Data Mining, Cocaine and Secrecy

hightimes writes: "Business 2.0 uncovers one of the world's most sophisticated IT network in where else, Colombia. According to the story, Colombian drug cartels have spent billions of dollars to build a huge infrastructure that's helping them smuggle more dope than ever before." Even though this is about a raid that took place most of a decade ago, it's an interesting example of the power (and potential abuse) of large-scale data mining.

Comments

Article Revealing

[stoolpigeon]

The so-called Santacruz computer was never returned to Colombian authorities, and the DEA's report about it is highly classified. But Business 2.0 has ferreted out many of its details.

It must not have been too highly classified. It it was and some internet magazine can figure it out then you have to wonder if this data mining system was overkill. They say it was used to find moles and then the undercover agents would be assasinated. Personally I wouldn't want to be an agent for some agency that can't keep this kind of stuff under wraps.

There are times when keeping things secret is a good thing. Our government seems incapable of doing so most of the time. (on a side note this is why I don't buy into most conspiracy theories-- the govt. is way too inefficient at keeping things quiet)

Re:Article Revealing

[JoeBuck]

When you read an article like this, the first thing you should be considering is what the agenda is. The DEA probably leaked the info on purpose, perhaps to try to promote its agenda of getting more money for the Colombian drug wars.

Whenever you see a story in the press quoting anonymous sources or leaks, remember that the sources and leakers have an axe to grind.

Re:Article Revealing

[logicnazi]

Its just your opionion but you should fucking think about it before you post!!

Reforming the war on drugs is one of my principal interests, but I am not entierly blind to opposing positions and there are some reasonable arguments to support the war on drugs. However, these arguments just don't appear in your post. While I have done it many times before let me go through it point by point.

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Would everyone here like to legalize meth labs too? How about legalizing one in the house next door or the apartment below yours?

What's an explosion or two in your neighborhood?
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So let us suppose we legalize meth labs. What do you suppose is more cost efficent?
a) cooking meth in your apartment.
b) A large chemical production facility which turns out meth. THE SAME WAY ALL OTHER INDUSTRIAL/PHARMACUETICAL CHEMICALS ARE PRODUCED?

Meth labs blow up not because there is anything essentially dangerous about meth production (hell it is way easier than making prozac) but because it is illegal so it is done by someone without chemical traning in a basement.

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Not too mention the utter silliness of the idea that legalizing drugs would drop prices and eliminate drug related crime. It just wouldn't happen. People will charge what the market will bear and addicts will bear anything to get a fix. Don't think so. In N.Y. City cigarettes now cost 7.50 a pack and people still buy them.
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Well for starters cigarettes cost $7.50 a pack not because this is the price the free market has settled on but because of taxation by the city. Thus what the price of cigarettes is set at is hardly relevant.

Yes the drug addicts will pay any price *necessery* to aquire their drugs. However, drugs are the ultimate commodity item. An addict could give a fuck which brand name heroin he scores as long as it is heroin. Now from basic economics we see that in a competitive market the price of a commodity drops to the cost of production (yes in a monopoly it will be increased as high as the market will bear but a legal drug market will have plenty of competition). Take a look at the UK/netherlands plans to prescribe heroin to addicts...legal opiates (and certainly legal synthetic drugs like meth) are cheap as ass to produce. The rarity is caused by police enforcement not any essential high price of precursurs.

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And since addicts can't hold jobs and drugs will never be free- they will always be stealing, mugging, etc. to feed their habit. Not to mention my cost for health care for the drug babies. And that wont stop after they are out of Pediatric ICU. They are damaged. They will grow up and become a burden on society- because their parents made poor life choices. The whole thing is sickening.
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If you had been keeping up with the research you would be aware that "crack babies" were pretty much debunked. The decreased performance seen on babies born to crack addicts and etc.. disappeared as soon as the effects of legal drugs (alcohol and tobacco) were accounted for.

In fact ironically enough it is alcohol which is particularly bad at harming fetuses.

Do drugs deystroy lives. Certainly. However, this is mostly a result of legal and economic consequences of the drug war.

Some drugs such as meth, ecstasy etc.. are never going to be able to be used for long periods of time because they cause neurological damage to the user. However, other drugs which, if readily availible, would be abused instead such as heroin don't have these problems.

Long medical experience with opiates, as well as the large number of upper class mothers who were addicted to laudinum in the early 1900s, show that opiate depence does not cause neurological harm and in fact that opiate users will do work to get their fix. Add to this the wonderful fact that new synthetic opiates are *ridiclously* strong and you have addicts getting their fix for well under a dollar a day. A fucking welfare check would cover this.

There was an interesting article written some time ago (in the mercury news I believe) about heroin addiction amoung programers. Now certainly the individual in question wasnt happy about his heroin habit (alot of this seemed to stem from his excesive spending and need to hide his habit at work) but it was clear that he was able to hold down a high paying programming job to support his habit. If it was cheap and legal no one would be stealing to get a fix.

Another fun fact (though I can't remember my source for this). Of the hundred or so drug related homicides in LA something like 2 of them were related to drug use while the rest somehow involved distribution or sale. In other words the violence simply isn't commited by the drug user but by the illicit dealer. As I have yet to see Hoffman-LaRouche employees do a driveby on Bayer I think it is safe to say in a legal market this would disappear.

Yes, we should be carefull so we don't create a country where kids see glamorous heroin coke commercials and all become addicts at age 10 but this is an entierly differnt issue. Not to mention that a life in jail is certainly far more harmfull and unpleasant than a life addicted to drugs.