Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of concern in some quarters about President Obama’s Executive Order extending certain legal immunities to Interpol. These concerns are misplaced. I am currently writing a research paper on Interpol, which will cover the immunities, and many other issues. In the meantime, some preliminary clarifications:
Interpol has no authority to make arrests or seize property. Interpol is purely an organization for data exchange and analysis. Interpol employees in the United States (or anywhere else) have no authority to conduct any activities except as allowed by the host government. The Obama Executive Order adds nothing to Interpol’s non-existent law enforcement authority.
Interpol’s entire US presence consists of a five-person office in New York City for liaison with the United Nations. Under the Obama order, the premises and documents of this NYC office are absolutely immune from search and seizure. Pursuant to the International Organizations Immunities Act, passed by Congress in at the time the United Nations was being set up, seventy other international organizations in the US have immunities identical to those now possessed by Interpol. The presence of the UN was obviously going to lead to the establishment of US offices for many international organizations, and Congress want to regularize the procedures and immunities for such organizations.
Unlike standard international organizations, Interpol was not created by a treaty, and its membership consist of police agencies, not nations per se. So one could make the legal argument that Interpol is not an international organization. However, both the United Nations and the United States have taken the position that Interpol qualifies as an international organization.
Interpol requested the full set of IOIA immunities in 2005. In 2008, the US State Department approved the request, but the White House did not get around to signing the Executive Order. It obviously was not a priority for anyone, nor should such a minor issue have been a priority.
So why did President Reagan, in 1983, grant Interpol some but not all of the available immunities? Some explanation of Interpol’s structure will help here. Interpol is headquartered in Lyon, France. Today it has over 600 employees, consisting of permanent staff, as well as employees from many different national law enforcement organizations who are “seconded” (loaned) to Interpol for a few years. Every one of the 188 nations which participates in Interpol has a “National Central Bureau” (NCB) which coordinates interaction with Interpol. The NCB offices are located in the home country, and they are staffed by employees of the home country, not by Interpol employees. The United States has the largest NCB, consisting of approximately 80 employees in Washington, D.C., plus an auxiliary NCB in San Juan. The NCB is responsible for transmitting the data which the US chooses to provide to Interpol, and thereby make accessible to the NCBs of other countries. Such data include the identification numbers of lost or stolen US passports, fingerprints or DNA for some criminals, and so on.
The NCB in the United States is not an international organization. It is a part of the US Department of Justice, and is subject to precisely the same laws as any other part of the Department of Justice. The NCB staff interacts with Interpol, but they are employees of the federal government, not of Interpol. Neither the Reagan nor the Obama Executive Orders apply to the NCB offices, nor could they.
As of 1983, Interpol had no staff or offices in the United States. However, a 1981 D.C. Circuit decision, Steinberg v. International Criminal Police Organization, 672 F.2d 927, held that Interpol could be sued in federal courts, because Interpol’s interaction with the US NCB created sufficient US contacts for a US court to assert long-arm jurisdiction. The Circuit’s decision was written by the recently-appointed Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Steinberg pleaded a very strong case for defamation:
Steinberg’s complaint identifies an Interpol document, titled “Blue International Notification 500/59-A3674,” describing him as a wanted international criminal who used the alias “Mark Moscowitz.” Interpol widely communicated the Notification, Steinberg alleges, to its liaisons, among them, the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB), now located in the Department of Justice, this country’s liaison with Interpol. In the summer of 1975, on learning of the document and Interpol’s transmission of it to liaisons, Steinberg asserts, he notified Interpol and twice offered proof that the Notification was erroneous. Despite the proof he offered, Steinberg further states, Interpol continued to publish the Notification and other statements associating Steinberg with “Mark Moscowitz.” It did so, according to Steinberg, until late July 1976, when Interpol finally conceded Leon Steinberg was not “Mark Moscowitz.” Steinberg seeks general and punitive damages for the substantial injury he alleges he has suffered as a result of the Blue International Notification.
Now vulnerable to US lawsuits, Interpol asked the Reagan administration to grant it IOIA protection. The Reagan administration at the time was beginning to vastly amplify the US relationship with Interpol. The consequences, over the long term, were a substantial increase in US contributions to Interpol, the US displacing France as the most influential nation within Interpol, and Interpol taking a major interest in counter-terrorism. Given the Reagan determination to work more with Interpol, it is not surprising that the administration granted Interpol’s request for IOIA immunity from civil lawsuits.
At the advice of the Department of Justice, the Reagan Executive Order did not grant complete IOIA immunities, because they were unnecessary. Interpol had no office in the US, and therefore had no need for IOIA’s protections of international organization property and files. The Obama Order simply recognizes changed circumstances; now that Interpol has a small US office, it is appropriate that Interpol have the standard immunities for international organization offices.
As I will detail in my research paper, I believe that the Reagan-granted civil lawsuit immunity should be partially rescinded, and, if necessary, Congress should revise the IOIA to allow for grants of only partial immunity from civil suits. Interpol is a much more competent organization than it was in 1975, when it allegedly defamed Steinberg. Nevertheless, Interpol does sometimes disseminate potential defamatory information without sufficient caution. First of all, Interpol distributes “diffusions.” A diffusion is a document from one nation that a particular person is wanted for a particular crime in that nation. Diffusions are not reviewed for factual accuracy by Interpol staff, and they are not formally endorsed by Interpol. However, Interpol’s global distribution of the diffusions could, at least arguably, constitute participation in defamation, particularly when the diffusion is created by a nation with a notoriously corrupt and dishonest law enforcement system.
Interpol’s official Notices (such as the “Blue Notice” on Steinberg) are given a higher standard of care. (A Notice is not an “international arrest warrant.” A Red Notice is merely information that a person is sought by a particular country, for a particular crime, and the country will extradite him if given the opportunity. A Blue Notice is a request to collect additional information about a person in relation to a criminal matter.) Nevertheless, at least occasionally, defamatory Notices are distributed. Most notoriously, Interpol distributed three Red Notices from Kazakhstan containing false claims that some political opponents of the dictatorship had committed tax crimes. Although Interpol staff eventually opposed the Kazakhstan Red Notices, the issue was decided by the Interpol General Assembly (Interpol’s governing body), which narrowly voted in favor of the Red Notices. Perhaps if Interpol had faced a potential lawsuit for knowingly distributing defamatory information, the General Assembly would have voted differently.
However, the big topic of concern in the past several weeks has not been “Interpol can get away with defamation!!!!” The defamation immunity problem has existed for 27 years. The current concerns about the Obama Executive Order are about the dangers of unaccountable international police operating in the United States. These concerns are without merit. Interpol staff do not even carry guns, and they certainly do not engage in policing in the United States.
richard says:
Thanks, David. Good summary.
January 15, 2010, 1:33 pmCrunchy Frog says:
I caution everyone to remain vigilant against the threat of jack-booted thugs in blue helmets, transported by black helicopters.
They’re out there, I tells ya!
January 15, 2010, 1:35 pmSteve says:
But the Washington Examiner said Obama’s executive order “may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties.” They’re still a credible source, right?
January 15, 2010, 1:41 pmwlpeak says:
I am not a Federal Agent sent by Cass to dissuade you…..But the UN has no Black helicopters. Its a myth the NSA started to misdirect everyone when one of their mind control projectors accidentally sent Air Wolf reruns instead of normal programing. I hope this clears things up.
Thanks,
January 15, 2010, 1:46 pmNot Big Brother
Per Son says:
Mr. Kopel:
Great post. Thank you
January 15, 2010, 1:48 pmjccamp says:
Denying Interpol immunity from such as Steinberg would seem short-sighted. Interpol is merely a conduit, a clearinghouse, for data sent to and from various national police agencies. To expect Interpol to prevent potential defamation and/or politically based data and/or arrest warrants would be to simply overwhelm the already limited staff. There does not seem to be any practical or realistic fashion for Interpol to vet or otherwise screen the incoming data before sending it along to other member countries. Plus, it would invite other national police agencies to make political decisions about U S warrants and information, said political decisions not necessarily in agreement with U S policy or practice.
In practice, an absence of such immunity would invite Interpol to avoid controversy and severely limit data it passes along to the most innocuous. In effect, we would be creating a permanent state of inefficiency, by adding an aura of political correctness – or lack of same – to many law enforcement decisions that should be apolitical.
BTW, in my admittedly limited experience, dealing with Interpol is generally a useless and frustrating experience best avoided at all costs. The weak nature of the governing conventions and the generally poor priority granted to anything from Interpol by most police agencies are exceeded only by the absolute abysmal quality of the employees working at Interpol.
January 15, 2010, 2:25 pmrj says:
But…but…ACORN! Founders! Birth certificate! Obamanation! Statists under the bed!
It seems that there is a certain subgroup of the population, both left and right depending on the administration, who believe the country is going to crumble because the guy they didn’t vote for got elected. Everything he does is considered suspect and part of a larger nefarious plot.
Watergate was a far greater threat to American democracy than anything going on today, and we got through that. Heck, we got through a Civil War! American apocalypticism is an ever-present strain of self-aggrandizing babble that paints its adherents as brave warriors for whom the fog has been lifted and everyone else as unthinking sheeple.
Do you really expect the should-know-better National Review and WorldNetDaily types who are shoveling out page after page of these accusations believe it, or are they just drumming up paranoia to sell subscriptions and their advertisers’ overpriced gold coins?
January 15, 2010, 2:41 pmAdam J says:
Good post David, glad to see some nice non-partisan analysis.
January 15, 2010, 2:58 pmCrunchy Frog says:
rj: You mean buying gold at its all-time peak isn’t a good idea?
Quel horreur!
January 15, 2010, 2:59 pmOrin Kerr says:
Helpful post, David.
January 15, 2010, 3:06 pmJoseph Slater says:
I dunno about immunity, but I think some of Interpol’s work is kind of catchy.
January 15, 2010, 3:09 pmKirk Parker says:
rj,
Nice assertion, but perhaps you could provide a little analysis to go along with it?
January 15, 2010, 4:34 pmmethodact says:
Interpol like everyone else, tends toward loyalty to the nominal unit. That is perhaps why Ron Noble was not selected for the position of US Attorney General as many predicted he would be.
But Noble, like many in power, plays politics. Noble declared that terrorists pirate software to help fund terrorism, and Interpol, accepted money from Microsoft, in kind.
The for-consumption picture of Interpol is as portrayed in the movie, The International (2009), where Interpol takes on the world bankers to stop them from starting and financing both sides of wars and generally controlling puppet governments. Perhaps the opposite is more likely true, that they align with the globalist banksters that are deliberately destroying the global economy as described by John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
Pornography: A History of Civilization (1999), discusses Interpol’s long roll in trying to quash pornography from its inception throughout Europe. Interpol continues to try and grow its budget, scope and power. It still demonizes child porn and it exerts much control crushing that genre of art and hence represses young people.
Alarm cries are already sounding in many circles that Interpol has an agenda and the globalists will doubtless not hesitate to fully exploit it, cultivate and grow it, right here in the US, as a means of end-running what is left of the few remaining vestiges of our rapidly diminishing Bill of Rights.
January 15, 2010, 4:45 pmAdam J says:
methodact – So, an unproven hypothesis with incomprehensible terminology (a nominal unit isn’t what you think it is), an 11 year old television series and a fictional movie are the evidence for your argument that there is an conspiracy by “globalists” to undermine our Bill of Rights?
January 15, 2010, 5:35 pmjakecollins says:
The fact that the VC feels the need to clarify that Obama was not in fact introducing World Government when he signed the EO shines a disappointing light on the paranoia rampant in its readership.
January 15, 2010, 5:55 pmSteve P. says:
jakecollins – In my view, it wasn’t particularly rampant. If I recall, there were a couple or three players who assumed the worst, and far more commenters who took the view that it was minor or unimportant. I’d blame Newt Gingrich and Andrew McCarthy (who apparently are sticking with the conspiracy theory) more than a few gullible conservatives.
January 15, 2010, 6:09 pmModest Health Care Proposals, and for other purposes…. « Random Musings of a Deranged Mind says:
[...] Why panic about Obama’s Interpol order is overblown. [...]
January 15, 2010, 6:54 pmmethodact says:
Adam J:
These cites resonate with me precisely because Interpol is long on my radar screen.
The International (2009), paints Interpol as opposing the globalist banksters, not in league with them. Naturally we root for Interpol in this movie.
You ignore the John Perkins reference. You pretend I use a malapropism yet don’t list your etymology.
Evidence abounds of the global banking conspiracy – certainly not limited to a few terse observations and references I cite here for brevity.
The 11-year-old program, Pornography: A History of Civilization, is not without some factual error, to be sure – they present the prevalence of pornography as being utterly ubiquitous in the recovered ruins of ancient Pompeii and as being the earliest known examples.
More recently, The History Channel presented Sex in the Ancient World, which explores the 3,000-year-old Turin Erotic Papyrus. But that doesn’t diminish Pornography: A History of Civilization‘s discussion of Interpol’s coveted role in enforcing morals.
Even J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with policing morals: “I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.”
ECHELON was set up as a 5 country consortium consisting of the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to provide an aggragate clearing house of global surveillance for the Intelligence Community.
The FBI now utilizes this for Law Enforcement intelligence collection too. Foreign counties gather and supply evidence which then falls outside of normally constitutional safeguard prohibitions, but which now represents an integral part of the information sharing collective. FBI’s CYBER SOLIDARITY: “Five Nations, One Mission”
The EO makes Interpol’s files sacrosanct and do you have any doubt that they will be used domestically?
Further, I note the conspiracies, I do not claim they are my theories. I do point out that the EO is not without controversy.
January 15, 2010, 7:17 pmzippypinhead says:
If anyone wants to learn more about Interpol-U.S. National Central Bureau (the U.S. coordinating arm of the organization), there’s a decent amount of information put out by USDOJ that should debunk the jackbooted-thugs-in-black-helicoptors myth (besides, all the really smart conspiracy theorists know the helicoptors are really a cute shade of UN blue when their invisibility cloaks aren’t activated, duh…).
I’d especially recommend the FAQ page on the USDOJ/Interpol public website,
January 15, 2010, 7:24 pmhttp://www.justice.gov/usncb/index.php
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January 15, 2010, 9:31 pmkuhnkat says:
Sounds reasonable, except, our own intelligence gathering agencies are controlled by limitations set by our own gubmint, as poor as some my think they are.
What limitations do Interpol have to prevent them from becoming too intrusive in their information gathering, use and release??
January 15, 2010, 9:40 pmMore on the Interpol Executive Order | Snowflakes in Hell says:
[...] Dave Kopel is talking about the executive order Obama signed, giving Interpol some added immunities,…. It’s a pretty thorough article that gives a good background. [...]
January 15, 2010, 11:03 pmjccamp says:
Because Interpol has no data collection apparatus of its own, it must rely on other, national police agencies for all of its information. Interpol, in theory, acts as a multi-directional pipeline, receiving requests, deciding where the requests should go, and forwarding any replies to both the (query) originating agency and any other agencies logically having an interest. Each nation designates a control point agency which serves as the single contact with Interpol for that country.
Interpol has no field agents, detectives, investigators, task forces and the like of its own. It has no capability for data collection other than what it can cajole from member (national) agencies.
We have all seen examples of agencies within the U S intelligence field and U S law enforcement refusing to share information with other U S agencies. Try to imagine a national law enforcement authority sharing anything of a sensitive nature with Interpol, who will distribute that information (and presumably, sources and methods, etc) to who knows where.
As for staffing, the USNCB, the U S arm of Interpol, is staffed by members of various Justice Department agencies. At one point, most were FBI agents. I have no idea of the make-up now. Put yourself in the position of a Justice Department supervisor. You have to give up two people for a period of years for detached duty at USNCB. Who are you going to give up? Typically, it would be the dullards, the dolts, the sick, lame and lazy who end up at Interpol. No manager is going to surrender superior employees for (non-critical) assignment outside of agency.
There’s probably a better chance of the One World Government being seized by the 3 Stooges Fan Club than by these guys.
January 15, 2010, 11:06 pmkuhnkat says:
JCCamp,
If Interpol is a toothless as you state the money and time spent on them is wasted. Disband them for being useless and definitely do NOT give them any more advantages than a normal US citizen.
January 15, 2010, 11:46 pmleo marvin says:
No can do. We need them to man the toll booths on the NAFTA Super Highway. Those Ameros won’t collect themselves!
January 16, 2010, 1:04 amRicardo says:
He ignored it because John Perkins is a transparent charlatan. He comments on one area I kind of know something about in claiming he developed “the Markov method for econometric modeling” and claimed to have published several papers on this subject through “prestigious organizations” and presented them around the world at universities and conferences and that he became “famous” for this work. This is 100% hogwash.
Nice work in shedding some light on the subject of Interpol!
January 16, 2010, 4:03 amjccamp says:
kuhnkat –
Interpol is another of those good-in-theory, abysmal-in-practice international agencies for which there seems to be a demonstrable need…you know, like most (all?) of the UN alphabet of bureaucracies that do little besides soak up tax dollars and provide a lifetime sinecure for people who can’t hold down a job in the private sector. Or something like that.
But, having been created, there is little chance of it going away short of a movie-style apocalypse which destroys all signs of civilization, no matter how dysfunctional it is.
But your point is well taken.
January 16, 2010, 9:16 ammethodact says:
Ricardo:
Actually, I wouldn’t turn down a Nobel Prize for Economics for my theory that pure socialism robs incentive and pure capitalism always ends in monopoly where “surplus” population has to be destroyed.
My readings on the early work regarding the Amero include the 1999 Fraser Institute The Case for the Amero: The Economics and Politics of a North American Monetary Union, by Hurbert G. Grubel, and North American Monetary Union: A United States Perspective by Benjamin J. Cohen, out of the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Paper 29, from the year 2004. Benjamin J. Cohen also writes cogently on Bretton Woods.
My belief is that the globalist bankers have modified those plans for a new currency based on an “Amero”, and generally adapt as their plans are outed and met with sufficiently strong opposition.
It is my aim to understand, not simply to pontificate as a blowhard. To be better able to understand, is well facilitated in idola fori, the marketplace of ideas.
In a world of real conspiracies, one would expect that differing ideas and notions are not examined and analysed for themselves but rather that those putting forward ideas at odds with the conspiracy are attacked ad hominem, and discredited by ridicule and worse.
We live in a day and age of this marvelous technology known as the Internet. It allows this free exchange of ideas. If there is this real world of conspiracy, then it is reasonable to expect that the Internet is the number one threat to those building the prison planet control grid.
My impression is that the Internet is most vulnerable to destruction by taxation, ie., the power to tax is the power to destroy. If the world ran out of energy, that would bring the Internet down, but that isn’t so immediate a threat as is the censorship pretexts that the police state is constructing around the world.
So my main concern with Interpol, is what role will it have it in taking down the Internet for the globalists? How Interpol may impinge on domestic Constitutional rights eventually, is even a less immediate concern than that.
January 16, 2010, 12:17 pmJPG says:
Excellent post Mr. Kopel.
January 16, 2010, 6:39 pmfirst history says:
But….but….How can Chuck Norris (“Obama’s Secret Vault“, WorldNetDaily) be wrong? Surely he is smarter than Prof. Kopel:
Really, you can’t make this stuff up (except I guess Chuck can). Now that my computer has visited WorldNutDaily, I have to take it get it decontaminated.
January 16, 2010, 7:01 pmInterpol Largely Powerless in United States | Constant Conservative says:
[...] Volokh: Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of concern in some quarters about President [...]
January 16, 2010, 8:14 pmleo marvin says:
On the contrary. Ryan Waxx has removed the scales from my eyes. I see Chuck Norris for the sock puppet he is, out to embarrass the Right. And well done — that piece is pretty funny.
January 16, 2010, 8:23 pmgrog says:
If there is this real world of conspiracy, then it is reasonable to expect that the Internet is the number one threat to those building the prison planet control grid.
How can I subscribe to your newsletter?
(And BTW, Thank you, Kopel. As someone who frequently disagrees with you, I find this a wonderfully refreshing, sensible look at one of the hydra heads.)
January 17, 2010, 11:10 amHere’s a Bill That Will Never Pass – The WashingtonWatch.com Blog says:
[...] That executive order extended certain legal immunities to INTERPOL, the international police organization that coordinates information exchange about criminal activity among many governments. It stirred fears and objections in some quarters, but maybe a little more than is merited. [...]
January 17, 2010, 11:48 amInterpol Realism « Nugent Report says:
[...] . . . . (continue) [...]
January 17, 2010, 10:56 pmdeek says:
I suppose the DOJ or the Obama Administration couldn’t avoid the Freedom of Information Act by storing any documents they wanted in the US office???
I suppose Obama, acting as UN Security Chief (though against the Constitution) isn’t a conflict of interest?
February 17, 2010, 11:49 pmDave Kopel’s Second Amendment Newsletter | The American Jingoist says:
[...] David Kopel The Volokh Conspiracy January 15, 2010 http://volokh.com/2010/01/15/interpol-realism/ [...]
March 4, 2010, 1:53 pm