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Anonymous Takes On a Mexican Drug Cartel
New submitter NarcoTraficante writes "After one of their members was kidnapped in Veracruz, Mexico by the Zetas drug cartel, Mexican Anonymous members have issued an ultimatum to the Zetas in a recently posted YouTube video. The video demands the release of the kidnapped member and threatens to publish information of cartel members and affiliates in Veracruz if the victim is not released by November 5. The Houston Chronicle article warns that there will be bloodshed if Anonymous publishes information on the Zeta's operations, either perpetrated by rival cartels or reprisal attacks by the Zetas themselves."
Politicians cannot stop the war on drugs. Too many votes, I mean jobs depend on it.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
After all of the money spent fighting them, it would be ironic if a bunch of hackers brought the cartels down.
If Anonymous releases info, they will be lucky if they are the only ones that are killed. These cartels don't just go after you. They go after you, your family, and your friends. They are extremely ruthless, and extremely smart. The prisoner they have, if he's not already dead, is getting worked over pretty good right now, and they will get him to talk. Then they'll kill him. Anonymous is in over their heads. It's one thing to deface some websites, or DDOS some banking websites. It's different to go after a group that is well armed and not restrained by morality and laws.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Mexico is a sovereign nation. Did you stop to think how condescending it sounds to say we "let" Mexico do anything? We've already flooded northern Mexico with people from various US government agencies. What's your plan? Shall we send in the army, too? Who will we fight?
The US government sold the cartels thousands of guns, which have been used to kill hundreds of people including police officers and politicians. I'm sure the Mexicans would be just as happy not to have much more "help" from the US.
You missed the point - anonymous isn't trying to end the drug cartels - they want the release of a certain person or they'll expose all the cartels "partners" - the crooked cops, politicians, newswriters, etc., who are enablers.
Then the other cartels go after that cartels partners-in-crime - either by co-opting them, or eliminating them if they don't play ball. The problem with co-opting them is they're not all that useful once it's known they're crooked.
Another side effect is that's one cartel less to worry about.
So anonymous takes out kiddie porn rings, exposes crooked politicians and cops and drug dealers ... someone want to remind me of how they're supposed to be the bad guys here when they're doing the jobs that the cops and politicians won't touch?
Of course there is. The anti-drug establishment is huge. Not only does it employ tons of people in law enforcement, but it allows a lot of otherwise law-abiding people to be incarcerated, which supports the penal system, which is a huge industry and has a lot of influence on our legislature.
Considering modus operandi of Los Zetas, I would fully expect the person in question to be released - as a set of disjoint parts, and probably with a video detailing the process.
Remember, when they call them "ultra-violent", it's not an overstatement. It's a cartel that thrives on violence and terror it begets to control their areas.
You have an interesting definition of "let the Cartels get away with it". A more accurate definition might be "actively aid and abet these activities via material support and large quantities of funding".
A truly ridiculous aspect of the drug traffic issue is that the United States hasn't managed to control the infiltration of people across the border; the illegal immigrant problem has apparently reached epic proportions! Can the US actually expect to be able to control the movements of much smaller packages that drugs and money can be smuggled back and forth in?
As for your "less incentives for the drugs to come here in the first place" plan, I agree wholeheartedly. Legalizing marijuana would be a phenomenal step in social management, as well as reducing the financial support we give to entities we can nearly all agree should not be profiting from us. I don't think it will "drop the value of all those illegal [drug] runs to zero", since we have pharmaceuticals crossing both the Mexican and the Canadian borders on a daily basis - apparently, it's orders of magnitude cheaper to ignore the patent-based monopolies in the US and acquire (supposedly) the exact same chemicals quasi-legally over the border; at least, that's what the spam in my inbox seems to indicate. Not just for "V1@GR@", but a wide array of prescription medications, everything from pain pills to antibiotics.
Marijuana has been clinically proven to be less physically damaging than either tobacco or alcohol (both of which are legal, albeit age-restricted), even with long-term usage. It keeps the (consuming) population docile, and it's incredibly cheap. Taxing it sounds like a great idea, but even just decriminalizing it would hit the drug cartels harder than sending 100,000 troops down to shoot at them, and it would hurt them where it matters: in the wallet. Why import it from Mexico, when it's so much less expensive to get it (literally, even) from your own back yard?
Marijuana grows in just about any conditions, that's part of the reason for the nickname "weed". Outlawing it is akin to outlawing carbon dioxide; how do you stop it? It has taken decades of strenuous effort to get rid of most of the "naturally occurring" cannabis growing alongside our nation's highways, never mind in a planter on someone's back porch. Criminalizing marijuana has simply given the cartels a (in effect, government-granted) monopoly on its production and distribution.
Patty Hearst and the paper industry were responsible for outlawing marijuana in the first place, because it was an economic threat - it's cheaper to make paper from marijuana than from trees. An acre of cannabis produces more paper than an acre of trees, because you can harvest every month instead of every few years. An acre of cannabis also produces more oxygen per year than an acre of trees - and it grows faster than the trees, with much less maintenance required, making it a much more renewable resource with a smaller carbon footprint. Add in the fact that you can grow hemp in a field with other plants, whereas trees pretty much exclude anything except grass, and the hemp seems (from an objective view) to become much more economically viable and environmentally friendly than many other products.
Hemp fiber is extremely versatile, and can be used to make all kinds of things that are currently made from less renewable resources - paper, clothing, rope, and even plastics and bio-fuels have been made from hemp. For example, replacing cotton with hemp would increase production by several orders of magnitude - cotton requires an entire growing season to become usable, whereas hemp is mature and ready for harvest in a much shorter time, allowing multiple "growing seasons" in the same amount of time; in addition, the cotton is confined to boles, whereas nearly the entire hemp plant is useful for its fibers.
As for its use in "self-medicating", it is interesting to note that "industrial" hemp has so little THC in it that it's barely measurable - you could smoke an e
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Uhh, actually, this has a LOT to do with the USA.
The United States' "War on Drugs" is the root cause of all that violence in Mexico. And, NAFTA helped to deprive the common man in Mexico of his livelihood, mostly small farmers, thereby driving more recruits into the cartels. Add to that, the fact that there are now about 20 million lawbreaking illegal aliens in the United States. Some indeterminate number of those illegals are also members of Zeta and other cartels.
Everything drug related has to do with the United States. Everything.
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