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The info war between Mexican bloggers and Los Zetas drug cartel is one of the most fascinating developments in a story distinctly lacking in good guys; a tale typified by an endless, relentless procession of horrific violence. On one side, netizens who are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. On the other side, drug thugs wielding guns and grenades with enough money to buy Belize. And then some. Click here for STRAFOR’s most excellent analysis of the current state of play, which includes this . . .
Anonymous has conducted successful Distributed Denial of Service Attacks on institutions such as Visa and MasterCard and has stolen sensitive information from HB Gary Federal in 2011 and subsequently publicized internal emails from that group. It brings together a group of individuals with a higher skill-set and sense of operational security than the less savvy anti-cartel bloggers already active in Mexico.
This higher skill-set means that Anonymous could contribute to the effectiveness of the online struggle against the cartels or at least bring more publicity to the issue. It’s important to remember that the U.S. has been engaging in its own electronic observation of the Mexican cartels for years. Anonymous likely won’t be able to turn up more information than the U.S. government already has, but they are able to publicize more information than the U.S. government can.
There’s also the possibility that the Anonymous bloggers could go nuclear (speaking of A bombs). They could release damning proof of the collusion between the Mexican government, Uncle Sam and the drug cartels. Which makes Anonymous a threat to all of the above (not to mention MasterCard).
Of course, it would be better if the bloggers had guns, too. Unfortunately, the central government neutered Mexican citizens’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms back in the 70s. And they crack down hard on any average guy packing heat.
But who’s to say the bloggers don’t have guns? Wouldn’t you? And maybe this blogger backlash will lead to an armed citizens’ militia; who better to organize one? Stranger things have happened.
And no matter what happens, we should thank God our Founding Fathers included both the First and Second Amendments. Together, via the Internet, they keep us safe. Remembering that safety, too, is a limited resource.
The thing is that much money has to be leaving all sorts of electronic footprints somewhere. Its not like you can hide millions of dollars under your mattress. As far as the dedication of the US electronic watching efforts; If its on any level as the ATF fiasco I would rather put my money on a third party who wants to get to the bottom of things.
You can easily hide electronic money transfers and disguise them as a 1,000 different transactions. Not to mention there are a number countries that protect those sorts of things like national secrets. It would be difficult for a goverment institution to track everything. Annon won’t have any luck getting anything done. Annon isn’t a super awesome network of tech savvy masterminds. Annon is a persona anyone can take up. It’ very likely the same guys who took down Visa weren’t the same hackers who DDS’d Mastercard. It’s even more likely that the group using the annon alias aren’t attacking the cartels.
You are correct but I don’t think the cartels are that smart either. Not if they are going out of house for their IT issues. Hiding money with multiple transfers would require a money man. He would be the weakest link.
There used to be an American blogging in Mexico on various topics under the blog “Mark in Mexico”. He did a few very critical posts regarding corruption and then suddenly ceased blogging altogether. Many of his readers, myself included feared for his safety. His blog stayed up for quite some time but is no longer reachable.
The anonymous people are actually pretty scary. In the US they can make your life extremely miserable. They made some teenage girls life miserable for a few weeks because she challenged them
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jessi-slaughter#.TrLdSkOImU8
It wouldn’t surprise me if they uncovered some pretty serious stuff the Government isn’t telling us
Some prank phone calls is hardly life altering stealing your info draining your accounts and selling your social security is a little more life changing, however the easiest way to get around this is not put your ass out there on the net to be hassled with.
IMHO I wish Annon would try to find out were the money is and while they’re at it who is involved. I’ld bet they’ld find out more than the BATFE, congress, and the IRS combined and faster too.
Ironically, Guy Fawkes was a Catholic traditionalist partisan actively fighting to restore the faith in England. Far from a “freedom fighter” by any stretch.
Ordine,
Maybe not a freedom fighter in the standard sense, but his passion was inflamed by the states religious intollerence which literally made he and his family second class citizens.
Regardless of his shortcomings or personal predjudices you have to respect a man willing to risk everything to take a stand against
oppression
Whatever state “intollerence” towards Roman Catholics in England there was before the Gunpowder Plot, it vastly increased after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Also recall the Great Armada, the attempt of Roman Catholic Spain to impose its religion on England, which occurred less than 20 years before the Gunpowder Plot.
Yup, blowing up Parliament is a REALLY GOOD way to take a stand against “oppression.” I suppose you say the same thing about another failed bomb maker, Billy Boy Ayers. You know Billy Boy, the guy who co-authored Prairie Fire where he took a stand against “oppression”: by advocating DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT for the US and by dedicating the book to “political prisoners” like Sirhan, Sirhan, the assassin of Robert Kennedy.
Guy Fawkes was Al Qaeda or Bill Boy Ayers circa 1600: bombs away.
I believe, as the founders did, that there is no moral obligation to follow a despotic govrnment…if you disagree maybe you should take a gander at some Thomas Paine, or the federalist papers.
As to his lack of sucess….a government continuing it’s totalitarian attempts to control it’s people can’t be blamed on him if not that some other “plot” would have been allowed to procede or concocted only to be stamped ou at the last second as an excuse to put boots on the necks of whomever was the politacal pariah of the day.
I’m sincerely hoping that the gun rights community will start taking on prohibition. This is getting closer. But not quite there yet.
The talk here is “defending yourself against the cartels”. Better to eliminate them the same way we eliminated the American alcohol cartels. Legalize.
Addiction is a function of two things. Genetics and trauma. Laws against genetics are useless and trauma rates are INCREASED by prohibition induced violence. i.e. what prohibition does is make the problem WORSE. Any fool can see that. And yet most of the population is TAUGHT to confuse the effects of prohibition with the effects of drugs.
Let me give you something that is easy to remember: Drugs do not create addiction. Trauma creates addiction.
Which is to say that drug taking is to medicate the aftereffects of trauma in the genetically susceptible. We see this in the military and EMT communities and we forgive our soldiers and first responders. So why not also forgive the victims of child abuse? The victims of bad neighborhoods (made worse by prohibition)?
Think Mexicans don’t have guns? Stick you head out the door any New Year’s Eve and listed to the sound: it is not firecrackers.
“And no matter what happens, we should thank God our Founding Fathers included both the First and Second Amendments.”
And we should thank God we have the means to rid ourselves of a failed government without having to resort to those firearms. Next November cannot arrive soon enough.
“…we should thank God our Founding Fathers included both the First and Second Amendments…”
Exactly where/when did God come in to play when these amendment were adopted? Oh yeah, he was the dude with the beard off to the right of that one painting. Thank you for being there for us God! – Especially given your busy schedule. Holy f…!
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