Slashdot Mirror
Mexico Will Shut Down 25.9 Million Cell Phones
Several months ago, as a way to prevent the use of cellular phones in criminal activities, the government of Mexico started a program to require all phone owners to register cell phones in their own names. The registry associates each phone with the listed owner's Clave Unica de Registro de Poblacion (CURP) [CURP, in English], which is supposed to be a unique ID for every Mexican citizen. Now, as nanahuatzin writes,
Yesterday the timeline to register the cell phones expired, and there are
[approx 26] million cell phones yet unregistered (English translation of the Spanish original). While the procedure is simple, sending a text message with the CURP to a special number, most people do not want to register: some are wary of the uses to which the government will put the data; others did not understand or did not know the procedure. So far, only 69% have registered, most of them in the last few days, while the system to register has been oversaturated. So in an unprecedented move for any country, the Mexican government is announcing the shutdown of 25.9 million cell phone lines. Meanwhile, as a measure of protest, hundreds of people have registered their cell phones in the name of the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, to show how pointless is the registry."
I'm a little torn on this. I'm all for freedom of just about everything - but only in stable societies. I'm not too much of an idealist to believe military states don't also have their usefulness.
Considering the grip the drug cartels have on the balls of that place I'm not too terrible surprised though. As Mexico's next door neighbor I really can't blame them for trying new tactics to deal with this situation.
Things in Mexico have gotten bad lately especially along the boarder. This is killing their tourism industry which is a key component of their economy. Americas especially are fearful to visit, and the days of a weekend in Tijuana are all but over. The Mexican governemnt has failed time and time again to combat this problem, in no large part thanks to their massive curruption problem. Despite some material wealth I fear that Mexico is sliding into a true third-world economy. If the choice is between bribing cops/ possibly getting murdered and spending a few extra bucks to go to say Miami then the choice seems clear.
...but in Spain, you (the phone number owner) had to go with your "DNI" (National Identification Document) to your TC to register it and not be shut down.
TFA is dated 13th April 2009.
So far, only 69% have registered...
So, the *majority* have registered, and a large number of the remaining know about it but don't trust the system? Sounds more or less succesful to me...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Coming to a 'liberal western democracy' near you, soon!
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
This'll just spread the crime to include cell phone theft. Then the government will need to set up some program to keep track of stolen phones and make sure they're deactivated and all the mess that comes along with that.
Even outside of the privacy concerns and other issues, this is a terrible idea that doesn't even approach solving the problem. It's a stupid ploy so that some asshat can claim they're trying to crack down on crime without really cracking down on crime.
Meanwhile, as a measure of protest, hundreds of people have registered their cell phones in the name of the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, to show how pointless is the registry.
Wow. 25.9 million cell phones get turned off, and out of all of them, only a few hundred flip the government the finger to this useless piece of legislation? I'm disappointed.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
But what they're going through is really a civil war. And in the US, we took quite a few liberties with civil rights during our civil war.
Will it help? Maybe--it will at least require drug gangs to go to the trouble of stealing cell phones that only have useful lives of a few days
Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
-Scott Adams
Here = Greece. On June every unregistered cellphone number will be deactivated by the providers who are obligated to do so by the authorities. I wonder how this can halt criminality. They can just get accounts from other countries, can't they? Or, simpler, they can steal accounts from others and use them till they get reported. it will generate more illegality like stolen account information sales or customer databases hacking. And of course, there is the privacy issue and how the information will be treated by the providers.
Most "Drug Lords" use sat phones.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
While this 'might' disrupt some criminal activity, any success will be short-lived, and the cartels will get around this issue in a very short time frame.
The real issue here is the US' continued avoidance of the failure that is 'War on Drugs'. Why Mexico, and most of Central America isn't bringing this to the U.N. or doing anything within their power to shove this right back in the US' face is beyond me. Maybe certain people in the US are biding their time, but with Cartels willingly violating US and Texas airspace w/ helicopters, and the open killing of US families on both sides of the border, how is this not on the forefront of news media? Are these really not international incident as far as Mexico-US is concerned?
Would the heads of prominent Texas, or US business-men on the steps of the Capital building get there attention? At what point do US politicians consider this topic to be of immediate national interest, and immediate attention?
This is was not unique for Norway at the time, but I remember what happened: Many criminals started using other peoples social security numbers... Let's say you want to register with certain operators, all you need to do is get a prepaid package with a new number, then send a text message with "REG firstname surname socialsecuritynumber". Nothing but automatic verification. I don't know what is worse, let criminals have anonymous phones or have them use other peoples ID.
Dvorak on Doomtech
Pretty shocking that so many countries are afraid of anonymous speech.
"Hey, Felipe, CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?"
My wife and I help run an animal rescue group down in TJ (http://www.friendsofhstj.org) and several of our members have Mexico phones so we can call people while there, and not pay international roaming :P
I didn't even know about this, and since only Mexican citizens have one of these CURP numbers...apparently non-Mexicans have to do a bit extra to have a working phone there.
I think this is a neccessity for MExico because the drug war/border violence is REALLY bad. I'm not saying I've been there or could coneive what it would be like but I do follow up on it in the news it is seriously out of control. Another comment I'm really glad slashdotters are so more open minded. Had I read the same article on Fox News I would of heard about outcrys like that the government is trying to implant mind control chips in our brains and the New world order will finally rule us all.
So, the stated goal is to prevent criminals from using cell phones. Since we are talking about criminals, what prevents them from registering under a stolen identity? Or what prevents them from stealing cell phones? Or what prevents them from paying $1000 to Juan (who earns $50/month) over there to register their cell phone in his name? I understand the desire, but it won't work (even if government corruption does not undermine the plan). It will become another pointless government bureaucracy.
linquendum tondere
really whats going to stop them from using a phone any phone. most criminals dont even use cell phones due to the fact they can be tracked. they eyhter use prepaid phones or a frigging phone booth. at least in the usa. as someone said its a stupid way of saying where fighting crime wile not doing a dam thing.
I think that's around the number of Canadians with cell phones (out of a total population of around 35 Million). It's like they're shutting down Canada.
Just FYI.
Of course you need to pay the roaming bills *g*
a few months back I was driving along in TJ with a group of women and refrained from pointing out the two bridges in a row that had a person (each) hung from them. It wasn't until the next day when they read about it in the news, knowing we went down that road, that a few of them realized they had seen something, but didn't think about it. Sometimes that's the best way - to not think about it. Another of our volunteers got separated once from the caravan, having decided that day to drive their own car - they got lost, and ended up passing a man being burned alive by a gang. She never drove her own car there again, that's for certain...
So yeah..."essential liberties" that we get upset about up here north of the boarder really aren't that essential. For a place that's so close to us, it's...very, very far away.
Registering phones accomplishes nothing. All the criminals have to do now is borrow someones phone, make an anonymous call and then return the phone back to the original owner. Hell they could pay people a fee to use their cellphone for 10 minutes and it would be completely random and untraceable.
Once again it's stupid to force people to register phones, it's no more reliable than making people register for slashdot. Any determined individual can be an anonymous coward. Even if you make people register any determined individual can borrow someone elses password.
to see so many people willing to go along with this in light of how fraudulent the whole idea behind it is.. I guess the kool-aid is super sweet these days..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
If the cartels just pay complete strangers to make phonecalls on their registered phones, the majority of complete strangers would accept the money, and if they don't then they'd just be robbed and the registered phone taken and once again anonymous phone calls.
Registering phones is as pointless as registering guns. Criminals don't register, so this will only effect the individuals who aren't in the cartels. The cartels will just go deeper underground, and will be even more anonymous because they'll start using random phones registered by random strangers. At least before they could perhaps trace the calls back to the same physical device, now they can't even do that.
Lets face it, if someone wants to be anonymous they will be. Just like if someone wanted to be anonymous on slashdot they could go and pay individuals for their username and password and bypass the registration system no matter how complex it is. The only thing the government can do is monitor ALL phonecalls from ALL phones, and through datamining hope to find the needle in the haystack.
So lets say i want to go on vacation to Mexico ( not that i would, don't have a death wish ) but if i did, how would i be able to get cell service now? Im not a citizen so i don't have one of those numbers.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In an attempt to curb [Type_of_Crime] the government of [Country] has [Required_Registration || Restriction] of [Device || Devices]
The net result of which has been to inconvenience and annoy honest citizens and not affect criminals at all since they don't follow the laws and working around [Required_Registration || Restriction] is trivially easy.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Fascists don't make laws on the basis of whether or not it will work to solve a problem. Fascists make laws to control human behavior. It's as worthless as national ID cards with DNA built in. It's as worthless as the laws that make it a crime to possess certain drugs or information. These laws aren't designed to solve a problem, they are designed to control and regulate human behavior.
Usually these laws create even more problems or turn small problems into a big problem, which is then used as a convenient excuse to pass even more draconian fascist laws which give the government even more authority to regular behavior.
This process will not stop until we are all chipped government robots with no free will. That is the end goal/final solution of fascism.
Phone theft isn't even necessary, just go to a safehouse and use their phone. Or just pay a random individual $100 to use their phone for 10 minutes and I can pretty much guarantee if the price is right you'll find some individual somewhere who will let you make a call for $10 a minute.
In fact I'm sure most people on slashdot would accept that deal, and there would be no need to rob anyone.Of course when it's time to explain what happen to the police then of course the money isn't mentioned and it was a robbery.
And after cell phones what if they force their citizens to register other things.
and then the obvious things is, "hay, if we know where all are citizens are and what they are doing at all times then it will be near impossible to get away with crimes"
Seems to me this is a very slippery slope, ending in absolute tyranny.
It is not even that long of a slope, even just using cell phones, all they need is some required software or hardware in all of them with some sort of GPS and the government can know what you are doing and were you are in real time.
And , of course, this is all in the name of reducing crime.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Most "Drug Lords" use sat phones.
Another good point. But honestly they don't even have to use cellphones at all, they could use the radio.
... there has been huge rise in the number of stolen phones and SIM cards in Mexico, especially from the few tourists that still come to Mexico.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Believe me it's not at all a pointless idea. If they can control who you can talk to and how, they can control you.
Mexico has zero interest to destroy the drug cartels. http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2010/04/10/mexico-14/ Only the US could destroy the cartels. Putting drug dealers in prison? Millions of dollars Fighting the war on drugs? Billion of dollars. Legalizing drugs and putting the cartels out of business? priceless. There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there is matercard.
The criminals could actually get smart and stop using cellphones entirely, or use some sort of internet phone which would basically kill this entire idea overnight.
FTA. The FA are behind all the world's ills. I say, FTA. FTA now!
(no my country is not a gnat, i do not live under a bridge, and my countrymen do not steal everything in sight that's not bolted down)
So fick the americans! fick them now!
Felipe Calderon Hinojosa wants his hundreds of phones that were registered in his name.
Can I bum a sig?
There are several reasons why the goons in most countries love to keep some drugs illegal, here are the five largest reasons, and this would more or less apply to mexico as well as the US right now:
1) They make a shitload, I mean just truckloads of cash more money at it, and all governments have insiders who are corrupt and in the drug trade, top to bottom to sideways. Look, they can't even keep drugs out of prisons, this is a major clue how corrupting all that huge cash money is. Illegal drug money funds from street cops all the way to judges, prosecutors, a lot of dotmil smugglers, spooks of various nations, and so on, all the way to major funding banks and real estate funds..that money is being transferred around "in the system" as well as under the table. Legalizing it would knock those cash profits down immensely, to those people and to the other "civilian" smugglers and dealers. Really, dealers are the last people to want it legalized. And the government simply does not want to lose all their "war on some drugs" gravy train. And gives pols some TV talking points about being "tough" on..drugs, whatever. They are always "tough"...lookit their ads during election cycles
2)Gives them a wonderful excuse to keep building the police state. They have people completely conditioned now to accept no knock raids, roadblocks, cameras, wiretaps, legions of "undercover" goons, etc..stuff that was taught to me was only done in evile places like east germany, back when I was a kid. Now..common. Plus, they got all the cops and paramilitary conditioned that it is all "legal and proper".
3)Takes more and more people out of the official "you are cool to vote" pool, and makes felons out of them, so they have legal obligations that go to forward point 2 above (the goal is for all citizens to be criminals so the governments can pwnz ur azz
4)creates a ton of unnecessary jobs in the criminal justice system, including building private for profit jails and running inmate slave labor factories and shops, supplying the hardware for the surveillance and command and control big bro state, etc. A lot of people make a lot of money off of big brother action now, and the war on terra and drugs are the two big reasons for them to do that.
5)then there's stuff like medicinal marijuana and industrial hemp..cheap to grow, effective for a lot of purposes..threatens a lot of established old big money interests.
Makes as much sense legalizing drugs.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
In Soviet Russia, your cell phone registers you!
The CB App. What's your 20?
So you're afraid the police will kill you in the dead of night? What if the excuse was that you said something they didn't like? Like complain about police killings?
Maybe anonymous speech is MORE important in those circumstance. Not because THEY fear it, but because YOU fear them.
Mr AC, are you Jay Leno? Your postings are the same old joke over and over. What was once funny is now trite and boring and you give yourself too much credit.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Hasn't worked in countries that put drug dealers to death, why should it work here? Better suggestion: Only you pay with your taxes for the "war on drugs" and I get a tax credit.
Could the move to register mobile phones in Mexico, have something to do with rounding up illegal immigrants in USA?
As a non-Mexican, I couldn't even follow the simple procedure. Luckily, it's want too difficult to take my passport to the Telcel customer service center, and register that way.
On the other hand, I also have my work-issued phone, which is from the United States (where I'm also from). I don't have to register it; my company only has to pay roaming rates. It kind of defeats the purpose of combating the criminal underground if they're willing to use US phones and pay the roaming rates. How much would that really affect their bottom lines?
--Jim (me)
Not sure how banning phones or whatever will help there. Won't people just change their IMEI number, or get phones from abroad, or steal phones, or.... ? I mean, we're not talking about people who are going to obey the law, are we?
It doesn't work because they only execute the dealers. Get rid of the users and you get rid of the demand.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
No, it doesn't. You're a nut job.
Why don't we kill everyone who drinks beer or sells beer while we're at it? Prohibition doesn't work and it causes much more harm to society than legalization does.
One thing is clear: the country has some profound problems at the moment. And I'm not convinced this plan will solve them.
the argument is that phones allow them to coordinate. But hell, walkie-talkies allow them to as well :P There's really not much that the restriction stops that isn't easy to get around...would be like the US gov asking you to use their DNS servers, which then don't have entries for things they don't want you to see. So...use 8.8.8.8 instead :P
You live in Canada?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
'cause I am.
I am one of those who hasn't registered his phone. Not because I don't know how or didn't know I had to, but because I'm against it.
Besides my paranoia, which is well founded, I REFUSE to have a cell phone if things go this way. As the summary reads, many people have been registering to the President's name. While this is kind of funny, it means that it's possible for anyone to register under MY name, then go out and commit crimes with that phone.
The only way of knowing about this is to go to the SEGOB's page and manually check out which numbers are registered to your CURP. So what? I'm suppossed to do this every two days to make sure no one is using my CURP to register?!
This if a very stupid idea. Even if there was some ID check proccedure while registering (which would require posts being set exclusively to check that and you, the user, would have to personally go there with your ID card and whatnot), it's just a call for a wave of cellphone theft that will get out of hand and render the whole thing useless.
As of paranoia, a few years ago something was tried here just like this RENAUT thing, but with cars, called the RENAVE. It was a registration (mandatory) of new cars (and the plan was to extend it to used cars as well) to "help prevent auto theft". Well fuck it! A few months into it the news hit us that the one in charge was using the information to steal and sell stolen cars himself! Not to mention that he happened to be an Argentinan genocide from the 60s.
And now I'm supposed to trust the government with a cellphone-CURP database?! Fuck no! I'd rather go back to sending smoke signals to my friends and family!
Shows how little you know. Prohibition with minor penalties doesn't work. Make the penalty harsh enough and it works just fine.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Drugs are incredibly profitable and popular in the US, where most of Mexico's drug cartels export to. Until we repeal crippling portions of NAFTA so that there are other economic opportunities available in Mexico any anti-drug legislation is going to be marginally successful at best. The incentives are incredibly out of whack, and in many places the government cannot protect you. It's just not a realistic expectation that more laws will suddenly tip the balance. If we want to help Mexico, we really need to look at seriously at the demand side of drugs as well.
It's not that Mexico has "zero interest" in destroying the drug cartels. They do have such an interest - no society wants to see part of its territory revert to lawlessness. They just aren't willing to sacrifice everything.
The Mexicans have lost quite a bit recently, from judges to police to soldiers (and their families). They can't be expected to do more to address a problem which is impossible for them to solve because it's financed by people in another country.
Legalization would reduce crime, unemployment, and drug-related violence. The drug cartels would have no source of income and you wouldn't hear about any "mexican drug war." We wouldn't throw away billions of dollars on enforcement agencies, wasting police officers' time chasing pot smokers, etc. -- tax revenues would increase even without a sin tax as the corporations and jobs that would spring up to cultivate cannabis and coca plants would generate tons of income. We'd get out of the recession and stop throwing away money on a fruitless effort. Please do yourself the favor of reading the excellent essay on drug prohibition that is published on the main page of LEAP, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. It does a great job of explaining why prohibition is counter-productive; and no, executing everyone who smokes pot in this country will not be a good decision.
I welcome you to try though, that's why the founding fathers left us with the 2nd amendment. To stop assholes like you.
I live in Mexico. I refused to register my cellphone and it still works. I figured out that some of the most powerful companies in the country are service providers and they would not allow to lose profits from 30% of their customer base. Also, as a foreigner I had to register my fingerprints like a criminal and I refuse to do that.
please don't feed the trolls
weinersmith
You forgot the part where there are legions of addicts who can't work. They add nothing to society and live of the rest of us. And, when their habit becomes more than they can afford, they will still turn to crime to pay for their addiction.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Even Mexicans are smarter than americans.
If you doubt the corruption angle with drugs (which I guess is the basis of your reply, that that is "paranoid"? It's just data, man, look it up yourself, verification is a simple google search away, have at it, there have been tons of prosecuted cases over the years and all sorts of articles written about it, etc. Heck, read any article lately about the scene in mexico and they all mention how corrupt the government is there, and I sincerely doubt all this corruption magically stops exactly at the border.
Oh, if you are wondering or making an allusion, nope, don't smoke pot or do any other drugs other than cheap coffee and some cheap cigars. I rarely even take an aspirin.
I'm still in favor of legalizing it though, this prohibition "cure" just makes the situation much worse. The war on drugs was lost years ago, it will never work, and it has never been cost effective. Society is going to have to come up with something other than classifying some huge percentage of their population as criminals.
If cell phones are outlawed, only outlaws will have cell phones.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
We don't need no steenkeeng cell phones!
I'd be the last one to suggest Mexico doesn't have problems but, Tijuana, like Juarez is a special case, that's kinda like equating the whole of U.S. with the worse parts of Detroit.
But... the future refused to change.
Huh? Countless studies show that the addictive power of nicotine in cigarettes is at least as powerful as that of heroin, and last I checked, people aren't killing each other over ciggies. Not only that, but the countless number of people addicted to prescription painkillers aren't out there "feeding off of us", and such drugs are within one or two radicals of heroin (diamorphine).
"Maybe--it will at least require drug gangs to go to the trouble of stealing cell phones that only have useful lives of a few days"
How soon till the Dead start making phone calls? Now, on the one hand, the Mexican government *might* have had the foresight to set things up so that these phone registrations are cross-checked against death records, but *even* if they did, there is going to be a period where the databases haven't been updated (either because the government just doesn't yet know someone is dead, because the death hasn't been reported yet, or simply because there might be some delay between when a person's death is recorded, and the phone operators check and disable the service.
So, seems to me that rather than stealing a phone, you simply steal the identity of someone who won't miss it.
Oh, you might also register phones in the name of children. Etc. I bet they come up with something even more clever. For every type of scheme government's come up with to regulate something, criminals come up with much smarter scheme's to get around it.
And then after the instability ceases, you accidentally forget to repeal the oppressive laws.
As far as I'm concerned this is just a fox news tactic -- you're karma whoring for attention. I can also just randomly make stuff up as needed to make myself feel better and or win an argument or prove a point. Citation needed, please. Thanks.
Parent is likely talking about another country, or referring to an age other than the one we currently live in here in Mexico.
Next time when you notice something is odd on your credit report you know what to look for.
New Economic Perspectives
They'll just start using carrier pigeons. Someone for Christs sake please think about the poor birds!
I guess if he's using a fox news tactic and just making stuff up, then that makes you using an MSNBC tactic and just flaming someone for karma because you can't get it any other way. Burn motherfucker, burn.
For a place that's so close to us, it's...very, very far away.
Someone evidently hasn't been to Kansas before!
There are many reasons to not register your cellphone, first is the risk of data theft, and the Mexican government already has a bad record on that, the data could have even already be prepaid for and that would not surprise me.
The real threat is that if the cellphone is really registered with my CURP and gets stolen and used for extortions, the problem is now mine, if I do not manage to inform of the cellphone loss in time, the burden is on ME to demonstrate that I did not used it for extortions, and going by the records of law application here, you are "Guilty until found otherwise".
Do you think that the police cares? they will just arrest you, in this "War on Drugs" there have been cases where civilians where killed and the military/police told the media that they where criminals (sicarios), just look for the case of the 2 dead students from the Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey.
Here in South Africa we only have a few months left before the deadline of the RICA law. RICA is the "Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act.".
Except, we're not luckily enough to be able to just SMS our names through. We have to go to branches of the cell networks with proof of residence, ID documents etc..
So far I'm withholding my information - hopefully enough people will refuse that the cell companies lose so many customers that they'll protest to the government..
Wait, are you saying that they aren't essential in the sense that we don't need them to live our lives? Because that's certainly not why millions in immigrants illegally cross the border into the United States trying to get away from the lack of essential liberties. They want the freedom to live their lives in peace, free from encroachments on their liberty. In that sense all liberties are essential.
That lack of liberty is also why their economy stinks. Nobody is free to accomplish anything without having a roving gang burn them alive and take what they have. The drug cartels are free because they have more firepower.
The title says it all, we've had to show an ID card for each SIM bought for years (by this I mean, before our security-overexcited current president even appeared)
Herve S.
why don't they simply do the damn thing?
nop, nop, nop #VBLANK
> the argument is that phones allow them to coordinate.
Yeah, I'm not disputing that phones are used in the commission of crime - just that criminals, by definition, don't uphold the law. Sort of like when the anti-hacking laws were being discussed in the UK in the '80s, it was as if they expected Russian spys and hackers to suddenly throw up their hands in despair because it was now illegal.
We Have the same system in South Africa But you need to supply proof of residence as well
as it is eaten so it shall pass
I know of a Mexican who's in prison for drug trafficking, and they won't take his cell phone away from him even though it's been reported repeatedly.
Have the CIA poison the drug supply. With all of the US customers dead, many, MANY problems will be solved simultaneously. The drug cartels will wither and die (or at least shrink considerably), the US can end the War on Drugs and free up money for more important things, prison populations in the US will shrink... The list goes on and on. Disclaimer: Spare me any boo-hoo bullshit. I'm not the sympathetic type.
Nicotine does not incapacitate it's users. Nicotine does not turn the user into a hazard to himself and others. One can smoke and operate a vehicle and/or heavy machinery.
But, heroin, cocaine, and many other drugs do any and or all of the above.
Would you have someone high on heroin or Xanax or morphine drive you around at rush hour? How about drive your child's school bus?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
"Essential liberties" and fighting for them whether they're being taken away by government, corporation or a gang and sticking to them when you're in a position to take them away yourself is what separates a place like this from a place like that. Nothing else does. Every place is Hell if you stop putting out the flames.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
If Mexico wants to solve all their problems, they should get rid of America. America funds countless drug organisation around the globe, funding even the terrorists it is fighting with its population craze for drugs.
It is amusing. One hand funds anti-drug campaigns that end up hurting foreign farmers, and the other gives those farmers a highly lucrative source of income. Meanwhile the US improsons more people then anyone else, including far larger nations, on sheer numbers with absolutely zero effect on its drug use.
You got to wonder how it can be that the US has the most expensive war on drugs and yet drugs flow so freely. Corruption? It is known the CIA, a government body has sponsored the drug trade. Are they perhaps still doing it?
Mexico should just close the border. 100%. Nobody in or out. That would solve the problem really fast. But of course, you can't stop the free-trade of drugs.
Funny really. When you are on another continent.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Alcohol does incapacitate it's users (yes, it does), yet is legal.
Sorry, you don't have case. Legalisation is still the cheapest way to stop drug cartels.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
The truly criminal ones are a lot more sophisticated today - they're hacking the SIM chips today to present false information, cloning chips so they don't get turned off, etc...
Identity theft, open a new cell account in somebody's name, preferably somebody who, for whatever reason, either has no cell or multiple ones.
I don't read AC A human right
The whole utopia of legalized drugs that people imagine, doesn't exist
Ever heard of Portugal? I assure you it exists and it has yet to fall into a nightmare of addiction and ruined lives yet. Just reduced addiction, reduced crime, and reduced drug related health problems.
Based on what I've read, Portugal has not made it legal to grow, manufacture, transport, sell, own or use any drugs. From Cato institute:
On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were "decriminalized," not "legalized." Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense. http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10080
You are putting words in his mouth. He never explicitly stated that Portugal had become a junky heaven where it is legal to grow, manufacture, transport, sell, own or use any drugs. What is your point anyway? Perhaps you guys are you trying to tell us that the US American idea of filling your jails with small time users serving draconian sentences for minor drug offenses is some how better than what the Portuguese did? By the sound of that report the Portuguese simply concluded that having police officers chasing after small time drug users was a waste of time and that the Portuguese state was better off spending it's resources openly treating drug users and limiting addiction. That Cato report concluded that after the decriminalization of drug possession in favor of offering treatment, illegal drug use among teens declined, the rate of HIV infections declined and the number of people seeking treatment for addiction doubled since they didn't have to fear prosecution any more. The executive summary ends with the words:
The data shows that, judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalization framework has been a resounding success. Within this success lie self-evident lessons that should guide drug policy debates around the world.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
My brother-in-law tried several times to register his cell phone two years ago and the system they had kept rejecting him for no reason. I wouldn't be surprised if there are many more who have had this problem. Luckily, in Mexico as in most places, people will find their way around the system. ;-)
there will be 31% fewer traffic accidents and brain tumors :-)
I'll try my best to explain that. Such number (69%) comes straight from the counter that the website for such registry has.
So it's been around 70 million visits but not all of them are registries, right now the website is not processing your info, neither the CURP website because all traffic has been reserved to the registration.
69 million my ass, that number is as untrue as "good mexican weed".
A drink will not incapacitate someone. A single hit of heroin will.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You forgot the part where there are legions of addicts who can't work because places where they could get jobs test for drugs and deny those who test positive any employment at all. They're forced to turn to crime because we don't allow them to work legitimate jobs.
Furthermore, the drugs they buy from the black market are more dangerous and more expensive than they would be if they were legalized, so the total cost would be less, and they could realistically pay for their habit by mopping the floors at McDonald's or whatever other sorts of jobs those people are likely to have.
I'd write more but I should be working instead of debating this issue with idiots. Do you have any more straw man arguments that rely on circular logic or are you getting tired yet?
I'm not gonna reply to this comment but gonna update the last numbers of the registry:
58 810 000 lines registered and from those Mexican President Felipe Calderón has registered a total of 12 000 cell phone lines.
There are also cell phone lines registered under the name of Mexico's City Mayor, some senators and some union leaders.
Tell that to all those people that can't metabolize alcohol.
But anyway, you said you wouldn't have a drug addict drive a school bus. My answer was: What about an alcoholic?
There is no difference: Alcohol is just as dangerous as any other drug when used in the wrong context and with too big a dose.
Ernest J.W. ter Kuile
I know people in the Mexican Police and Army that have been killed fighting the drug trade.
It is very easy for USians to be judgemental of the efforts of other governments to fight drug trafficking, after all you only smoke the drugs with utter disregard of the misery you are causing elsewhere.
Mexico never had a problem with drug trafficking in spite of rampant corruption, drug addiction was unheard off until the early 90s.
Drug trafficking became a Mexican National Security issue only once the rampant drug consumption in the US was well established and the prohibitionist, and morally bankrupt "War on Drugs" tactics took deep root in the US.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I worked in close contact with INEGI at the beginning of the 90s in order to implement the National Land Reform System in all the country. I can assure you that the government distributed every bit of land that could be distributed.
Thousands of people were sent to the field to measure plots of land accurately, 32 computer centres were set up to process that information and generate the maps that would guarantee once and for all land ownership for small landowners (all Sun hardware, Solaris 2.0, Oracle DBs, GIS software by MapInfo if I remember correctly).
The problem in Mexico is that there are many small landowners, because the land has been redistributed completely. With little land you have little collateral in order to take a loan and obtain the resources you need to make your land productive. As a result you are at best a subsistence farmer who hopefully will produce enough to feed his family (until your children inherit part of it, so eventually there are a bunch of small farmers that have little land as collateral, this is not a matter of if but a matter of when).
This has nothing to do with race. The "Criollos" (people of pure Spanish descent, which don't come from Castilla only, I have no idea where did you read that nonsense) certainly have lots of political power, but by no means monopolize it. Politicians of note come from all the Mexican racial spectre, but most people are mixed race anyway.
Certainly the Mexican nation has to figure out a way to integrate with dignity and without patronizing the Native American peoples that are now in the boundaries of Mexico, but giving them land, without the capital and the know how, would be pretty useless.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When alcohol was banned in the US that gave raise to a criminal Mafia. As soon as the ban was lifted the Mafia disappeared.
All other things being equal, I would prefer to live without an artificially created Mafia.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The tobacco and alcohol companies are certainly some of the most deplorable examples of how capitalism can go wrong, but at least they move within the constraints of civilized society and the rule of law.
Compare against the Mexican drug cartels, which are undermining law and order in Mexico and causing serious social problems in the US.
I would want all the people involved in drug trafficking paying taxes, unarmed and defending their businesses against educational campaigns that encourage people to stop drug consumption.
The militarization of the problem, with the encouragement of the Ayatollic US approach to law enforcement, is making things worse, not better.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have come back to Mexico once or twice a year every year for the last 12 years.
Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana are dreadful, as are many parts in the border (the border? that place where the drug dealers' clients are closer? What a coincidence....)
But most other places are perfectly fine in general terms. As bad as the violence is most of it is restricted to fight between gangs or between gangs and the police or the army (and these don't happen everywhere every day, consider this the Mexican equivalent of the US random shooting....deplorable but unusual)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Maybe you should go learn about the physical requirements and testing for CDL drivers as well as school bus and regular bus drivers and come back and talk to me.
BTW, I have a Class A CDL so I know it.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Wow, you really showed him. He's surely going to agree with your proposition to execute all drug users now.
Alcohol isn't fundamentally different from other drugs that are currently illegal. It's addictive, it's incapacitating, and you can die of a lethal overdose. It's more harmful to the body than marijuana, and yet you think putting a bullet in the head of everybody who smokes pot is the answer to this social problem? How is that any different from the idea of putting a bullet in the head of everybody who drinks beer, other than the fact that beer happens to be arbitrarily legal at the moment and those other drugs aren't?
You're a fucking moron, but then again I guess that's why you drive a bus for a living instead of doing something meaningful. Thank god you're not in politics. Violence only begets more violence and Americans will fight back against this sort of tyranny. You'll have a civil war on your hands if by some miracle a thin majority of morons who agree with your views manage to pass a law institutionalizing that sort of barbarism.
A beer does not incapacitate, but a hit of heroin does, or did you forget that, shithead? Alcohol is addictive to some people, heroin is addictive to ALL people. Marijuana causes lung cancer and the people who grow it illegally on public land put out land mines which kill innocent hikers.
Oh, and by the way, I don't drink, fuckwit.
Oh, and I don't drive a bus for a living. I am a operations engineer at a telecom company. I hope your family gets killed by someone looking for his next fix. Then you can whine all you want about barbarism.
Shut up, OD, and die already, you worthless piece of shit junky.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
You know, if we legalized, people growing it wouldn't trap it with landmines and junkies wouldn't run around killing people looking for their next fix. Most of the deaths and violence caused by these illegal drugs are caused BECAUSE they are illegal. How can you not see that? Why do you keep making arguments that drugs are dangerous and therefore they should be illegal when all of the reasons you come up with to try and show that they're dangerous are caused BECAUSE they're illegal? You're not thinking this through very intelligently at all.
I'll never OD on marijuana, thanks, so I'll live long enough to annoy you for decades to come. I'll also live long enough to finish my BS in psychology and economics and go on to graduate school.
We should really kill everybody who smokes tobacco too if we go through with this little plan of yours, since it causes lung cancer and all.
"hundreds of people" where hundreds=120 aprox.
12 thousand people registered their phone under the president's name. Thousands of people registered under Mexico City's governor's name; some other people used their dead grandparent's names, etc.
What is more interesting now is that the two major cellphone companies, Telcel and Telefónica, have started a legal process (I think the legal equivalent in common law is injunction) against this measure, so they aren't going to shutdown any phones anytime soon.
Telefónica took the legal measures first, before the deadline, and Telcel bitched about it and urged users to register. Then after the deadline, Telcel took the same legal measures and made a big fuzz about it in the spirit of "we're protecting our users". Typical.
In the end, if COFETEL (the mexican FCC equivalent) tries to fine these companies, they will either pay up, or if the fines are too high, I'm guessing they'll bring out the big lawyers to fight this. Suppose that every one of the 25 million users represents just 1 peso of income for the companies. That's 25 million pesos (almost 2M USD) per day, so 60M USD a month; how high could the fines be? if it's 1M pesos a month, they'll just pay them every month; anything over that might prompt the bean counters to start the legal fight and end this nonsense.
I guess the idea wasn't that bad but the implementation is beyond lame.