INTERPOL's Power to Prevent Diffusion Abuse: Legal, Political and Technological Considerations (in response to Dr. Theodore Bromund's 'INTERPOL's Lack of Power to Act Preemptively in Fighting Government Abuse of the Diffusion System')

The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files is an independent body with the exclusive power to adjudicate complaints from individuals seeking the deletion of information about them from INTERPOL's files. In its 2017 annual report (its most recent) published this year, the Commission acknowledges that some governments have succeeded in disseminating diffusions against the same individuals whom the Commission has already found to be victims of their INTERPOL abuse, and INTERPOL lacks a comprehensive mechanism to stop the unlawful practice. Even before the Commission published its report, I had been calling upon INTERPOL to monitor and block all incoming red notices and diffusions to ensure that no such request entered its channels if it concerned an individual already found to be a victim of INTERPOL abuse from the same government.  I have suggested that the organization should implement reliable software to conduct such monitoring. In his recent publication 'INTERPOL CCF's Latest Annual Report Highlights Fundamental Flaw in the System,' Dr. Theodore Bromund disagrees with my suggestion and argues that INTERPOL cannot simply introduce a new technology to fix the problem. According to Dr. Bromund, stopping the unlawful practice “would require both changing the diffusion system at a technical level and making appropriate changes in INTERPOL's Rules on the Processing of Data,” which “in turn would require a good deal of time and a vote in favor of the changes in INTERPOL's one-nation, one-vote General Assembly -- where it is far from clear that the nations wanting reform would be in the majority.”