Interpol is an international organization but one with autonomous national branches in each of its member countries and which fall under the laws of those individual countries.
The U.S. has its own Interpol force (Washington Interpol) which acts as a representative to Interpol, the international organization. Washington Interpol is composed of American citizens who are U.S. government employees (both Dept. of Justice and Homeland Security). As such, they must entirely adhere to U.S. laws and must operate within limits defined by the U.S. Constitution. This is how we can, and must, hold them to account.
There can be no doubt that Interpol is currently engaging in unprecedented domain expansion with, not only sex offender notifications, but with its system of “Notices” in general and a level of intergovernmental collusion which can only be seen as circumventing the due process rights of their own respective citizens. It is on this basis which they must be challenged.
The U.S., as I pointed out in the piece I wrote in June of this year, is, with this system of notification to foreign governments of its citizens criminal conviction history, asserting that it is not limiting the travel rights of their citizens (but which is being contemplated by International Megan’s Law were it to be signed into law).
Rather, its principle conceit is that it is simply providing advance notification to those countries to which the “offender” wishes to travel. The entirety of the decision to allow or disallow entry to those “offenders” is made, in this interpretation, solely by those foreign governments.
It is this ‘good faith’ representation by the U.S. government, in which its complicity with foreign governments to demonstrably harm the liberty interests of its citizens, which must be challenged.
There can be no reasonable interpretation of this policy of information sharing as anything other than an unwarranted attack by the U.S. Government upon the rights of its citizens.
Any court challenge mounted against this policy will almost certainly turn on this issue.
But this is where we need experienced legal counsel, if we are to move forward.
*** This was a comment on International Travel – China / Thailand by David Kennerly, Nov 21 ***
I have always known this since the International Megan’s Law was pursued in its early days. The plausible deniability was purposely built in to effect the maximum damage without legal consequences. The only way to fight this is, in fact, with a preponderance of evidence, in this case an abnormally high amount of travel rejections. This is the same way that sex offender registry laws were originally predicated on the high recidivism rate, which have since been proven false through emphatically rebuted statistics over the course of several years.
The problem is that once a precedent has been set, it’s extremely hard to reverse. Possession is nine-tenths of the law in this case.
It would also need to turn on the issue of “all men being equal under the law.”
If green notices were being sent out to other countries in regards to travelers of every conviction class, that would be one thing. Specifically targeting one particular low-recidivist demographic while ignoring those with much higher rates (drug trafficking, for example. Not to mention theft, fraud, and other white collar crimes) debunks the entire basis of their argument.
Certainly due process is an issue. But these administrative policies should also be challenged on matters of equality, and the lack of public safety benefit gained by them (as is born out by the consistent studies showing that +/- 95% of such crimes are committed by those not on any registry.)
I post the link to this article just for informational purposes and to see if any comments or ideas come out of it.
http://euobserver.com/justice/121207
Two problems:
1. Most crimes are not international in scope and most people are not thinking about going to another country just to violate the laws there.
2. What is a crime in the United States isn’t necessarily a crime somewhere else or vise versa.
Call these notifications whatever you want, but the sick truth is they are nothing more than a conforming to our standards/scare tactic. Basically the United States is saying look what we put people in prison for and make them register as sex offenders for, aren’t they scary? You don’t want someone who touched the genitals of a 14 year old coming to your country do you? (Leaving out the fact that the toucher was in a relationship with the 14 year old and at the time was 16). Interpol would look at the language given to them and go hell no! At the same time the people everyone should be concerned with are sneaking in and out of any county they want doing things most people wouldn’t believe even if shown photos and videos of the activity.
Based on some conversations and input I have had with folks who work in the world of international travel and tourism, one thing registered citizens may wish to try is to reach out to your international travel destination’s consulate BEFORE you make your travel arrangements. Let them know your situation and your stated business in their country and that not wanting any surprises, you are moving through official channels.
There are two instances I am personally aware of that happened when people were trying to enter Canada and both involved prior DUI convictions. One was a person who was a keynote speaker who was supposed to be a guest speaker at a conference in Edmonton. The other was someone who was flying in to attend a meeting in Toronto. Both were pulled aside by Customs. In the speaker’s situation, he was detained and they were saying they weren’t going to let him in. He almost missed his speech but they did let him in. In the conference attendee’s situation, he was turned away and had to return to the States. The advice of these international travel experts was that talking to the country’s consulate in advance can avoid the embarrassment.
Part of this recent push against registered citizens is driven by what is reported as a crisis of epidemic proportion in worldwide human trafficking and sex tourism. Prior to that, what we have seen in the last ten years is other countries pushing back and reciprocating U.S. citizens’ scrutiny much like we scrutinize their citizens traveling to the U.S. since the passing of the Patriot Act, i.e. post 9/11.
Concerning what is law with the instant deportation program set up by DHS and Interpol:
1) The Statutory reference is 42 U.S. Code 16928:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/16928
2) The Regulatory/ ploicy reference for this program is the Federal Register:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-05-14/html/2010-11665.htm
3) If you read these carefully, the current instant deportation program looks nothing like the 42 U.S.C. 16928 description.
Discussion here:
http://congress-courts-legislation.blogspot.com/2011/07/public-was-mislead-by-2010-proposed.html
This program could be challenged as Unlawful or Illegal based on the current program (current policy and regulations) significantly different in scope than the current law (42 U.S. Code 16928). The US Code and even the regulations published in the federal register specify a passive information sharing system between law enforcement. But we know what is really happening now is an active program by US law enforcement to prevent the travel of US registered citizens and there is very little information sharing between law enforcement of foreign countries.
4) If International Meagan’s Law is passed by Congress, then this instant deportation program could be become law or statutory and likely 42 US Code 16928 would be rewritten. Right now it is not law. Instead it is regulatory or policy based on the Federal Register and not based on 42 US Code 16928. 42 US Code 16928 and the current Federal Register are very different in scope.
5) US v. Lunsford (2013) “Congress did not give SORNA extraterritorial effect, see 42 U.S.C. § 16911(10), and when a sex offender leaves the country, he no longer poses an immediate threat to the safety of children in the United States. The government asserts no policy interest under SORNA in monitoring the offender’s subsequent movements among foreign jurisdictions.”
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1641104.html
Thank you all for doing all this fact checking. I still haven’t heard the government telling any of you why they considered you likely to commit a crime in the destination country. Guess it is just bureaucratic laziness to assume a previous offense means likeliness to commit a new crime (despite the statistics) and they won’t look into it until challenged. Although I haven’t traveled internationally since my conviction, and I don’t have any personal experiences to share in that realm, I am really cheering you guys on.
http://www.governmentattic.org/12docs/USMSsexOffenderTargetingCtrRpts_2014.pdf
I found this lengthy report when I was snooping around the SMART website. It’s mind boggling to see all the bureaucracies involved in this tracking scheme.
Sharing More Information Will Enable Federal Agencies to Improve Notifications of Sex Offenders’ International Travel.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/652194.pdf
I found this tidbit interesting: pg.8
—————————————————————————
Although NOT REQUIRED to do so under SORNA, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division, consistent with its objective to target transnational sexual exploitation of children, developed the Angel Watch program. The purpose of this
program is to provide advance notice to foreign officials when a registered
sex offender who committed a crime against a child is traveling from the United States to a foreign country.
——————————————————————————
It looks like ICE is acting on its own behalf in sending these slanderous and biased notices to foreign countries due to a couple certain cases. punish the masses for the acts of a few.
Check out the report above. It looks like flagging is just happening to those who crimes with children victims. Seems like we’re starting to narrow this down.
FY 2016 DOJ Interpol Brief:
Source:
http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/pages/attachments/2015/02/01/15._interpol_washington_ipol.pdf
Pg 14: Priority Goal 4: “Protecting the most vulnerable members of society”
INTERPOL Washington is using its exclusive authority to issue INTERPOL Green Notices as a systematic means of alerting domestic and foreign police agencies to the presence of serious child sex offenders travelling from abroad. In this regard, INTERPOL Washington’s authority now includes the ability to publish Green Notices on U.S. citizens and Legal Permanent Residents with an international nexus that fit the definition of Tier II and III sex offenders under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 USC § 16911(4).1. Complementing these efforts, INTERPOL Washington has entered into a partnership with the U.S. Marshals Service’s National Sex Offender Targeting Center to identify, target, and track non-compliant sex offenders that travel internationally.
INTERPOL Washington has partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in support of Operation Predator to identify foreign sex offenders whose crimes make them removable from the United States. This includes child sex predators, smugglers, and traffickers, as well as individuals involved in the distribution of images of child sexual abuse via the Internet. To date, INTERPOL Washington has published nearly 6,000 Green Notices in support of this operation.
Pg 18: Sex Offender Travel Notification
Each year, millions of children fall prey to sexual predators. These offenders pose an ongoing and significant risk of re-engaging in sex offenses even after being released from incarceration or commitment, including by traveling internationally to locations where they may be less susceptible to detection by law enforcement authorities. In the United States, protecting the public from sex offenders is of paramount governmental concern.
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice convened a multi-agency working group whose purpose was to develop a comprehensive strategy for tracking registered sex offenders entering and departing the United States. To that end, in 2010 INTERPOL Washington amended its System of Records Notice (SORN) to enable it to issue Green Notices on U.S. citizens and Legal Permanent Residents who have prior convictions involving sex offenses and certain other violent crimes, and who may pose a threat to the international community.
Presently, there are an estimated 725,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. As such, it would be highly impracticable to issue Green Notices on even a small percentage of them. Consequently, INTERPOL Washington has targeted a population consisting of those sex offenders who are likely to travel internationally and who qualify as the “worst of the worst”.
In addition to its use of Green Notices, INTERPOL Washington has partnered with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) and other federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies, INTERPOL Washington plays a key role in providing notifications to 189 other INTERPOL member countries regarding convicted sex offenders that are planning to visit or relocate, or who are being deported. INTERPOL Washington has provided more than 5,000 such notifications since 2012. This partnership also extends locating and apprehending non-compliant fugitive offenders that flee overseas and coordinating investigations of fugitive sex offenders that flee to the United States.
Just recently, INTERPOL Washington has subsequently entered into discussions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to screen all airline passenger manifests against the National Sex Offender Registry in furtherance of its existing traveling child sex offender notification program. These efforts when fully operational will ensure that U.S. law enforcement is providing more comprehensive information to our foreign counterparts regarding sex offender traveling internationally as well as address a recommendation made in the February 2013 GAO Report Registered Sex Offenders: Sharing More Information Will Enable Federal Agencies to Improve Notification of Sex Offenders’ International Travel.
Under this new process, passenger flight information from CBP will be routinely screened against the national Sex Offender Registry database to identify traveling, convicted sex offenders. CBP will notify INTERPOL Washington, along with their current notifications to the USMS and ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of those travelers that are registered as convicted sex offenders. INTERPOL Washington will then send a secure message to the inbound country advising of the impending travel with carbon copies to USMS, HSI, FBI and Department of State. Following the message, INTERPOL Washington will then issue a Green Notice for the convicted sex offender.
This Green Notice will remain in effect for a period of five years, unless the offender is removed from the registry pursuant to legal, court action. The issue of the secure message helps foreign countries determine admissibility of the convicted sex offender. In those instances where a convicted sex offender is admitted into a country and purchases a ticket to a separate, unidentified foreign destination to possibly reoffend, the Green Notice will be in place to serve as a notification system to the ancillary inbound country.
These additional resources will allow INTERPOL Washington to issue messages and/or Green Notices 24/7/365 on traveling sex offenders. Currently, travel notifications made to INTERPOL Washington after normal business hours, weekends, and/or holidays, are triaged. Thus a delay may result in travel notifications being made after the convicted sex offender has already arrived in a foreign country.
INTERPOL Washington’s publication of Green Notices on qualifying sex offenders to foreign countries through I-24/7 furthers those governments’ interest in public safety and enhances strategies for crime detection and prevention against these offenders, including child pornographers, child sex tourists and facilitators, human smugglers, and those engaged in trafficking minors.
Test
“To date, INTERPOL Washington has published nearly 6,000 Green Notices in support of this operation.” A very disturbing number. So many lives turned upside down.
Contrast this number with the 2015 US Trafficking Report listing the actual numbers of US citizens convicted for child sex tourism.
Source: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/245365.pdf
Page 357: “U.S. laws provide extraterritorial jurisdiction over child sex tourism offenses perpetrated overseas by U.S. citizens. FBI made six criminal arrests resulting in six indictments and two individuals were convicted in child sex tourism cases in FY 2014. DHS took proactive steps to prevent child sex tourism in 2014 and shared information with foreign law enforcement counterparts about registered child sex offenders prior to their travel abroad (from the United States). DHS made more than 45 child sex tourism related arrests in FY 2014.”
What is not published here is any empirical data by the US government that shows that registered US citizens are responsible for any of these cases. Instead what is published here is a false claim by the US government of a nexus established between child sex tourism and the international travel of US registered citizens simply because they travel or are listed on the US registry.
A lack of any evidence that any crimes were prevented by the US government’s “proactive steps to prevent child sex tourism in 2014 and shared information with foreign law enforcement counterparts about registered child sex offenders prior to their travel abroad (from the United States).”
How many, if any, of the 6000 US citizens who were prevented from traveling abroad had a conviction that was related to Child Sex Tourism or Trafficking as defined under the 2000 UN TIP Protocol?:
“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs… The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth [above] shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth [above] have been used.”
Will be taking a trip to HK in a few months. I have been to Hong Kong this past year without issues. I was wondering if i will have problems TRANSITING through China.
I have an idea we(meaning all registered sex offenders)should all organize a trip together on the same plane or planes and going to a destination that we know barrs us from entering and see if they turn us all away and also to overwhelm them with loads of paper work and notices and too increase the amount of cases in which we are turned away therefore violating our basic right to travel which would add to the statistics and lastly add to our ammunition as evidence for a supreme court trial…. what do you guys think?
I’ve thought the same. Count me in. I will bring my camera gear.
I like that idea. If I am going to shell out money for a vacation and be denied entry to the place I want to go, it should serve a purpose, like this turning it into a protest/educational event.
That is a good idea! Finding ways to make officials look like idiots and creating stastistical evidence in our favor.
Travel is getting out of hand hurting people it was not meant to hurt and cuausing damage to Families. Back over 5 years ago I was accused of touching a girls breast on the outside of the shirt. Long story was my Attorney and a bad Judge who has since been removed forced me to take a deal. The charges had been filed inccorectly and was actually a Level of PBL punishable by life! because of a allegation of Weopon or serious injury both not true. To streamline I fought back won a 3850 Hearing and was resentenced to a 3rd Degree Felony for Attempted Sexual Battery. Time served no sex probation etc. Because of the original charge in Florida you Automatically get PREDATOR status although I had 1 charge and not underage but a 33 year old woman. (This all started from a girl asking for $250,000 to settle and her friends have done this to other men) The civil was dropped her Attorney walked off the case I was resentenced by a new Judge and Predator status vacated. I travelled with no problems multiple times especially to Costa Rica even last year and November under the worst charges no issue. (Life Sentence Charge Predator Status) This was vacated and resentenced nunc pro tunc back to original date.
I registered like I always do and gave my 21 days notice etc. When I arrived in Costa Rica they let my wife in and then something caught her eye on my passport scan so she said she needed to ask somebody something. 20 minutes later she tell us I cannot enter because the USA has sent a request via Interpol that I should be denied entry and they want me back. My wife and I should my registrtion that reflected I was allowed to be in Costa and had been under a year ago. Never had a ticket or trouble in 18 years and spending holidays as always with our Familly (I have no history of any sex Tourism less anything underage) A supervisor showed me a computer letter that said it was clear I must be turned away the USA wants me back. I need to fix it and I can come back but not on that day. My wife cried we tried to show more info but they talked yet to another person who said they must follow the Interpol Request and I told them it was just a notification I was coming. He said NO it was a return order from my Country. I was taken to a area in the Airport with security and made to sit like 12 hours for the next flight back. I was told I needed to sign papers but I did not. They told me the reason for the return was not listed by Interpol. I was eventually showed a green Costa Rican form that the guy simply checked a box AFTER talking to me about why and what it could be so I was honest. They wouldnt give me a copy of the Interpol Alert as they said it was confidential!. I did take a photo of the paper they kept and did not sign it but a very nice security officer told me it was not related to the Interpol letter but simply a form to give me a quick reason Costa Rica was deporting me. They did not want to pay for my connenction and I was going to be stock far away from home but a nice Security guy went to Batt for me and I did get the trip all the way back. I was told I was not banned but that for today I couldnt enter try another time date or place. I was actually shocked what I was told but I am not going to put that out here. Once returned to Florida with no bags as I lef them with my wife who is still in Costa Waiting for me or will come back soon. I got the usual 2nd check and again a very nice Customs and Imigration agent greeted me I told her my story and she said she doesnt see anything in the computer that would have prevented my entry to Costa and she did not show USA or Florida wanted me back. In fact she said I would not have been allowed to even get on the plane if what Idescibed was valid. I checked and my online registration is showing I am in Costa Rica and all looks good. I was told even my security I should go to Nicaragua or Panama and simply come back by land or fly again the next day. I would have been in my window to do this. My wife and I decided to wait to hear from a lawyer here as she contacts one in Costa before we decide if to go back. I would need to register travel again now next week as a emergency etc. This has destroyed my Familly they are all upset. I own property and employee people and I cant even get back. I have been married 18 years and we have all the documents for me to become a Resident and Citizen but you must be in the country to put in the required docs and in person. Please anybody offer some advice. I am also willing to hire a lawyer both her and In Costa Rica but they are insistent the issue is with USA/Interpol and if I get that fixed to come back. I will also scan and post the redacted letter to share. I believe this is a good example for Janice or others to show how unjust this system is hurting good working people of all ages and economical status. I own mulitple companies and my wife is a Realtor!. WHo is this protecting and who is it punishing? Costa Rica is losing my Car Rental Hotel and Resort stay and instead I leave a depressed wife at her Moms alone for Christmas. Something has to be done and I want to know why I was even listed with a green . notice based on my lack of threat to anybody and how we can legally see the documents sent. Does a green notice go out 1 time for 1 Country? or each time? I know people have ways around the system but I am looking to simply follow the law but not be unjustly penalized by it. I could be a Murdered and I would have entered no problem. FDLE says they are not sending info to Ban entry
Thanks
If i have a Green notice against me and it says Thailand is the Country likely to be visited.
If i read things correctly the green notice is only sent to Thailand?
Can you guys school me on this notice and if anyone was able to remove it?
Does interpol focus on felonies, or any criminal record.
It seems as if they would be overwhelmed if they sent out a notice for every misdomeaor.
How do other countries address the travel notices of their citizens?