Some interesting data from four different Mexican cities around citizen reporting on the drug war using social media.  This was a good presentation.

Google should throw their weight behind legalization if they truly want to make a difference.

(Supporting the Drug War ) == (Doing Evil)

The new breaking story  down here is that the Army has acquired communication surveillance equipment amounting to roughly 700 million dollars worth. That’s a lot of pesos!

And we only know about this because an anonymous source leaked the info to journalist Cármen Aristegui, who collaborates with CNN Latin America (among other venues).

And it’s no secret that there’s a lot of political espionage going on between rival parties. Everybody has their own ‘bird on the wires’, including no doubt the druglords.

Furthermore, the President ordered the signing of the ACTA last week, even though citizen protests have managed to convince the Senate to withhold the approval. A new Senate will replace them this year though, and the new government is likely to be FAR less tolerant toward online citizen liberties.

Finally, I can only add that anonymity is already being used by bloggers who want to report the violence derived from the fight against organized crime, without any kind of official or editorial filters. Blog del Narco is a great example for this, but obviously the government is highly critical of these endeavors, and consider these blogs to be propaganda frontlines working for the cartels.

So, in short… this is gonna get A LOT worse before it starts to get better, and the Internet will be one of the frontlines where these battles will be fought. Hopefully informed citizens will be able to find the adequate tools to empower themselves against both the ruthless cartels, and the corrupt government.

Saludos,

Miguel

Money laundering takes profits from the trafficking of drugs, arms or other illicit activities and passes them through bank accounts to disguise the illegal activity.

The bank used its U.S. operation as a “gateway” into the U.S. financial system for other HSBC affiliates, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the subcommittee’s chairman, told reporters Monday.

Because of lax controls against money laundering, HSBC Bank USA “exposed the United States to Mexican drug money” and other suspicious funds, Levin said.

The report says the drug cartels laundered money through the bank’s U.S. division from 2002 through 2009″.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/07/17/hsbc-laid-back-ways-lead-to-money-laundering-report-says/#ixzz20zXf1MzK

(Anarchist system of justice: The goverment no longer holds a monopoly on police / court services. Anyone can volunteer or be paid to take on clients as a mediator (court system) or security guard (police system), with the public choosing whatever service provider they think is best).

Here’s how you tell if someone is actually interested in stopping the violence or not: Do they even *consider* ending prohibition as an option?  Do they address it and talk about it or do they laugh it off, as if the example with alcohol meant nothing? 

If they aren’t talking about ending prohibition, it is because they see money to be made in perpetuating the violence and property crime.  Extra incarcerations for non-violent activities, militarized policing, foreign military adventures, possible direct money from the cartels themselves, etc… there is huge money and huge power available in these things, and you’ll find policy-makers at the top of the pile.

A pork project with Google is another great way to take and distribute our tax dollars while *not actually stopping the violence.*

Case in point: a few years ago, I was staying at my mother in law’s house, it was just me and my infant son who was asleep and its around 10:00 pm, I heard a knock at the gate and I go outside to see who it is, it was the army, there’s a hummer like vehicle outside the house and about 10 soldiers with their weapons at hand, to make a short story shorter they were acting on an anonymous tip, (I think they got the wrong address since the guy behind the house is most likely what was reported) And they could not come in unless I gave them permission to search the house, never heard from them again.

Here, there’s a feeling that everybody knows who the bad guys are, sometimes they make it blatantly obvious, there was another time I got on the bad side of someone I shouldn’t have (yes there was a girl involved, I was stupid(er), a patrol bike drove by at that moment, I called for help and the cop threatened to take me in for disturbing the peace, turns out these guys were buddies, they shook hand and bro-hugged in front of me.
So we don’t need whistleblowers, we’d be glad to have anonymity, but maybe you heard of anonymous and the cartels? Basically, Anonymous wanted to do some sort of operation, the cartel threatened to kill people massively if that happened, and anonymous backed off.

So I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know the problem and this solution is way off the mark.

Unless they want to use Google+, of course.