Some distressing civil liberties questions must be asked about an ever-lengthening list of decisions, proposals, and observations by President Obama.
To begin, Obama is the first president to give an international law enforcement organization like Interpol free rein within the territorial confines of this nation, presumably not excluding the arrest and exportation of Americans to be charged with crimes under international law.
Put simply, this means the Constitution is no longer the supreme law of the land in America. Thanks to Executive Order 12425 , which Obama signed Dec. 16 without explaining why, the supreme law of the land is now arguably whatever Interpol says it is, most likely as directed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, in conjunction with the United Nations.
Maybe it’s just a bureaucratic snafu. Or perhaps Obama sincerely means to subsume U.S. law to what he views as a morally superior international body.
But what if he simply sees it as an innocuous path to the arrest and prosecution of selected political opponents for “crimes against humanity” in, say, Iraq and Afghanistan? The Far Left would get its pound of Bush-Cheney flesh, while leaving minimal blood on Obama’s hands and giving his defense and foreign policy critics reason to think twice before speaking candidly against him in the future.
If this seems far-fetched, let me remind you that this is the same Interpol and ICC that took seriously Iran’s Oct. 3, 2009, request that 25 top Israeli civilian and military officials be placed on the international “Most Wanted” list because of their actions in Gaza against murderous Palestinian radicals.
There’s also this observation by National Review’s Andy McCarthy: “Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, Freedom of Information Act, 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.” Executive Order 12425 circumvents all of that.
So tell us, Mr. President, why do you think Interpol should operate with no accountability and no transparency in our country? Is this what you had in mind in your 2008 presidential campaign when you said “we’ve got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military?
Pentagon generals and admirals answer to the president and Congress. Under Obama, Interpol answers to no American.
Then there is the president’s impatience with such messy democratic necessities as respecting the rights of legislative minorities. It galled him that Republicans dared use parliamentary procedures to require more debate during the Senate’s forced march to approve Obamacare before Christmas.
Obama vented during an interview with PBS , warning that other countries will “start running circles around us.” (Note that nobody ever called any of those other countries “a shining city on a hill” or, given their human rights records, likely ever will.)
Obama’s next words to PBS hint of a dangerous facet of his outlook: “We’re going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate.”
This is the classic complaint of kings and despots throughout history. Don’t bother them with delays and deliberation — what Obama misleadingly calls “politics” — when there is so much “governance” to be done.
Obama’s impatience with the Senate in 2009 recalls liberals’ disquietude in the 1950s with Congress constantly blunting the advance of their progressive agenda, thanks to the Constitution’s separation of powers, the seniority system, and the still-Democratic Solid South.
So liberals created the Imperial Presidency to “get things done” in Washington. Today, they have a congressional majority that disdains consensus and a president with the most liberal agenda in American history. Now, it’s out with “politics” and in with “governance.”
But, as George Washington explained, “government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
Obama disdains using American force against enemies abroad, but will a man who so furtively empowered Interpol hesitate to use such force against Americans who oppose him here at home?
Think very carefully before you answer.
UPDATED: Will Obama explain why Interpol?
White House spokesman Christina Reynolds told The New York Times’ Charles Savage that the Obama administration said nothing beyond a perfunctory web site announcement about Executive Order 12425 because “there is nothing newsworthy here.”
If there is nothing newsworthy involved, then why won’t the White House answer these basic questions regarding the EO?
* Every other international organization granted such exemptions deals with mundane issues like fish – the International Pacific Halibut Commission – or disaster aid – the Red Cross. But Interpol is a law enforcement operation. Why does President Obama think it appropriate to give such exemptions to an international law enforcement operation, and what does he want Interpol to do here in the U.S. in the future with the exemptions that it cannot do now without the exemptions?
* Does the search and seizure exemption extend to the activities and documents created by U.S. Department of Justice employees working with and for Interpol in New York and Washington, D.C.? If these employees and activities were already exempt from coverage of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), why have FOIA requests concerning them been previously answered?
These are serious questions that the White House ought have no hesitation about answering, if indeed “there is nothing newsworthy here.”
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog on www.washingtonexaminer.com washingtonexaminer.com.
