Boing Boing » mexico

Disney files trademark application for "Dia de Los Muertos"

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:23:06 +0000

Disney has filed for trademarks on "Dia de Los Muertos" in a wide variety of goods and services -- candy, snacks, cosmetics, toiletries, perfumes, gadgets, jewelry and jewelry boxes, and more. This would be a good time for people to tell the USPTO that there are innumerable products in those categories that already use the term, and that no exclusive association exists (or should exist) between the Disney company and the traditional Mexican holiday. Not even if the next Pixar movie is called "Dia de Los Muertos." (Thanks, Chryss!)

Reporters, bloggers in Mexico march to protest violence against news media

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:09:14 +0000

In various cities in Mexico on Sunday, journalists from newspapers and independent online news organizations marched to protest "violence that has claimed the lives of co-workers and silenced news media in parts of the country." Demonstrators chanted “Justice!” and “Solution!,” and demanded that authorities investigate a string of murders, kidnappings and threats—like the unsolved brutal attack that claimed the life of muckraking reporter Regina Martinez. [LA Times, WaPo]

US-aided electronic spying in Mexico’s drug war

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:58:14 +0000

In the Washington Post, an extensive report by Dana Priest on the changing role of the U.S. in Mexico’s intelligence war on drug cartels. The article includes extensive details on how closely intertwined the CIA and other US agencies have become with Mexican law enforcement entities:

The administration of former president Felipe Calderon had granted high-flying U.S. spy planes access to Mexican airspace for the purpose of gathering intelligence. Unarmed Customs and Border Protection drones had flown from bases in the United States in support of Mexican military and federal police raids against drug targets and to track movements that would establish suspects’ “patterns of life.” The United States had also provided electronic signals technology, ground sensors, voice-recognition gear, cellphone-tracking devices, data analysis tools, computer hacking kits and airborne cameras that could read license plates from three miles away.

(HT: Shannon Young)

Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits: indie horror comic

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:35:59 +0000

Vera Greentea and Laura Muller's "Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits" is an indie comic (funded by a very successful Kickstarter) that spans four issues. The first issue, just out ($6), is a nice, deceptively gentle entree into what promises to be a proper kick-in-the-teeth bit of horror about the Mexican Day of the Dead.

Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits is a spirited horror story about a ghost searching for her family during the festival of the Day of the Dead, while dodging ambitious exorcist apprentices. Vera Greentea (Recipes for the Dead, To Stop Dreaming of Goddesses) and talented artist Laura Müller (Mega Man Tribute, Subway to Sally Storybook) collaborate to create an autumn-friendly tale of skulls and hope. The first issue introduces the vivacious but forgotten ghost girl, Nena, as she explores the labyrinthine streets of Mexico during its most eerily evocative celebration and Bastian, the first of the exorcists speeding after her – completely for the wrong reason.

Nenetl of the Forgotten Spirits by Vera Greentea

Drug cartel violence in Mexico, an animated video explainer

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:21:43 +0000

Jess Bachman at Visual.ly says,

We just produced this animated short on the escalating drug cartel violence on the US-Mexico border. This is some horrific stuff that is a lot closer than Afghanistan and Syria and something we play a much larger role in, yet it get's no national coverage. Additionally its not even mentioned as part of the gun control debate. Mexico has strict gun laws... where do the cartels arm themselves? Imported from the U.S. of course. Our gun policy is not just a domestic one. Here's to hoping we can keep the drug war at the forefront this term.

Reportero: documentary on journalist's life in one of the world's deadliest places for news

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:00:20 +0000

For a limited time at PBS.org, you can watch the full-length version of "Reportero," an incredible documentary film about Jesús Blancornelas and Héctor Félix Miranda's long-running Mexican newsweekly, Zeta. The environment in Baja California is so hostile -- it is certainly one of the most dangerous places in the world for reporters -- that the paper is printed across the border in Southern California to ensure its survival, and that of the people who run it.

In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country's powerful drug cartels and organized crime. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced?

More about "Reportero" here.

(HT: Josh Kun)

Zeta reporter Sergio Haro takes photographs for a story. Credit:Claudio Rocha/Quiet Pictures.

Kidnapped radio engineers forced to build comms networks for the Zetas, never seen again

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 00:38:09 +0000

On Wired Danger Room, Robert Beckhusen tells how Mexican drug cartels, notably the Zetas, kidnap skilled radio engineers and force them to build out elaborate communications networks -- one comprised 167 antennas. The engineers are kidnapped and usually never seen again, and are presumed to have been murdered.

For at least six years, Mexico’s cartels have relied in part on a sophisticated radio network to handle their communications. The Zetas hide radio antennas and signal relay stations deep inside remote and hard-to-reach terrain, connect them to solar panels, and then link the facilities to radio-receiving cellphones and Nextel devices. While the kingpins stay off the network — they use the internet to send messages — the radio network acts as a shadow communication system for the cartels’ lower-level players and lookouts, and a tool to hijack military radios.
One network spread across northeastern Mexico and dismantled last year included 167 radio antennas alone. As recently as September, Mexican marines found a 295-foot-high transmission tower in Veracruz state. And while the founding leadership of the Zetas originated in the Mexican special forces — and who might have had the know-how to set up a radio system — relatively few of the ex-commando types are still active today.
One engineer, named Jose Antonio, was kidnapped in January 2009 while talking on the phone with his girlfriend outside a mechanics shop. He worked for ICA Fluor Daniel, a construction company jointly owned by U.S.-based Fluor Corporation and ICA, Mexico’s largest construction firm. Antonio’s family contacted the authorities, but were instead visited by a man claiming to be an ICA employee along with two Zetas. “They said they were going to help us, and that our contact would be ICA’s security chief,” said the kidnapped engineer’s mother. But the group’s message was implicit: Don’t pursue this, or else. The cartel members were later arrested, but Antonio never returned.

Mexican Cartels Enslave Engineers to Build Radio Network

Military spy blimps used in Afghanistan will now patrol US-Mexico border

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:10:27 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. military and border-patrol officials are teaming up on a new initiative to bring dozens of surveillance blimps from Afghanistan war zones to the Mexican border.

Over the next few weeks, the military will oversee a test in south Texas to determine if a 72-foot-long, unmanned surveillance blimp—sometimes called "the floating eye" when used to spot insurgents in Afghanistan—can help find drug runners and people trying to cross illegally into the U.S.
The project is part of a broader attempt by U.S. officials to establish a high-tech surveillance network along the border and find alternative uses for expensive military hardware that will be coming back from Afghanistan, along with the troops.

In other words, hardware recycling. Read more: Battlefield Blimps to Patrol U.S.-Mexico Borders (WSJ).

Image: REUTERS. A US military blimp carrying surveillance imaging equipment flies over eastern Afghanistan, September 2011. Devices like this are being tested along the US-Mexico border.

Mexican-US illegal migration has been largely static since the 1950s

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 02:09:15 +0000

Princeton's alumni magazine has an excellent profile of Douglas Massey, Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and director of Princeton’s Office of Population Research. Massey studies patterns of US migration, particularly illegal immigration from Mexico. His research is the only rigorous census of Mexican-American illegal immigration flows, and its conclusions are that the US perception of Mexican migration is completely backwards, and that the major immigration problems are the result of bad policy, not changes in volume:

The MMP’s reports are freely available to anyone through its website, http://mmp.opr.princeton.edu. But statistics can be sterile things. Get Massey going, and one gets an earful about the true state of affairs along the border. To wit:
* We are not being flooded with illegal Mexican migrants. The total number of migrants from Mexico has varied very little since the 1950s. The massive influx many have written about never happened.
* Net illegal migration has stopped almost completely.
* Illegal migration has not stopped because of stricter border enforcement, which Massey characterizes as a waste of money at best and counterproductive at worst.
* There are indeed more undocumented Mexicans living in the United States than there were 20 years ago, but that is because fewer migrants are returning home — not because more are sneaking into the country.
* And the reason that fewer Mexican citizens are returning home is because we have stepped up border enforcement so dramatically.
Mull over that last point for a minute. If Congress had done nothing to secure the border over the last two decades — if it had just left the border alone — there might be as many as 2 million fewer Mexicans living in the United States today, Massey believes.

Crisis Contrived (via Wil Wheaton)

(Image: Illegal Immigration, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from qwrrty's photostream)

Border Patrol sadism and human rights abuses on the Mexican border

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 02:46:51 +0000

John Carlos Frey investigates the deliberate cruelty of the US Border Patrol agents who work on the US-Mexican border. A humanitarian relief group called No More Deaths used hidden cameras to record smiling Border Patrol agents destroying water-caches left in areas where migrants have died of exposure. A former senior agent who left after witnessing horrific acts of torture and cruelty describes the way that Border Patrol agents delight in sadistic brutalizing of captured migrants. These accounts have been corroborated by the Red Cross and Doctors of the World.

My grandparents -- Red Army deserters -- deliberately destroyed their papers after WWII in order to become "displaced people" so that they could make their way from a camp in Azerbaijan to the DP boats in Hamburg. I don't see any difference between that sort of "illegal" migration and the sort that the US BP is currently fighting. Back then, the US, UK and Canada used very similar rhetoric about the way that migrants would take badly needed jobs, bring criminality, and fail to assimilate. But as Elie Weisel said, "there is no such thing as an illegal human being."

In his nine years working the border near Tucson, Ariz., and earning the rank of senior agent, Cruz says he frequently saw agents physically abusing detainees and denying food and water to those who were in obvious need. He also saw “individuals being crammed into cells twice beyond the posted capacity. Standing room only. I mean, you couldn’t even lie down on the floor.” This was done, he says, even when empty cells were available nearby. In 2003, he began warning his supervisors of this pattern of abuse. When his spoken complaints didn’t elicit a response, he began to write letters. “I started at the unit level,” Cruz says. “I went to the sector chief, office of inspector general — via phone calls and faxes of those memorandums. Went on to the commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection, who’s over the U.S. Border Patrol Agency. And then felt the need to move on to Congress.” Cruz left the force in 2007 without ever hearing a response.

Cruelty on the border

Google execs: our technology can be used to fight narcoviolence in Mexico

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:39:06 +0000

In a Washington Post op-ed, Google's executive chairman (and former CEO) Eric Schmidt and Google Ideas director Jared Cohen argue the case for technology as a tool to aid citizen activists in places like Juarez, Mexico. Schmidt and Cohen recently visited the drug-war-wracked border town, and describe the climate of violence there as "surreal."

In Juarez, we saw fearful human beings — sources — who need to get their information into the right hands. With our packet-switching mind-set, we realized that there may be a technological workaround to the fear: Sources don’t need to physically turn to corrupt authorities, distant journalists or diffuse nonprofits, and rely on their hope that the possible benefit is worth the risk of exposing themselves.
Technology can help intermediate this exchange, like servers passing packets on the Internet. Sources don’t need to pierce their anonymity. They don’t need to trust a single person or institution. Why can’t they simply throw encrypted packets into the network and let the tools move information to the right destinations?
In a sense, we are talking about dual crowdsourcing: Citizens crowdsource incident awareness up, and responders crowdsource justice down, nearly in real time. The trick is that anonymity is provided to everyone, although such a system would know a unique ID for every user to maintain records and provide rewards. This bare-bones model could take many forms: official and nonprofit first responders, investigative journalists, whistleblowers, neighborhood watches.

I'll be interested to hear what people in Juarez, and throughout Mexico, think of the editorial. The notion that crypto, Tor, or other anonymity-aiding online tools might help peaceful observers is not a new one, and not one that activists in Mexico need outsiders to teach them about. There are plenty of smart geeks in Mexico who are well aware of the need for, and usefulness of, such tools. But Google execs speaking directly to the conflict, and how widely-available free tools might help, is a new and notable thing. Red the rest here. (thanks, @martinxhodgson)

See-through Jewel Caterpillar

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:00:27 +0000

Here's a photo of the Jewel Caterpillar (Acraga coa), snapped by Gerardo Aizpuru near Cancun, and submitted to Project Noah. Be sure to click through for other views. Wow.

Photo take in a mangrove area , found this Stoning translucent caterpillar lay on a Red Mangrove tree leaf this morning early. Just can believe there is some species like this around the world. looks like made of glass whit small red mushroom inside every pic. about 3 cm long.

Jewel Caterpillar (via Geekologie)

In Veracruz, Mexico, renewed attacks on journalists

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 04 May 2012 21:52:48 +0000

Three journalists were killed this week in the Mexican state of Veracruz, just a week after another reporter was murdered. More on the latest violence at SouthNotes. (via Shannon Young)

Japanese "Lolita fashion" anime subculture in Mexico

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:12:41 +0000

REUTERS/Daniel Becerrill

Above, Alin Nava (C) stands in a checkout line at a supermarket in Monterrey April 5, 2012. Nava, 25, is dressed in the so-called "Lolita" fashion style (ロリータ・ファッション Rorīta fasshon), a fashion subculture from Japan influenced by clothing from the Victorian or Rococo eras. The basic style consists of a blouse, petticoat, bloomers, bell-shaped skirt and knee-high socks. Nava is the co-founder of the "Lolitas Paradise" club in Monterrey and for members of the club, the Lolita style is not only a fashion statement but also a way to express their loyalty, friendship, tolerance and unity.

Below: Members of the "Lolitas Paradise" club share a moment together in a park in Monterrey April 28, 2012. More images, and a story about the cultural phenomenon as it exists in Monterrey, are here at Reuters.

REUTERS/Daniel Becerrill

Bristling guns from the Mexican drug war

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:48:26 +0000

The AP's Eduardo Verdugo captured a remarkable image from Mexico's drug war: a bristling rack of seized guns with their muzzles face on to the camera. Just looking at it makes me want to duck. Shown here, a downsized thumbnail. Click below for the whole image on the WashPo.

Seized weapons sit on racks in a warehouse at the Secretary of the Defense headquarters in Mexico City. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

TOM THE DANCING BUG: "The Long Adios," A Walmart Detective Story

Ruben Bolling — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:30:03 +0000

All right, you mugs. If you don't want some chin music, give TOM THE DANCING BUG WEBSITE the buzz, and tail RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER.

US to go after "Border Tunnels" by prosecuting landowners, wiretapping communications

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:16:31 +0000

In the San Diego Reader, more on a bill passed last week by The U.S. House Judiciary Committee to help law enforcement crack down on illicit tunnels along the US-Mexico border: "The bill would allow law enforcement to prosecute landowners, prosecute those that fund the tunnels, and wiretap communications in suspected buildings that house tunnels. Previously wiretaps were only available with proof of drugs or contraband."

Los Galgos Guapos ("The Handsome Hounds"): photo-essay on greyhound rescue in Tijuana

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:56:17 +0000

Photojournalist (and author) Erin Siegal has a wonderful photo-essay up on the The Reuters Photographers Blog about "Fast Friends," a group that adopts/rescues "retiring" greyhound dogs that have been used in racing in Tijuana, Mexico. On Erin's personal blog, there are more photos that didn't fit in. What beautiful creatures.

Meet Mexican tattoo diva "La Mujer Vampira," Maria Jose Cristerna

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:10:17 +0000

Mexican tattoo star Maria Jose Cristerna, better known as "La Mujer Vampiro" (Female Vampire), poses during the Venezuela Tattoo Expo in Caracas, January 27, 2012.

She is a 35-year-old attorney. 98 percent of her body is covered in tattoos. She also has prosthetic fangs, and platinum implants in her forehead.

"The 'Vampire Woman' was not something I thought of, it was a name that one of Mexico's major television stations baptized me with," she tells ABC News in one interview from the tattoo expo. "It doesn't necessarily bother me because it has helped me transcend to a new level. Yes, I do like vampires but they are only a dream, a fantasy."

She says the body modification project was a form of self-expression she sought after being the victim of domestic violence in a former marriage.

There's a fun video interview with her on Telegraph TV here, ABC News has another here, and ITN News has a segment from the con here.

(REUTERS/Jorge Silva)

Homebrew narco-tanks of the Mexican drug war

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:44:26 +0000

Here's a brief article from a June 2011 number of the NYT by Damien Cave detailing the bizarre improvised tanks used by Mexican drug gangs:

Over the weekend, Mexican authorities found two more of these makeshift road warriors in Tamaulipas, the same northern border state where the first armored vehicle appeared in April after a battle between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang. In the latest case, the Mexican Defense Department said, the armored trucks were found in a metalworking shop in Camargo, which also held at least two other partly modified monsters and 23 additional trucks.
The completed versions were bigger than what has been found before. Built on three-axle truck beds, they had room for 20 armed men, one official said. They were covered with inch-thick steel, which could withstand 50-caliber fire, and each had been equipped with insulation.

Monster Trucks on the Road, From Gangs in Mexico (via Neatorama)

(Image: a cropped thumbnail from an AP/Sedena image)

Mexican gov detains Twitter user over joke about helicopter crash that killed top drug war official

Wookie Williams — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:33:35 +0000

[Ed. note: A Mexican Twitter user was detained by the government last week, after he posted a tweet that referenced a recent helicopter crash that killed a top official. Below, guest contributor Wookie Williams in Mexico shares more.—Xeni Jardin]

"How many tweets does it take to bring down a plane?"

That was the joke yesterday, circulating around outside of the PGR offices in Mexico City where Mario Flores was being held. Mario is often funny in his twitter account, he's an all around nice guy who's worst crime is working in publicity (aside from the often juvenile prank he performed with his posse when he was younger) and, let's face it, a dorky guy who loves comics and Batman, and probably wishes he had superpowers.

On 2008, he had the bad luck of working in the building right next to where Secretary of State Juan Camilo Mouriño's plane went down. He was given the afternoon free amid the chaos that reigned the whole neighborhood (the whole country really), something very uncommon for those poor lab rats that work for one of those huge publicity firms.

So on the afternoon of Thursday, November 10th, not five days ago, when he was given the afternoon free, he remembered that fateful day three years ago and took it to his account, @mareoflores. "Not since Mouriño's plane went down was I out of the office this early.

Take care, flying officials", he tweeted. ("No salía tan temprano del trabajo desde que se cayó la avioneta de Mouriño. Anden con cuidado, funcionarios voladores" is the original tweet).

On a cruel twist of fate, and a very strange coincidence, last Friday, a helicopter carrying Secretary of State Francisco Blake Mora crashed into a hill. All passengers were killed, leaving the country wondering how such bad luck could occur twice during the same President's tenure, specially in a country so entrenched in conflict as Mexico is right now, and specially when both Mouriño and Blake were close personal friends of Felipe Calderon.

There was a landslide of tweets regarding the crash, some in very poor taste, others asking what had happened and demanding an investigation.

The president was quick to inform that bad weather conditions were the cause of the accident. He vanished any possibility that this was other than a tragedy caused by fog, but promised to "pursue and exhaust all lines of investigations".

Mario's tweet, innocent enough at the time, started making the rounds with people curious enough to search for a connection between Mouriño's crash and Blake's accident.

Many twitter users faced and retweeted the prophetic lines of Mario and another user, @Morf0, who tweeted hours before the crash "Today, 11-11, a secretary will fall from the sky".

All the favs and RT gathered the attention of the public eye, and Mario started asking his friends if he should erase the tweet, along with a couple of other jokes he made afterwards. Debating between leaving things as they were or just pressing the delete button, he decided on the latter and carried on making small jokes and silly comments. After all, this unwanted attention was good for his twitterego.

But that attention turned sour within a couple of days. On Sunday, five unmarked cars showed up at his parent's door, grabbed him without giving any explanations or a warrant or any kind of official order, and without identifying themselves (It's still not clear if it was members of the PFP -Federal Preventive Police- or the PGJ -State Attorney General- who picked him up).

Mario resisted not really knowing what was going on and after a quick struggle, he was taken away.

His dad came out a few minutes too late.

Mario was already on his way to a government building to be questioned about his tweet and his relationship with the accident. He was held without an attorney until his father was able to find out who had taken his son.

When his friends found out, we took to twitter and tried to make as much noise as possible, because we had no information about him, didn't know if he was ok and even worse, why he was being held. The response of people was amazing. The outrage was everywhere. We all felt like it could've been one of us. Five days after Mexico was flagged by the Human Rights Watch for violating pretty much every human right in the book during Felipe Calderon's years as the head of the country, one of our own, not a random, faceless person in another state, was being held without apparent reason.

For 7 hours, #mareoflores became a Trending Topic and pushed the Mexican activists to act upon the case. This was more than a person being held. It was our right of free speech that was being kept locked.

I won't celebrate Mario's tweets after Blake died. He was foolish enough to get caught in the hype and even went so far as to change his bio to make another joke, this one a notch too distasteful.

But I won't judge his jokes either. It's his choice to have a particular sense of humor and his choice to go out and publish it on his personal account. And he should not be questioned because of it.

When the official statement from the PGR was released, it amassed more laughters than Mario's tweets. He was held as a "witness". "Of what?", everybody asked. Since when, if the official story is true, can a tweet alter the weather? Not even after he was released was Mario truly free. The statements also reads "right now, there is no relationship between his tweet and the accident". Well, I guess Mario's wish for superpowers must have come true.

When Mario was released, to the cheers of his friends and some 50 people gathered outside of the government office, he explained everything, he was calmed and collected, and he was a little bit nervous to have all this attention that "nobody could want", he said. He even was a little regretful of the things he tweeted afterwards, amidst the political climate of the country. So it wasn't the questioning, as much as the ways the police proceeded, basically kidnapping a guy from his front door, thinking none would notice.

He hugged and kissed his girlfriend, thanked his friends, and returned home, with the news of what had happened spreading to all corners of the web. The Washington Post, BBC News, Reforma and all the major mexican newspapers were aware of the situation. Trolls festered Mario and other people sympathized with him. But he's still the same dorky guy who handled the situation the best he could. When I talked to him this morning, still a little overwhelmed, we talked about this for 2 seconds, and then we moved on to more pressing stuff, like where will we hang out next weekend.

The good news is that this won't go unnoticed again. And hopefully, people will use Twitter more as a tool and less as an endless joke box. The only way to have freedom of speech is to not be quite and to fight for what's right, even if that means posting 140 character punchlines. They can't mess with our right to say what we want, because then they'd have to take us all for questioning. Mario is free, and so is the internet.

Related reading: "La libertad no cae del cielo, el caso de #mareoflores en México," Geraldine Juárez at alt1040.

Mexico: Interior Minister killed in mysterious chopper crash 3 years after predecessor's death in mysterious plane crash

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 05:03:09 +0000

There's no evidence of foul play in the death today of Mexico's Interior Minister José Francisco Blake, but amid the country's raging drug war, there's plenty of suspicion. The helicopter carrying the country's top domestic security official and seven others crashed in the southern part of Mexico City en route to a meeting of prosecutors in nearby Morelos state. The cause of the crash is unknown.

Blake's death is seen as a symbolic blow to the government's military-directed assault on organized crime. 40,000 Mexicans have died in the drug war over the last five years.

The accident occurred almost exactly three years to the day after Mexico’s previous interior minister Juan Camilo Mouriño was killed in the crash of a small plane, also near Mexico City.

Another mysterious detail: Blake's last tweet before the crash was a nod to the anniversary of his predecessor's death.

Sources: Christian Science Monitor, Guardian, NYT, WaPo, CNN, AP Video, Global Voices.

Reports circulated early today that Mexican president Felipe Calderon had been scheduled to travel in the very same helicopter that crashed, but the administration later issued a statement denying. (via Andrés Monroy H.)

Related reading: the Wikileaks-leaked State Department cable on Mouriño's death, from November 5, 2008. (via Shannon Young)

Mexico's "War on Drugs" leads to catastrophic rise of murder, torture, "disappearance"

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:53:13 +0000

Human Rights Watch reports that instead of reducing violence, the ‘war on drugs’ in Mexico has resulted in a dramatic increase in killings, torture, and "disapparances." Read the report. [Video Link]

Mexico: moderator of online discussion forum about narcos reported as tortured, decapitated by narcos (UPDATED)

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:15:18 +0000

UPDATE: One media outlet in Mexico reports that there is no proof that the man killed in Nuevo Laredo on Wednesday was a social media user. Police say they are still investigating. Unlike in previous cases involving administrators/contributors to the online message board in question, the newspaper affiliated with that forum has not come forward to confirm the identity of the dead.

UPDATE 2: Nuevo Laredo Live reports that the man killed is "not one of our collaborators," but "a scapegoat" whose murder serves to send a message of fear.

The moderator of an online discussion forum about local cartel-related crime is reported to have been killed in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Near the corpse, a "narco manta," or sign taking responsibility for the murder, was found and points to the ultraviolent cartel known as the Zetas.

Wired News reports that the victim was a 35-year-old man who went by the nickname “Rascatripas” or “Scraper” (literally, “Fiddler”) on the web-based chat network Nuevo Laredo en Vivo where he served as a community moderator. The body was handcuffed, with signs of torture, and was decapitated and was placed next to a monument for Christopher Columbus about a mile south of the Texas border. That same site has previously been used as a dumping ground for victims of this form of crime.

The discussion board in question is the same one at the center of the near-identical murder of two other Nuevo Laredo residents two months ago. They were outed as active participants in the site's crime-tip forum, and they were gruesomely murdered as "snitches." Their bodies were dumped in the same location, with a sign indicating that their killing should serve as a warning for others who share information about cartel activities on the internet.

Snip from Wired.com:

Below the man’s body was a partially obscured and blood-stained blanket. Written on the blanket in black ink: “Hi I’m ‘Rascatripas’ and this happened to me because I didn’t understand I shouldn’t post things on social networks.”
The discovery of the body Wednesday morning brings the total number of bloggers and social media networkers apparently killed in the past three months by organized crime in Mexico — and in the border city of Nuevo Laredo — to four.

One important caveat: some who cover this news beat point out that there are insufficient confirmed details to report the identity of the victim as fact just yet. Neither the police, the family of the deceased, nor the operators of the web forum have validated early online reports. It is possible that the victim's actual identity is not what the sign next to the body states. It is possible that the killing was staged by the Zetas or some other individual or entity for any number of purposes.

Given the nature of cartel-related crime in the region, those facts may take time to confirm. But the message delivered seems clear.

More at Wired.

(via Cyrus Farivar)

Related reports in Spanish: Univision, Milenio, Proceso, and Hoy Laredo (WARNING, GRAPHIC PHOTO).

Related reports in English: Houston Chronicle, AFP.

Anonymous vs. Zetas: is #OpCartel a flop, hoax, or honeypot?

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:28:13 +0000

[Video Link] Over the last few days, word has spread of a purported #antisec operation by Anonymous against the most brutal of all Mexican drug cartels, Los Zetas. One element in the story is this video, above. Weeks after it came out, George Friedman's Austin Texas-based consulting firm Stratfor issued this report, and media gobbled it up. A story was born: "Anonymous is taking on the most feared drug cartel in the world, for great justice."

What was unusual about the way this story spread was the speed at which it was amplified by credulous reports from larger media outlets, despite a dearth of confirmable facts. This op got lots of press, fast. Faster, in fact, than it got support from Anons.

Geraldine Juarez and Renata Avila were two of the earlier voices I read expressing doubt about the prevailing storyline—a report by Juarez is here. Some I spoke to within Mexico wondered if the Mexican government (no bastion of purity) might be involved.

Over at Wired News, a must-read piece by Quinn Norton that cinches the deal for me (and in it, she references the aforementioned Global Voices item). Quinn's been covering Anonymous extensively for some time, and I trust her spidey sense on this one.

"Everyone, Anonymous and not, seems to agree that going after the Zetas, who are known for hanging people by their own intestines, would be a new level of ambitious, and might even be the point where Anonymous would bite off more than they could chew," Quinn writes. "But there’s some nagging problems with the video that proposes the op."

Read the rest at Wired.

Charles Arthur at the Guardian covers the story here, asking smart questions.

Is it possible that the kidnapping was a hoax? And was the video a hoax? It doesn't feel consistent with previous, legitimate "Anonymous" videos to me. White balancing? Good lighting? An all-white backdrop? Looks like a hired actor in a quasi-pro production. What other forces could stand to benefit from this sort of thing, if it were staged? State? Private contractor?

As Damien Cave replied to this post just now, "Boing Boing is right to doubt #opcartel, but remember the Mexican context of fear. If it doesn't happen, it may not be a hoax. It may be that people have been scared off."

And that's the one thing Anonymous and the cartels have in common: the truth about their activities can be really hard to figure out.

Blog del Narco, site chronicling Mexican drug cartel violence, is under attack

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:27:46 +0000

Mexico's Blog del Narco, the subject of a previous Boing Boing interview feature, denounces attempts at censorship as access to their website access is blocked. More: Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. (Via @Rosental)

Subpoena for AG Holder imminent in "Fast and Furious" guns-for-narcos investigation

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 01:08:23 +0000

(Eric Holder. Photo: REUTERS)

A congressional subpoena directed to Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to be issued soon, according to CBS News, and will order him to hand over documents to lawmakers showing when he became aware of "Fast and Furious," a "gunwalking" operation that supplied guns to Mexican drug cartels. Snip from CBS:

CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports the the subpoena will come from the House Oversight Committee, led by Republican Darrell Issa. It will ask for communications among senior Justice Department officials related to Fast and Furious and "gunwalking." The subpoena will list those officials, says Attkisson - more than a dozen of them - by name.

In Fast and Furious, the ATF allegedly allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons into the hands of suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels. The idea was to see where the weapons ended up, and take down a cartel. But the guns have been found at many crime scenes in Mexico and the U.S., including the murder scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry last December.

In related news, the very latest in a series of reports at the Los Angeles Times about "Fast and Furious" reveals that guns from that covert US operation were found literally inside the home of a narco boss in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, Mexico:

High-powered assault weapons illegally purchased under the ATF's Fast and Furious program in Phoenix ended up in a home belonging to the purported top Sinaloa cartel enforcer in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, whose organization was terrorizing that city with the worst violence in the Mexican drug wars.

Photo, Los Angeles Times: The arsenal uncovered by police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, which included weapons from the ATF's ill-fated "Fast and Furious" operation. Note the highly classy "Scarface"-dollar-bill poster above the bookshelf, a favorite motif among gangsters worldwide.

Five human heads found at Acapulco, Mexico primary school, in presumed drug cartel mass killing

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:57:51 +0000

Photo: A relative reacts after his arrival at a crime scene where a man was shot dead in Acapulco two days ago. According to local media, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a DVD and music salesman. The next day, the charred and headless remains of five people were found in the same city. And today, five disembodied heads, presumably the same victims, were discovered near a primary school nearby. [REUTERS]

In the Mexican city of Acapulco, where violence related to drug cartels has been escalating in recent weeks, police today found five decomposing human heads outside the Benito Juarez primary school [Google Maps link]. Armed men placed a wooden box outside the school early Tuesday, with a white cloth sack inside containing the severed heads and four handwritten cards inside threatening local officials and drug traffickers. The earliest reports appeared at the Milenio news website.

Prensa Latina reports that teachers in Acapulco schools have increasingly become the target of extortion demands, prompting the closure of schools and causing many teachers and children to stay away in fear. Just 200 feet from where the gruesome discovery was made today, a group of Mexican federal troops are stationed. More from news.com.au:

The discovery occurred in full view of young students and pedestrians, sparking fear in the area. Soldiers and police removed the remains and cordoned off the location.

Yesterday in the same city - a major port and tourist resort on Mexico's Pacific coast - police found five decapitated bodies: three badly burned inside a pickup truck, and two others outside the vehicle.

More: News.com.au, Associated Press, Sol de Acapulco, Telemundo Dallas, Univision.

(Photo: Javier Trujillo/Millenium; via Warren Ellis)

My panel with Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Al Gore at Mexico City's Campus Party

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 05:37:42 +0000

Back in July, I went to Mexico City to moderate a panel at the Campus Party conference, a massive LAN party/campout/hackathon/tech policy event. It was a long, long way to go, but it was worth it: my panelists were Tim Berners-Lee (who invented the Web), Vint Cerf (one of the most important figures in the invention of the Internet) and Al Gore (who, despite sneering misquotations, *was* very, very important to the formation of the Internet as we know it today).

We had a wide-ranging discussion, but kept circling back to the threats and promises for the net -- copyright wars, privacy wars, government and grassroots. It was a lot of fun, and quite an honor, and I'm happy to see they've got the video online.

Al Gore, Vint Cerf y Tim Berners-Lee en Campus Party México 2011 - Panorama actual del Internet (Thanks, Jan!)

Mexico: another journalist killed

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 03:56:33 +0000

Today, another reporter was murdered in Mexico: Yolanda Ordaz, a crime reporter who was investigating the murder of her boss at Notiver, the daily newspaper where she worked. Her body "was found beheaded next to a message whose contents have not been disclosed." She is the 7th reporter killed in Mexico in 2011. More than 68 have been murdered since 2000. Related: the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has been mapping attacks on reporters in Mexico, which has emerged as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for the press. Here is a map of attacks during 2010.

(via Rosental)