The new New World Order is afoot!
Barack Obama signed an Executive Order amending one of Ronald Reagan’s executive orders, which rescinded the exclusion INTERPOL would otherwise have from American tax laws.
Short version: INTERPOL employees are no longer liable for American taxes. That’s about it.
Of course, if there’s one thing we know about the great body of conservative bloggers, it’s that their collective vocabulary is about 75 words, and roughly a third of those are synonyms for “Sharia”.
Let’s start with Erick Ericson at Redstate:
The best and most reasonable take comes from Andy McCarthy. Let me put this in perspective for you.
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For no discernible reason whatsoever, last Wednesday when no one was looking, Barack Obama signed an executive order giving all immunities of foreign powers to Interpol.
In other words, Interpol is now in a better position than any American law enforcement institution that operates on American soil. It cannot have its records searched or seized and it is not subject to the restraints of sunshine and transparency that FOIA requests can bring.
At a time when Obama is worried about ensuring the rights of terrorists against the abuses of the American government, he has no problem surrendering American rights to an arm of the United Nations.
Predictably, the fact that Barack Obama has allowed the World Police to operate within our borders and given them all of West Virginia to use as concentration camps (READ BETWEEN THE LINES, PEOPLE) is setting off alarms among the most vigilant of our civilian security forces. The Anchoress is worried that this is the beginning of Kristallnacht, and that INTERPOL and ACORN are somehow going to join forces to form the ultimate acronym, CLARINET PORNO. Confederate Yankee is pretty damn sure that they still have actual Nazis running INTERPOL, and that somehow these tax regulations will allow them to kidnap American soldiers for gay sex in Amsterdam.
The Astute Bloggers believe Barack Obama has empowered INTERPOL to capture George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for war crimes. Protein Wisdom is pretty sure that Obama plain hates the constitution and was a shitty law professor, which burns most of all.
Now, sure, all of these people are total morons. But they’re actually super double special fucking morons, and for a very special reason.
Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act exempts property, assets and archives of international organizations from search and seizure. Reagan’s exclusion of 2(c)‘s protections had nothing to do with FOIA or any other American law (and, for a very key reason, couldn’t possibly impact them). You can’t enforce American tax laws if the organization’s property is exempt from search or seizure. It’s impossible. Go find a foreign consulate and try it. I’ll wait.
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SEE?!?!?!?
More importantly, though, are Sections 2(b) and 7(b) of the Act. Here’s what they say, in order:
International organizations, their property and their assets, wherever located, and by whomsoever held, shall enjoy the same immunity from suit and every form of judicial process as is enjoyed by foreign governments, except to the extent that such organizations may expressly waive their immunity for the purpose of any proceedings or by the terms of any contract.
Representatives of foreign governments in or to international organizations and officers and employees of such organizations shall be immune from suit and legal process relating to acts performed by them in their official capacity and falling within their functions as such representatives, officers, or employees except insofar as such immunity may be waived by the foreign government or international organization concerned.
With the exception of taxes, INTERPOL and its employees are already immune to suit and American legal process for all official acts in accordance with foreign diplomatic immunity. Notice that Reagan never repealed either of these sections, which are the, er, actual relevant sections with regard to all the black helicopter shit going on above. (Rest easy, though - the President can at any time revoke INTERPOL’s status if they step out of line.)
In summary: Barack Obama is no longer submitting INTERPOL employees to double taxation. Because figuring this out required nearly five minutes of Googling and reading, conservative bloggers cut out all that unnecessary mess and just decided that we are now subjected to the vast and unstoppable tyranny of an…international police support network whose major function is to provide technological and database assistance in international crimes, with little authority or mechanism to effect arrests on its own.
I really do wonder some days if the only exposure that conservative bloggers had to foreign policy was Street Figher: The Movie. Maybe they wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worried that Raul Julia is coming for them? That would make more sense than the alternative, which is that they’re too stupid to function in human society.
UPDATE: Xeranar points out that INTERPOL itself, not being a federal government agency, was exempt from FOIA anyway. I suppose the worry is that the DOJ’s INTERPOL bureau would be exempt from FOIA, but the President’s Executive Order only applies to the actual organization of INTERPOL, not the DOJ’s liaison. It’s like arguing that foreign diplomatic immunity shields American diplomats from responsibility for American crimes because the diplomats have become citizens of the countries they’re sent to.
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I would think Interpol would be happy not to pay taxes. Isn’t that every band’s dream?