by Anthony G. Martin
Columbia Conservative Examiner
December 29, 2009
Troubling questions remain concerning the secretive Executive Order Obama signed in the dead of night on December 17, which grants INTERPOL, the International Police Organization, full immunity from U.S. law.
In the face of these questions, the White House is engaging in stonewalling.
Of the major network news organizations, only ABC News reporter Jake Tapper has expressed an interest in the issue, as Michelle Malkin reports late this afternoon.
Malkin says that Tapper has asked the White House on two separate occasions within the last week about the executive order, but Obama officials have so far refused comment.
Despite the asinine contention of some that the executive order is innocuous and poses no threat at all, the order actually gives INTERPOL broad latitude in conducting its operations on U.S. soil–even exceeding some of the most troubling aspects of the Patriot Act.
Yet the Left continues to attempt to make the issue about the Patriot Act and George W. Bush, although this particular order has absolutely nothing to do with the former President, the Patriot Act, or, as one numbskull stated, ‘This does nothing more than grant INTERPOL agents immunity from parking tickets.’
As Ed Morrissey at Hot Air states,
I seem to recall the Left getting hysterical over the Patriot Act extensions that Obama finally backed. This gives Interpol a much wider operational latitude than anything contemplated in the Patriot Act, and with no accountability at all.
In addition, confusion seems to reign supreme among some on the Internet with regard to INTERPOL’s supposed heavy restrictions and limitations on U.S. soil. Some suggest that merely reading the organization’s history and official mode of operation will be enough to clear up any lingering doubt over the agency’s role in law enforcement in the United States.
This is all well and good…on paper.
But we all know that there is the official, public statement of purpose and then there is the actual, behind-the-scenes reality of how such organizations work apart from public view.
And with INTERPOL such a reality is even more pronounced given that it is not a U.S. agency and thus is not ultimately accountable to anyone in the U.S. government.
Obama, therefore, has removed what little safeguards were put into place by President Ronald Reagan that insured INTERPOL’s adherence to U.S. law and the Constitution.
The article continues at the Examiner.
