Sovereignty's Sunset?

Evidently, there is to be no further protection for Americans from what purports to be "international justice" these days. On December 17, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama signed an executive order providing full diplomatic immunity for the actions of INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) within the borders of the United States of America (h/t DRJ at Patterico's Pontifications). According to the national security-oriented website ThreatsWatch.Org:

Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order “Amending Executive Order 12425.” It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other “International Organizations” as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.

By removing language from President Reagan’s 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates – now operates – on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, writing at National Review Online, explains further:

By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.

Obama's reversal of Reagan's protections thus has the potential to expose Americans to arrest and detention by INTERPOL via charges filed through the International Criminal Court (ICC) or other Tranzi organizations which presume to exercise global legal authority. Last April, I wrote about an ongoing effort by a Spanish judge to indict several Bush administration officials for the alleged mistreatment of terrorist detainees at Guantánamo Bay:

Who is behind this move? None other than Baltasar Garzón, the same Spanish judge who ordered the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back in 1998. The soon-to-be indicted American officials include John Yoo, formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who advised President George W. Bush had the authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, currently a federal judge and formerly of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; David Addington, chief of staff and legal adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney; and finally former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

I don't doubt for a minute that Obama's executive order is a preliminary step in trying to encourage legal harassment against members of the previous administration. This is a man who has made a habit of apologizing for being an American and of giving the benefit of the doubt to our country's enemies time and again.

It is a shame that our country spent the better part of four decades fighting international communism abroad only to see it imposed at home.

Update:

In the Tuesday, December 29, 2009 issue of The New York Times, the aforementioned John Yoo - one of Judge Garzón's targets - gave a rather funny interview (h/t Ace of Spades HQ). Here's an excerpt:

NYT: Do you regret writing the so-called torture memos, which claimed that President Bush was legally entitled to ignore laws prohibiting torture?
Yoo: No, I had to write them. It was my job. As a lawyer, I had a client. The client needed a legal question answered.

NYT: When you say you had “a client,” do you mean President Bush?
Yoo: Yes, I mean the president, but also the U.S. government as a whole.

NYT: But isn’t a lawyer in the Department of Justice there to serve the people of this country?
Yoo: Yes, I think you are quite right, when the government is executing the laws, but if there’s a conflict between the president and the Congress, then you have to pick one or the other.

NYT: Were you close to George Bush?
Yoo: No, I’ve never met him. I don’t know Cheney either. I have not gone hunting with him, which is probably a good thing for me.

NYT: Weren’t you invited to the White House Christmas party during your two years at the Department of Justice?
Yoo: I don’t think so. That’s the way the government works. There’s the attorney general, then the deputy attorney general and then an associate attorney general. Then there’s the assistant attorney general, who was the head of my office.

NYT: So you’re saying you were just one notch above an intern, you and Monica Lewinsky?
Yoo: She was much closer to the president than I ever was.

Please, read the whole thing. Definitely one of the best interviews of 2009.