How are US departmental policies enforceable? I don't understand: what's the point in all those numerous policies issued by departments for their staff if, as I understand it, they are not enforceable? There is no legal punishment for not sticking to them, and inspectors general — or anyone else besides the president — are not free to fire all those who don't. For example, in 2016, the State Department's Inspector General issued a report where he admitted that some of its former employees, including Hillary Clinton, did not follow its policies in terms of storing and securing federal records, such as work-related emails. No punishment followed because those policies are not the law, and, even it was found out earlier, no Inspector General would have the authority to dismiss Mrs. Clinton, it's POTUS's prerogative, as I understand it. So all those policies are just unenforceable recommendations, aren't they? What's the point then?
No punishment followed because those policies are not the law, and, even it was found out earlier, no Inspector General would have the authority to dismiss Mrs. Cliton, it's POTUS's prerogative, as I understand it. That is true for maybe 10 people max in a government department. For the tens or hundreds of thousands of employees who weren't appointed by the President to serve at their pleasure, violating policies can lead to suspension, fines, or dismissal.
The law is really bad at protecting whistleblowers From my understanding of US law, this is not unauthorised access to a computer: the reporter made a legitimate request to a remote computer, that computer provided data,the reporter accessed the supplied data on their own computer. However, pointing out the failures of people in power is fraught even if it is not illegal. It is certainly within the Governor’s power to authorise an investigation of the reporter. On the face of the law, it seems reasonable to suspect that what was done might be a violation so there is nothing legally wrong with initiating an investigation. I suspect that such a broad interpretation of the law would fall foul of the First Amendment which may partly explain why it wasn’t prosecuted: the government doesn’t want to find out. Similarly they can issue press releases, which, due to the First Amendment, don’t have to be true, just not defamatory. Saying it’s a possible violation is true and not defamatory. Saying the reporter was an evil person who is only doing this for political purposes is a statement of opinion and not defamatory. It’s a fact of the world that people with power can use that power in ways that are malicious, unethical, and unfair but not necessarily illegal.
The governing law would be the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961). The relevant part is Article 29. Diplomats must not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. Diplomats are also immune from civil and criminal prosecution. Technically, it wasn't a US diplomat but a family member, but by Article 37 they have the same protection. The linked article suggests that her diplomatic immunity ended, but that's a bit of a non-issue. The host nation (the UK in this case) can declare anyone, diplomats or family to be persona non grata which indeed ends diplomatic immunity, but only after the person is allowed to leave the host nation. And when the act happened, the immunity was in place. Immunity cannot retroactively be withdrawn by the host nation.
Qualified immunity is a doctrine that protects government officials (including police) from civil liability in §1983 suits. Anderson v. Creighton describes the legal standard - objective legal reasonableness. There is no condition that would strip an officer of civil immunity and open him up to criminal liability because the criminal charges could attach regardless of the disposition of civil liability. I say "could" because who is going to charge and prosecute the crime? The CATO Institute tracks police misconduct. Not all misconduct is criminal, but reading through their site will give you an idea of why it is difficult to determine when and why cops are charged with crimes. Only a small fraction of the 17,000 law enforcement agencies actually track their own misconduct in a semi-public manner, and even when they do, the data they provide is generic and does not specify what misconduct occurred, who did it, and what the end result was.
It is not a crime in the US. It may be a firing offense depending on the nature of the appointment (that is, what exactly do you mean by &quot;diplomat&quot;?) or at least cause for demotion / reassignment. A diplomat from another country could be declared persona non grata, but again it is not a crime to act contrary to a governmental boycott call, in the US. This follows from the First Amendment.
That remains to be determined. This article (100 Tex. L. Rev. 56 (2021)) discusses the possibility. To start, the Constitution does not directly say that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. The lack of an express presidential immunity and the fact that an attempt by Madison to create such an immunity is an indication of &quot;original intent&quot;. The view that an incumbent president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, convicted or punished is a policy stance set forth by the Dept. of justice, but is not constitutional law. Alito in Trump v. Vance points to some apparently negative consequences of allowing indictment of a sitting president, but this was in a dissenting opinion. Practical considerations of policy might argue for not prosecuting a sitting president, but the Constitution itself does not expressly forbid it. As we know from numerous SCOTUS rulings, the court is also capable of finding implicit support for a rule in the Constitution. For example theimpeachment provisions do not demand or even hint that impeachment must precede trial and punishment. An argument that prosecution would &quot;incapacitate&quot; the president is met with the fact that there is a provision for replacing an incapacitated POTUS with VPOTUS as acting president. The idea that a trial interferes with a person's ability to do their job (or that they can't adequately participate in their defense if they are doing their job) has not actually prevented ordinary people with jobs from being prosecuted for their crimes.
There's not any well-defined notion of what a person with a Red Notice is "allowed" to do. The notice doesn't have any legal force of its own. You can read more about Red Notices on Interpol's web site: INTERPOL cannot compel any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of a Red Notice. Each member country decides for itself what legal value to give a Red Notice within their borders. So it would be up to the US authorities to decide what, if anything, to do about the Red Notice, in compliance with US law. We can only speculate as to why they declined to flag his passport and/or detain him. Without knowing anything about the specific case in question, here are some possibilities: They may have felt there wasn't sufficient evidence against him to justify detaining him. The conduct of which he was accused may not have been a crime under US law. They may have believed the Brazilian arrest warrant was primarily politically motivated. They may have wanted to annoy the Brazilian government, or make a political statement against its actions, by failing to cooperate. They may have decided that it simply wasn't a good use of their funds to pursue the case. They may have been lazy or incompetent or oblivious and simply not known where he was or what he was planning to do. The fact that he was intending to travel to Brazil voluntarily may or may not have been a factor in their inaction.
It is difficult to keep track of the rapidly changing legal variables, but it would be illegal and unconstitutional for state police to set up an unauthorized stop-and-search checkpoint on the road ("due process" means "following the law"). As a prelude, there would have to be some higher authority that empowers them to do this. You would have to scrutinize the emergency powers legislation of every state to be certain, but no governor has the power to mandate blanket body searches in case of a medical emergency. (Martial law shifts enforcement of the law to the military, but doesn't generally create arbitrary decree-writing powers). The legal foundation of such searching would have to be a new law: then the question is what the law requires that could make on-the-road body searches constitutional. Since the right to be free of unreasonable searches is a fundamental constitutional right, this law would be reviewed under strict scrutiny. Searches "just for fun" will not pass such scrutiny, nor will "because it's an emergency" or "keep the public safe". Having the disease is not and cannot be a crime, so this law would have to be founded on a strict no-travel requirement. That brings the matter within the sphere of the "officer safety" exception in the case of an arrest. I'm not suggesting that an absolute travel ban would be upheld as constitutional in the US, but that is the kind of legal foundation that would be required for state police to force people to be Covid-searched.