United States Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser
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The Office of the Legal Advisor is an agency of the United States Department of State. The office was created by Executive Order in 1931 and is headed by the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. According to articles published in the Washington Post c.1989, this office issued four 'secret' rulings prior to the 1988-89 US invasion of Panama.
One ruling interpreted President Gerald Ford's Executive Order 11905 prohibiting U.S. assassinations of foreign leaders. The ruling said only intentional killings of foreign leaders were prohibited; 'accidental' killings of foreign leaders were thus allowed. The effect of this ruling was to allow or signal that the U.S. could now accidentally kill Manuel Noriega.
Another ruling affected "posse comitatus,", the law that bars the U.S. military from acting as police during peacetime. The ruling noted that for a U.S. law to apply outside the U.S. territory, Congress must explicitly say the law has extraterritorial effect, But Congress did not say so as to 'posse comitatus.' Thus, the ruling said, the U.S. military could act as police outside U.S. territory, for example in Panama.
