts and could not have immunity for their actions.

Barack Obama unexpectedly revoked those exceptions in a change to EO 12425 last month, as Threats Watch reports:

UPDATE I:

This debate has continued on both at the Media Mythbusters and the Police Futurist Int’l egroups.  Here my two cents worth so far:

FYI I just posted these thoughts in the other thread.  I think we’re getting to the heart of this debate now.  It’s not the current state of Interpol but what could happen in the future if system checks are not in place to protect abuses of our own Constitutional rights.

Bud, Olli, and Sid

I think this is why in this Country law enforcement bodies are subject to the Exclusionary Rule evolved through the courts and FOIA demands.  This is a fundamental check on the over reach of power by law enforcement/executive branch of government violating Constitutional rights of citizens.  Case in point just review the current Climategate scandal and how otherwise generally good scientists have had their ethics co-opted and were stonewalling on FOIA requests to reveal their source data and code for others to review.  This is the same research that led up to COP15 where we were on the verge of making major changes in the world’s economy on now suspect research that was supposedly well settled.

My quip re the UN and like international bodies that seemed to be dominate/ co-opted by corrupt Third World countries is directly related to my concerns re granting immunity to any of these bodies whether as in Interpol’s case may not be a concern just yet.  A case in point is the UN’s Commission on Human Rights.  While well intentioned, this Commission has some perverse member countries that at times have chaired this Commission e.g., China, Zimbabwe, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Libya, Algeria, Syria, and of all places the Sudan.

I just have quirks about yielding sovereignty to these international bodies no matter how well intentioned they may be.

This might be a much ado about nothing but we should keep our eyes wide open.  The Obama Administration has acted with rank amateurism e.g., DHS Secretary Napolitano.   I just was an explanation to ensure they have considered all the ramification of this executive order are.