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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."
Where I live, you gotta register your cellphone (or rather your SIM card) on purchase, using your national ID card. I am generally fine with the idea - under one provision: a decent constitution in combination with a functional constitutional court that regularly kicks the arse of some politico who wants to abuse the data for the sake of "anti-terrorism", "anti-childpornography" or whatever the buzzword of the day is. Thankfully, this seems to work around here, at least for now.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
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.
The criminal use of another person's ID is by far the more terrifying. I would much rather have someone set up an unlicensed druggist's 2 doors down than for the police to batter down my door in the dark of night, with rules of engagement for dealing with a supposedly violent criminal. Much rather that someone else be given the opportunity to destroy their own life through drug abuse than for the police to either destroy me professionally with drug charges or physically with excessive force.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Any self-respecting "liberal western democracy"(not a terribly long list), would skip the inefficient-but-highly-rabble-rousing step of forcing people to register themselves and do it the probably-at-least-as-accurate-but-so-much-quieter-and-we-get-to-cut-our-private-sector-buddies-in-on-the-action way instead.
Ok, here's the deal. Running a modern cell network, or an electronic payment system, automatically generates large volumes of useful and annonymity destroying data. Further, entities like Telcoms and credit card companies tend to be few in number, large, relatively opaque, and fairly cooperative, if given the right incentives(*cough*AT&T/NSA*cough*). Given that this is so, only a lazy, second-rate putz would design the program around trying to force individuals to manually provide data. Hell, even if the program was "We give you $100, absolutely free, no strings attached!" you'd get a response rate of well under 100%, because of ignorance and laziness and paranoia. When your intentions are, in fact, bad, of course you are going to get a worse response rate.
Here is how you would do it "right": Some fairly large percentage(conveniently, this is the percentage that includes virtually all the people who matter, politically) of cell lines are paid for with credit cards that have real names and real billing addresses attached, either of individuals or businesses. If they've been paid for thus for more than a few months, you can even be largely sure that the credit card used isn't stolen. With the cooperation(easily secured, if history is any indication) of the telcos and banks, assigning identities to these lines should be a fairly simple exercise. Even better, it will be completely transparent to the owners of those lines. No friction, no pain, no hassle, absolutely nothing for the sort of respectable citizens who might write a letter to their congressman to get worked up about, or even notice.
This leaves you with the tricky cases, prepaids that have never been paid for with traceable means(or have a very unstable payment history that isn't sufficiently informative). Conveniently, though, you still have cell location information and calling records. Various spook-infested-but-ostensibly-private-sector data mining outfits would love to draw some useful correlations, for the right price. Plus, it isn't as though there is much stopping you from, say, writing down Joe Scumbag's IMEI when the cops stop him on unrelated business. Except in cases of downright horrific brutality(and sometimes even then) public opinion will let you get away with a whole lot, as long as you are dealing with those perceived to be undesireable. Making IMEI(or even locally stored data) retrieval a fairly routine part of the "patting down the undesirable" process should give you a fair number of identities to attach to your web of cell location and call log data.
That is how the pros would do it. No muss, no fuss, nobody but the tinfoil hat brigade and a few security/civil liberties researchers that nobody listens to would even notice; much less get seriously spooked about it, and the data produced would be as good, or better, than what you'd get from a clunky and scary manual registration effort.
I am sorry to tell you... but you are completely misinformed.
Mexico, as most of Latin America, is a mostly mixed society - Roughly 80% of our society is mestizo (in all of Latin America, only Guatemala, Paraguay and Bolivia have a higher percentage of inhabitants who identify themselves as indigenous), which means they do not have clear indigenous cultural traces (i.e. language, beliefs, even group identification). Of course, there is a lot of syncretism in our society, which means we are the result as much from the imposed Spanish culture as from the remains of the (several different) indigenous cultures.
Now, as for your asseverations: The land is not owned mostly by indigenous. And very few of the real landowners are indigenous - Even given that after the revolution (~1910-1925) there was a real redistribution of properties mainly in the 1930-1950s (Reforma Agraria). However, due to several shortsightings by the people in charge, the real result was the peasants never saw a better economy and are, to the day, miserable. And no, there is no point in bribing them, as they do not have any authority beyond their bits of land.
But the drug lords are taking advantage of the situation. Given the poverty, they can offer better payment for growing more, um... interesting crops. And yes, sometimes it is done by talking. Sometimes it is just done by force.
Now, the revolution did bring many interesting and IMO very positive changes, which endured for several decades. However, I feel the real spirit of the revolution died out by the 1960s, where corruption started skyrocketing, and when dissidency and social inclination started being prosecuted as if they were crimes. You can read lots about president Díaz Ordaz (1964-1970), Echeverría Álvarez (1970-1976) and López Portillo (1976-1982), regarding the students movement, the Tlatelolco massacre (a turning point for the country's history), the dirty war of the 1970s...
And even with almost 50 years distance (and 30 years of open neoliberalism), we still see some solid social constructs in Mexico, which, although deteriorated, are clearly results of our revolutionary process.
I don't disagree with making drugs legal, but you clearly know nothing about Mexico.
Your post is like saying the US's race problems would go away if they just got Universal Healthcare.