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.'"

Comments

Military required?

[ComputerDruid]

Is drug smuggling really such a big problem to require the use of military resources? It seems like something like this falls much more into the realm of law enforcement than something the military should get involved in.

I know that it is sometimes called the war on drugs, but is it really so bad that it deserves to be called a war?

Re:Military required?

[FooAtWFU]

Some people are expressing concerns about Mexico's stability in the face of drug-cartel related violence.

Re:Military required?

[cayenne8]

Why don't we just do something MUCH simpler...and start legalizing them for adults?!?

Just doing that will cut the profit...and take a lot of the crime out of it.

Start with pot...I mean, if people can grow it themselves, why buy from Juan the MX drug thug?

Re:Military required?

[cayenne8]

"Some people are expressing concerns about Mexico's stability in the face of drug-cartel related violence."

If that's the case, why doesn't the US just annex MX? I mean, we've already got about half the people here, why shouldn't we get the real estate too? Nice beaches, etc....

:)

Re:Military required?

[T Murphy]

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).

Re:Military required?

[dave562]

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).

Re:Military required?

[Hognoxious]

Nice beaches

Sexist bastard!

Re:Military required?

[Hojima]

Some people are expressing concerns about Mexico's stability in the face of drug-cartel related violence.

Then legalize the drugs. Then use the profits from the government-sold drugs to start up rehab centers. Problem solved.

Re:Military required?

[Red Flayer]

If that's the case, why doesn't the US just annex MX?

Because then we'll need a new "threat to the American way" to rile up the idiots so they can be politically manipulated -- illegal Mexican immigrants won't be usable for that anymore.

Who would we blame for taking our jobs? Who would we blame for the drug trade? Who would we pay terrible wages to labor in our fields and in our kitchens -- they'd need to be paid a decent wage if we annexed Mexico!

Re:Military required?

[Red Flayer]

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.

Because we need to maintain a wall of separation between the military and law enforcement. Even if it's expensive to do so.

I wouldn't welcome any more steps towards the US becoming a fascist state.

Re:Military required?

[Captain Splendid]

I mean, what do you do with the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently in prison on drug charges? Do you just let them out,

Well, yeah. Hell, it's already happening as budget shortfalls are making people realize that spending millions on keeping potheads locked up might not be the best way to spend cash.

or do you go further than that?

What, like give 'em a cookie or something?

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...you lost me. Try this experiment: type in socially marginal jobs in Google, and be just fucking amazed at all the hits you'll get.

And so on.

So on what? you said in your first sentence that the implications of what GP said border on the hilarious, but the rest of your post...devolved somewhat. Care to actually explain yourself?

Re:Military required?

[corbettw]

Alcohol is legal. Operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol is not legal. Why would you ever assume that just because drugs became legal that operating a vehicle under their influence would suddenly be OK?

Re:Military required?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make it expensive to hire illegals and they'll stop coming.

How are you going to make it expensive to do something illegal? Are you going to pass a law?

Re:Military required?

[0100010001010011]

If only there was some country that had already experimented with this... Oh wait. There is.

In 2001 Portugal did just this. They decriminalized everything. and 7 years later it's working better than imagined.

Everyone caught using is suggested to go to a class (but it's not required.). Sure they're a bit smaller than the US, but there's no reason it couldn't work here.

License, regulate, tax.

[Hatta]

Enough said.

Re:License, regulate, tax.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"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.

Protecting the borders

[mangu]

Is drug smuggling really such a big problem to require the use of military resources?

Isn't protecting the borders exactly what the military are supposed to do?

what is needed?

[falconwolf]

Really, electronic fencing with video based surveillance is all you really need with camps every few miles or so.

No, what's really needed is to get rid of stupid, liberty denying, racist laws.

Falcon

Re:Yeah right

[Martin Blank]

They were not, by and large, falsely imprisoned. They were found guilty and sentenced according to the law. I'm sure there are a few that are in there on questionable evidence, but the overwhelming majority of them were caught, tried, and sentenced as the system is supposed to work.

That you do not agree with the law does not make it false imprisonment. I believe that a good portion of them should be let out, and that certain uses should be decriminalized (if not outright legalized), but that's a far cry from accusations of false imprisonment.

You Joke

[geoffrobinson]

But Mexico has/had soldiers on their southern border to prevent people from coming in.

Plus they have draconian immigration laws relative to the USA.

Their hypocrisy vis a vis their complaints about crackdowns on illegal immigration against their citizens is ignored.