Strategic Thinking about Red Notcies, Diffusions, and Extradition

[T]his power had to be given the instrument of permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance, capable of making all visible. . . . It had to be like a faceless gaze that transformed the whole social body into a field of perception: thousands of eyes posted everywhere.

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish:  The Birth of the Prison (1975)

There can be little doubt that advancements in technology in recent years have had a profound impact on policing in the United States and around the world. From the incorporation of military-grade technology by local police to the use of GPS technology, facial recogni-tion software, and biometrics devices, policing has undergone a fundamental transformation. (See ACLU, WAR COMES HOME: THE EXCESSIVE MILITARIZATION OF AMERICAN POLICING (2014), http://tinyurl.com/myxzoju.) As part of this trend, international policing has likewise experienced an evolution in communications and informa-tion-sharing technology that more rapidly facilitates the exchange of information between countries worldwide. Indeed, since 2002, Interpol—the world’s largest interna-tional law enforcement agency—has seen a 700 percent increase in the number of red notices issued seeking the location and arrest of wanted individuals across the globe. (Compare INTERPOL, ANNUAL REPORT 2003, at 5 (1,277 red notices issued in 2002), with INTERPOL, INTERNA-TIONAL NOTICES SYSTEM FACT SHEET 2 (10,718 red notices issued in 2014), both available at http://tinyurl.com/q6nox99.) Likewise, diffusions—informal requests placed on behalf of one country to certain member countries seek-ing the arrest and detention of an individual—have skyrocketed. (Compare INTERPOL, ANNUAL REPORT 2002, at 5 (7,500 diffusions issued in 2002), with INTERNATIONAL NOTICES SYSTEM FACT SHEET, supra, at 2 (21,922 diffusions issued in 2014).) Thanks in large part to streamlined opera-tional systems designed to improve the exchange of information, international policing has experienced an unprecedented transformation. Continue below.