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Spy Satellite Photos Used To Fight Drug Smugglers
Hugh Pickens writes "The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, part of the Department of Defense, is using satellites to track the activities of drug cartels operating along the US-Mexican border. The agency is supplying photos to pinpoint Mexican narcotics operations and anticipate smuggling attempts into the United States. During a conference on border security held in Phoenix last week, Scott Zikmanis said his agency already has supplied some data to the El Paso Intelligence Center, a federal clearinghouse for investigating drug cartels. Any border-security surveillance will be done over Mexico, not the US says Zikmanis because a federal law, the Posse Comitatus Act, strictly limits US military operations on American soil unless such operations are authorized by Congress. Civil rights attorneys question the use of satellite technology in law enforcement. 'We are in the midst of a really dangerous time in terms of technology,' said Chris Calabrese, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'The idea that such a powerful tool might be turned on US citizens is really troubling.'"
Some people are expressing concerns about Mexico's stability in the face of drug-cartel related violence.
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I doubt the military uses all of their satellites 24/7. When not in use for other things, why not use them to help fight crime? We spent ungodly amounts of money for those things I bet so we might as well get all the use from them we can. When the satellite can take pictures of the border it can only take pictures of what is in its line of sight, so using it to find people in Afghanistan isn't an exclusive task (may depend on how/whether the satellite can adjust its orbit).
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It's pretty out of control down in Mexico. The cartels outgun the law enforcement agencies and they have paramilitary training. It isn't unheard of for drug gang enforcers to use bodyarmor, automatic weapons and hand grenades.
I'm not as worried about the spy satellites as I am about the government using Mexico's problems as justification to limit our 2nd amendment rights. The handwriting is on the wall with this one. There are numerous stories in the news about how the guns in Mexico are coming from the United States. I can see what is going on in Mexico being used as yet another justification for a NAU style homogeonization of laws (read: a further erosion of the Constitution by entering into treaties with foreign countries).
Considering that the man was a coyote, It's hard for me to feel empathy for his situation given that coyotes frequently pack people (who are willing to die to get here) into conditions which even slaughterhouse cattle would envy, all for the mighty buck.
The guy also had a day job. If border crime is as ruthless as the media says it is (and I doubt that because I've lived on the border for 18 years of my life), then a man with a family would be wise to stay out of the traficantes' business.
[tinfoil hat] I doubt that the recent media blitzes against Mexico, border crime and swine flu, are coincidental. [/tinfoil hat]
Lots of stores in the news about US guns in Mexico... the problem is, those are very tortured statistics. Sure, most of the guns that can be traced do get traced back to the US. But for the overall total of guns sourced from the US, nobody knows for sure.
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"without some outside motive"
I'm not saying anybody is immune to meth addiction, or addiction generally. Once you hit the neurochemistry, anything is possible. I am suggesting that people don't just pick up meth the way they just pick up scrapbooking or model airplanes. The fact that meth is seriously bad news, even by drug standards, is well known. I'm saying that, without some impetus, people don't just pick up things with reputations like that.
Different societies, and different subsections of society, have different rates of drug use, drug abuse, and adverse drug outcomes. They also use different drugs in different proportions. That is what I'm talking about. As you say, meth can get to pretty much anybody once they start using it. However, some circumstances are more likely than others to induce them to do that. That was the point of my question.
What is it about the economic, social, political, arrangement of the area that causes people to pick meth up in greater numbers?
I'm sorry if I expressed myself poorly. I neither think nor intended to imply that resistance to drugs one has been exposed to differs substantially between people(though, with some drugs, there does seem to be a genetic factor). I do think that there are significant differences between social contexts in how many people are induced to be exposed to drugs.
I agree with you in principle, but this description of how it would play out borders on the hilarious.
I mean, what do you do with the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently in prison on drug charges?
Set them free. More people are in prison in the US, and the US has the highest highest prison population in the world, because of drugs than any other reason. And many of them are non violent.
Right now people in prison now for drug offenses are a drain on taxpayers when they could be taxpayers themselves.
Do you just let them out, or do you go further than that?
You apologize for falsely imprisoning them.
What do you do about the thousands of socially marginal people who just lost their jobs (yes, if you are willing to risk prison to distribute drugs, you are likely socially marginal; sorry.)? And so on.
Citation NEEDED!!! I dare you to find science studies that reach that conclusion.
I don't any now but I knew many people who bought, sold, and used illegal drugs and not one was worse than alcoholics I also knew. Those addicted to a legal drug are worse than those who use illegal drugs.
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Should there be a Law?
Because many industries, including agricultural today, have a natural tendency towards consolidation? Because I fear that there will be licensing required to grow or sell and this will only help encourage the creation of a few mega-corps around it? Because the big tobacco companies would be the ones best poised to take advantage of legalization from the outset? Because that's what's happened with tobacco in the first place?
Try buying a cigarette that isn't loaded with additives that just make the damn things even less healthy. Your choices are American Spirits and... yeah, hope they have American Spirits at the convenience store. It's hard just getting a cigarette that's pure tobacco, so I just don't see many of the big players not cutting joints with at least some tobacco, and using whatever financial muscle is necessary to push the ones who won't play lets-keep-our-customers-addicted ball.
Now I don't think this will happen, it's just my biggest worry over legalization. I worry that the way in which it will be legalized, combined with economic forces, will result in problems. As long as both possession and cultivation are made completely legal, then it probably won't be a big deal.
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