Slashdot Mirror
Google Joining Fight Against Drug Cartels
Several readers sent word that Google has announced its intention to start fighting drug cartels and other 'illicit networks.' According to a post on the official blog, the company thinks modern technology plays a key role in helping to 'expose and dismantle global criminal networks, which depend on secrecy and discretion in order to function.' They're holding a summit in Los Angeles this week, which aims to 'bring together a full-range of stakeholders, from survivors of organ trafficking, sex trafficking and forced labor to government officials, dozens of engineers, tech leaders and product managers from Google and beyond. Through the summit, which lasts until Wednesday, we hope to discover ways that technology can be used to expose and disrupt these networks as a whole—and to put some of these ideas into practice.'
War on dissent and alternative information sources.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
If we start filtering, we should start with alcohol. The most damaging drug.
One innocent person spied on, arrested or charged with the help of Google to advance this "don't be evil" agenda is one too many.
You can't be evil to fight evil. You're passing ones and zeroes back and forth for crying out loud...
Marketing ploy or genuine interest? Methinks likely both.
Google execs better change their plans if they were going to vacation in Mexico any time soon.
So now they are siding with the "war on drugs" in order to push their means and methods which are considered by many as questionable of not simply creepy and discomforting? What's next? "Think of the children" and "fighting terror"?
Google. You're a commercial interest whose product lies in the information you collect so you can sell more advertising and marketing services. I will not forget that. You have not forgotten that. Why do you want everyone else to forget that?
... the same technology is aimed not at sex, drug, organ, or baby traffickers, but rather ordinary citizens trying to organize against an oppressive government.
Google supposedly abandoned China over censorship. This is far and away more dangerous than mere filtering of words.
--
BMO
Gootcha.
Wall Street doesn't count as a "criminal network", does it?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Google = Carnivore
More importantly, any booth babes handing out samples, so that we can be more ...erm... vigilant?
Google decided a long time ago who they support and who they punish. For years they said they couldn't stop that bomb, but it was fixed days after Obama took office and the official bio was updated.
Let's not lump drug trafficking in with sex and organ trafficking. The latter are heinous atrocities, the former is a contrived product of repressive government policy.
Drug trafficking would never have become a problem if governments hadn't created the giant void in the market that allowed them to exist in the first place. People want to get high, they will do so whether the nanny statists like it or not.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I wouldn't want it known that I were working on such a thing, let alone publicly announce it. The Mexican drug cartels are some of the most ruthless organizations currently on the planet and have shown they have no qualms with brutally executing anyone they consider a threat or in their way. They also have the reach and resources to target someone at Google who is working on the project in order to send a message. I would not be surprised if at some point during the next few years we see a Slashdot story about a murdered Google engineer.
Much like prohibition gave rise to powerful mob gangs in the early part of the last century, the current drug laws have resulted in similarly powerful groups of outlaws. Worse still, the Mexican government seems powerless to stop them.
The War on Drugs is actually a war against human nature. It is immoral, expensive, fosters corruption and is doomed to failure.
work in progress
They can start by eliminating all advertising by big banks, arms dealers, genetic engineering companies, and propaganda put out by the major news networks
Why not just promote good old fashioned police work.
We should be more worried about why US Law Enforcement sucks so bad at stopping illicit networks with the tools they have, because they already have a ton of them. We need intelligent investigators, not idiots out shaking people down and writing traffic tickets. Local police I have dealt with couldn't catch a cold, never mind a crook.
The answer is pretty simple to me.
There are so many ways that the those in the information technology world are acting as heros. Tech Leaders all over the world are making positive changes in the world. Not only is this exciting for humanity, it gives those who don't get near enough recognition some props!
When people read "drug cartel" they think of "illicit drugs", such as cocaine, meth, ice, and so on
But who _are_ the real drug cartel ?
Ever been to hospital lately ?
Ever wonder why the hell everything there is so expensive ?
Doctors of course wants to get their fair share and over-charge the patients, but, if we dig deep enough, we see a culture of vulture in the medical industry - and the "LEGAL DRUG" industry is a very essential part of the Culture of Vulture
They always paint the picture of "It takes so and so billions to carry out the research" so "we need to charge so much and so much for the drugs to recover our cost"
Really?
The legal drug industry is a MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR industry, dominated by several oligopolies, and because of it, drugs that would have cost mere cents to produce are being sold for hundreds and hundreds of dollars
No matter how big Google is, Google still can't take on the true "Drug Cartel". They are just too powerful !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There we go again, Google trying everything they can to invade people's privacy! Drug lords are people too!
That's why I own an iPhone.
This would pretty much end the vast majority on internet-related crime.
1. ignore do not follow links, follow them anyway, just don't index them or count them in any way. In other words, snoop. Any illegal forums or whatever are always "cloaked" from all robots with a robots.txt file. Then Google would have a hyperintelligent robot constantly scanning the entire internet and determining its content. It could find illegal stuff so easily.
2. stop indexing stuff related to illegal keywords!! Seriously. If someone wants to find something illegal on the web, they're not psychic. They freaking Google it! I know anti-drug and anti-other illegal stuff sites would get a bit mixed out but their robot is pretty darn smart and they have humans review stuff all the time with adsense and certain webmaster tools features.
3. compare all photos purely on a digital scale (like calculate a hash or checksum of it) found by the image search robot to an FBI database that I'm sure exists of hashes or checksums of photos that are deemed illegal like logos from illegal drug sellers or illegal porn and report any instance of it found anywhere ever.
Or how about they throw all that away and tell people that anyone who consistently searches for multiple illegal search terms will have all their google account (if logged in) and IP information logged. That'll scare anyone without TOR into not even searching for it in the first place.
Problem solved.
Sure, we all want to stop heroin and kiddie porn dealers.
But what about file sharing?
Political dissidents?
Competitors of Google?
Google is not a democracy.
This is an attempt to legitimize any incursion into privacy they want. No adversary so sophisticated as the drug cartels will engage in illegal activity out in the open, so to speak. It is entirely trivial to deploy tools for securing communications. The only logical conclusions to this initiative are: infringements upon the rights of innocents, and prohibitions on cryptography and anonymity.
End drug cartels by legalizing drugs. When you prohibit something with a large, inelastic demand you create violence. There's a reason why (except in prisons where they are banned) you don't see people stabbing other people for cigarettes because they are available just about anywhere. When alcohol was banned in the US, there was a rise in organized crime selling booze. When prohibition ended, gang violence declined massively. Prohibition didn't work with alcohol and it doesn't work with drugs.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Are doomed to failure and create intended consequences that are worse than the supposed good that is said to come from prohibition.
Google is on the wrong side of morality if you ask me.
They have become a public utility arm of misguided states.
And they said the internet was going to change things.
Hello security theater.
Remember when Anonymous was going to out the names of various cartel members and then backed off after the cartels said they would kill Anonymous members who leaked the names? If even Anonymous was afraid, then Google is in DEEP SHIT.
You won't address the "drug problem" until you've addressed the demand... and ultimately, I know this is a leap, but the economic inequities on this planet that push desperate people to traffic drugs, slaves, organs, etc.
This is a PR and marketing strategy. Google relies on selling people to companies however this hegemony is threatened by lawmakers whom may constrain what google collects. By saying that we might be able to win the war of drugs if you let us collect more data on people is a simple strategy and the government is so silly that they'll buy it.
They want people to associate limitations on google's ability to collect data with crime.
So they've basically given the criminal elements they want to stop at least a 6 month head start on knowing they will need to figure out different methodologies. Brilliant work guys
I don't see what they can accomplish when the whole system is broken.
There are systemic problems that no amount of technology will fix.
The bad guys will use technology too.
As long as we are willing to put in a jail some poor slob addicted to something or some other poor slob that is involved in the illicit market, then you will find others that will take advantage of them.
We often know who the bosses are, but how can you stop them when all their "soldiers" won't talk, do the dirty work, or just cause even more problems we all have to deal with?
We arrest the ones in the middle, repeatedly, day after day after day, and where is this getting us? We all pay for this too. And the "good guys" aren't really all that "good" if you look at the big picture, they are looking out for their "way of life" too.
So occasionally we take down some big guy, and?
Here comes the next one.
Good luck attacking the symptoms Google.
DuckDuckGo for me
You've done evil... it's time to die.
We should be asking ourselves why Law Enforcement can't stop illicit networks with the tools they already have.
Maybe we should get rid of the police unions and hire a new police force that will actually get the job done.
The police I have met couldn't catch a cold, never mind a crook. They seem more focused on shaking people down and writing traffic offenses then actually using their brains to tackle crime, especially organized powerful networks.
The internet is great for all businesses, but it better not improve the productivity of :
- drug traffickers,
- child predators
- religious fundamentalist (except Christians of course!)
- unauthorised file sharing
- white power groups (except those in the Southern USA, where it is a tradition).
- anti governmental uprisings (except in Egypt and Syria - those uprisings are OK)
- or scammers and spammers (except those Himalayian Gojo berries and commercial Vitamin pills - those are real businesses)
- those promoting the views on "Global Warming/ Climate change", on either side of the debate
- school kids who "dis" their school
- People who believe that endless economic growth is impossible and ultimately unsustainable - the end is near!
The tehcniques to "expose and dismantle global criminal networks, which depend on secrecy and discretion in order to function" are exactly the same as the techniques to expose and dismantle *any* private communications - including those or people trying to reform oppressive governments, or acting in service of human rights or justice. The pervasive surveillance infrastructure is exactly the same for either purpose. Moreover, you don't know which is the case until you subvert their communications.
To paraphrase LBJ, the test of any policy is not the intent, but who is subject to harm, and how, when (not if) it is misapplied.
For the Sake of Our CHILDREN!
from survivors of organ trafficking, sex trafficking
Survivors of Organ trafficking? You mean people are really waking up in ice filled bathtubs? Or are the syndicates making the 3 breasted prostitutes from Total Recal?
Federal agencies get funding from illegal narcotics when congress says no to programs, that's why our troops in Afghanistan protect drug lords, fields, shipments. Some federal reserve banks launder money for the cartels, that also big business. The victimless crimes that keep at least a third of the prison population are also fodder for the huge business of the prison systems. Therefore, the price of narcotics must be kept high and so the "war on drugs" escalates. We fight both sides of the "war on drugs", it's big money and agenda driver.
They want their piece of the pie of the big business that is "Law enforcement". It will take millions of dollars to filter out such words as "marijuana" and "bing". Then they will join the police in doing as little as possible for the most amount of money, while calling themselves irreplaceable in the fight on terrorism, drugs, .
The people who do drugs chose to do drugs. It is not like we haven't made damn sure that every person in the United States knows that partaking in drugs is stupid. They are not acting in ignorance. They have been warned. If people want to be stupid, let them be stupid. It is their life. They aren't hurting anyone else. If legal, at least all the violent drug lords will go out of business. Also, we would be saving a crap-ton of tax dollars. Of course, that last bit assumes we don't make the government responsible for our healthcare.
This might not be so bad if they tackle the biggest drug cartel in the world, the DEA.
...Just legalize them. ALL of them. Deal with the people who can't deal with drugs as a health care problem, exactly the way alcoholism is addressed.
How big a problem is bootlegging since Prohibition was repealed?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Google has announced its intention to start fighting drug cartels
The illegal drug trade is a very natural response to government policies.
When enough people want to engage in the trade of tangible goods, they will. Such trade is not unethical, or immoral, or wrong. It is merely illegal.
Skynet could realistically come about because of the war on and too much information. We will just let the Google search algorithms decide who to kill. The drones will do the rest. It will be 100% automated low-level permanent war. The generals will be too scared to turn it off because then they would lose control because there's just too much information to process.
We don't deal with alcoholics. That is yet another huge social epidemic in this country.
Since the government can't stop the violence, the Coalition and Alliance were granted police powers by the government.
At some point, they will have no need for the government.
So which cadre is Google? the Coalition, or the Alliance? Does it matter? ;^)
The Council Of Foreign Relations (CFR) + Google, "happy to work together"
To understand, first you have to understand the piece of shit that CFR is.
What other "happy work" does CFR do for us already.
let's see the yummy "democracy" they are spreading.
Thailand
CFR to Thailand: Accept US-Stooge or Else. CFR degenerates back globalist-stooge & his illegal proxy party, warn against moves to remove him.
Bangkok, Thailand June 29, 2011 - The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a think-tank representing the collective interests of the Fortune 500 corporations that constitute its corporate membership, and one of the many key architects of producing and implementing the global corporatocracy's agenda, has seized upon a conveniently timed Wikileaks dump regarding Thailand, just days before a controversial, highly contested Thai national election.
Libya
The Financial Times has featured an editorial penned by Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haas titled, "Libya Now Needs Boots on the Ground," where the arch globalist states that Libya's rebels are in no way capable of rebuilding Libya properly and will require an "international force" to maintain order.
Corporate Media
Update: September 5, 2010. Fox News of News Corporation is also on the corporate membership list of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation is an individual member of the CFR as well. Fox News has been leading the fake-right narrative on this "Ground Zero Mosque" in the mainstream media.
NED & FREEDOM HOUSE
The National Endowment for Democracy, despite the lofty mission statement articulated on its website, is nothing more than a tool for executing American foreign policy. Just as the military is used under the cover of lies regarding WMD's and "terrorism," NED is employed under the cover of bringing "democracy" to "oppressed" people. However, a thorough look at NED's board of directors, as well as the board of trustees of its subsidiary, Freedom House, definitively lays to rest any doubts that may be lingering over the true nature of these organizations and the causes they support.
Google's Revolution Factory - Color Revolution v2.0
Its corporate sponsors include Google, Pepsi, and the Omnicon Group, all listed as members of the globocrat Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). CBS News is a sponsor and listed on the globocrat Chatham House's corporate membership list. Other sponsors include Facebook, YouTube, Meetup, Howcast, National Geographic, MSNBC, GenNext, and the Edelman public relations firm.
That's just partial going back to 2011/2010, They're much worse, and been around a long time.
So go vote for that CFR candidate again.
Everything these men and women do in the CFR and Trilateral Commission revolve around the geopolitical manipulation of foreign nations and the extra-legal production
Doesn't seem to be many critical thinkers left on slashdot.
Just remember all the lies at each step. How could you possibly believe they are out for good with the history they already have.
Belfer alumnus, Goldman Sachs creature, globalist pusher, CFR member, and now World Bank president Robert Zoellick.
Carla Hills; Council on Foreign Relations member, Trilateral Commission member, signatory of the CFR's "Building a North American Community" aka the North American Union. George Soros: globalist extraordinaire
haven't enough examples to figure out where this all is heading? try a search for CFR on land destroyer (that's a nested search, first you find land destroyer, then you type CFR)
Go on and welcome your new CFR overlords I dare you. Vote for candidates who are members, I dare you.
DOJ / CFR members
Thailand's opposition party is led by long-time globalist conspirator Thaksin Shinwatra, a former adviser to the Carlyle Group, who was literally standing in front of the CFR in NYC on the eve of his ousting from
is so damn successful this is just the next logical step.... right?
Perl Programmer for hire
Many - but definitely not all - security flaws that leave one's code or one's box vulnerable to exploits are nothing other than simple bugs.
Most insidiously, storing an input buffer on the runtime stack, then reading an element from a file or network connection without validating that the size of that element complies strictly with the file format or network protocol specification, enables one to prepare a "Specially Crafted Document" or Network Packet that overflows the buffer, overwrites the proper return address on the stack with one of its own, then when that subroutine returns, instead of control returning to the caller, control is passed to malware code that is included with that too-big file or network element.
It's a little tricky to actually craft these documents, but I assure you that if you read Learn Java in 21 Days, you will learn absolutely all you require to enable Stack Smashing Buffer Overflows for your users.
Don't think that Plain Text File Formats like HTML, or Text Network Protocols like HTTP or POP are any manner of protection!
Just now I had a look through the Failure Report produced by the Analog Web Server Log File Analyzer. Here are some choice tidbits:
When the Zetas start retaliating, it's gonna be interesting times
at Google.
Maybe Marissa Mayer knew about this and decided the risk wasn't worth staying around.
Granted, Heroin, Crack and Methamphetamine will do more damage faster, but far more people are hooked on Alcohol.
I myself am quite severely Mentally Ill, but for the most part I manage to do alright, for example I "Make Money Working At Home" as a Custom Software Developer, which readily enables me to take time off when I start Hallucinating.
I'd say over half of the other patients I've met in Psychiatric Inpatient Units are dependent on some manner of chemical, and that more than half of those are Alcoholics.
Do you know what "The D.T.'s" are? Delirium Tremens?
Most people think that it's Alcohol Withdrawal, but it's actually far, far more serious than that: Delirium Tremens can kill you. It will certainly fuck you up with all manner of Neurological damage.
Our nerve bundles are surrounded and protected by a lipid - or fatty - sheath made of this stuff called "Myelin". It has much the same effect on our nerves as plastic or rubber insulation has electrical wire.
But fats and oils are readily soluble in Alcohol. That's why I use Methyl Alcohol to clean my Telescope Mirrors. If you drink enough alcohol often enough and for a long enough time, the Alcohol will dissolve away and so largely destroy the Myelin Sheaths of all the nerve bundles in your entire body.
For reasons I don't fully understand, this doesn't seem to cause a noticeable problem until the Drinker is denied his Liquor. I don't think it's that they're just too drunk to notice. It just has to be something more complex than that.
My father was an Officer in the United States Navy. One day he explained to me all about Delirium Tremens, by telling me about an Enlisted Man aboard one of his ships that had been thrown in the Brig for being Drunk on Duty.
My father said that for days on end, you could hear that Poor Fucker screaming in agony all over the entire ship.
-- Mike the Teetotaler
Is Google totally unaware of the fact that drug cartels existed WELL before the internet was ever created? If Google actually is able to shut them off from technology, they will simply go back to their old ways, and will probably be more violent than before. The thing about technology that Google doesnt seem to grasp here is that it doesnt really enable people to do things they couldnt do before, it just makes it a lot easier. With technology buyers and sellers can efficiently contact each other and make deals without having to go to a dangerous area and try to find a deal, which leaves them exposed to theft and especially violence.....
In fact the rise of technology probably is a contributor to the plummeting violent crime rate in the US. Drug dealers no longer have "turf wars" to try to control the places where drugs are sold, clients no longer have to worry about getting killed for a couple of 20s. Everything is arranged online. Google takes that away, and we can go back to what we had during the 80s and 90s....Yup, that sounds wonderful Google....
Monstar L
put your money into decriminalising drugs. Take the cartels profits away.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
How big a problem is bootlegging since Prohibition was repealed?
I don't know, maybe we should ask the Duke boys.
After a brief but extensive search online, I take back the "multi-trillion dollar industry" remark.
The LEGAL DRUG INDUSTRY just broke the ONE-TRILLION-DOLLAR MARK on 2012
Based on the following report:
http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ims/menuitem.d248e29c86589c9c30e81c033208c22a/?vgnextoid=4d47d1822e678310VgnVCM10000076192ca2RCRD&vgnextchannel=437879d7f269e210VgnVCM10000071812ca2RCRD&vgnextfmt=default
In 2011, the global sale of pharmaceuticals totalled 956 billion dollars, and it was predicted (back in 2011) that the figure to hike another 70 billion dollars or so, for 2012
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It sounds courageous but this last step is a doozy. Not well thought out at all. Why on Earth did Google do this so publicly?
Think about it from the perspective of someone who wants to work at Google, "geek heaven".
If they are going to take on big rich gangster cartels like the Zetas who apparently own a whole country and love making examples of ordinary people even reaching into the U.S.A., they become targets too. Big soft squishy targets, very public, scattered in low security offices and conferences all around the world.
The employees of Google did not sign up to become an organized crime and counter-terror military task force. They don't carry guns or wear shields. So let's say Google starts actually making a difference. What happens when the first Google employees get killed?
Likely 90% of the Google employees who know about the program and are happy with it are naive about what it could mean to them personally.
People are still routinely arrested for bootlegging. It's still a problem, but not nearly such a big one.
dom
But I have nothing but admiration for their idealism.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Google at first was a pretty simple nice company.
Then they started tying all their lines together even where the fit was poor, just so they could cross-correlate everything for more advertising dollars. Not that I have anything against making money, that's what businesses are for, but they seemed to lose track of their original purpose.
Now they are entering the holier-than-thou stage. A short while ago they decided to ban all weapon-related items in their shopper. Not the search itself, not yet, just the shopper. I don't mind them having their own personal opinions about weapons, but when you claim you want to be the world's information indexer, yet start making political decisions like that, it makes me wonder, and a little bit sad. What next? Ban sodas over 16 oz from shopper? Ban those from search too? Where do you draw the line? Trans-fats? Sugar itself? Red M&Ms? Low-mileage cars? Once you let your personal political bias into your business decisions, you have taken the wrong fork in the road.
And now they join the War On (Some) Drugs. Their power has gone to their heads. They may still be king of searches, but once people realize they provide incomplete filtered searches, they will be ripe to lose their reputation.
Makes me a little bit sad. Even tho I didn't like their tying all their products together, at least they were still efficient and simple. Now I no longer can trust them to be impartial and complete. They used to stand up to foreign governments who tried to dictate search filters. Now they do it themselves.
Infuriate left and right
This is a public relation stunt to get you to see Google in good light. It's not a compan you can trust. They may be better than Microsoft in some ways although they actively violate your privacy. And there is little you can do about it. What alternatives to Google exist? Not one that is reasonably decent. Google is so far ahead that you can't afford to ignore the results missing from other engines. I can't spend 20 minutes on every search and end up coming up empty when Google enables me to find what I need immediately (provided one knows how to use search properly).
I googled 'Joining fight against drug cartels' as Slashdot suggested me to and it just brought me a link to slashdot telling me to google joining fight against drug cartels. I'm stuck.
Uh, the US doesn't really have a good track record with health care either.
Have to admire that they are so well off and they are willing to risk very violent deaths at the hands of the cartels.
And it won't have the slightest effect on availability of the drugs.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
In Mexico it's mostly fighting between cartels and it is NOT even near a civil war, so that statement is greatly exaggerated. Sure, if you count the killings all these years the numbers seem high (40,000+ dead, lost count already), but this is a country with 90+ million people and the cartels are not killing each other outside the streets of every city, one has to keep in mind that the trouble spots are very localized. As a regular citizen you just do not see that on your everyday life. Still it is indeed a very sad situation with no real ending in sight, even with 6 years well into the fight. Drugs are the most lucrative business in the planet period, as long as there is the demand and the challenge to meet that demand remains of extreme risk and costly (it is an ilegal activity requiring lots of resources to operate and distribute: bribe money for politicians/goverment/police/military , weapons, safe houses, killers, dealers, informants, etc ) there will be unscrupulous individuals that will rise to meet that challenge (and they will just keep getting away with it, the money is too much). The only real solution is dropping the price for end consumers and that means legalizing (or whatever you want to call it), then keep on fighting the cartels til they colapse because of lack of resources, then funnel all that drug war money into youngsters education and rehab programs for the ones already in it. That is really the only way to solve both countries problems.
This would be a good time for anyone driving a Google Streetview car around Mexico or working in a building that says Google on the front to demand duty pay.
How many Google employees have family members in Mexico? Probably not many, but there have to be some. If this anti-cartel initiative actually starts to be successful, how long before Los Zetas go after these family members?
The Mexican cartels don't seem to have much force projection ability into the US (all the killings are on the Mexican side of the border) – maybe this is because they know most US cops wouldn't look the other way like Mexican ones do, or they don't have as many connections and sources in the US as they do back home, or because killing American citizens would get them treated like actual terrorists by the US government, complete with drone attacks and Gitmo. But if they can retaliate against people in Mexico for the actions of US corporations, they will.
Which drug cartels? The ones that make many $billions off their government-enforced monopolies ("patents"), one of the main drivers of bankrupting medical expenses?
A "drug cartel" is like a "religious cult" or a "freedom fighter": the definition depends on which tribe you belong to, pointing at the others.
The way to fight drug cartels, like any cartels, is to stop creating artificial supply/demand shortages with a "Drug War". And treat people who do drugs but can't handle it for their actual medical problems (addiction, underlying psychology seeking abuse, complications of toxicity). And tax the people who can handle it for the privilege of living in a civilization that manages their hobby while protecting them from its actual harm.
--
make install -not war
Drugs are not just used to help idiots incapacitate and damage themselves - they can also be used to attack, subdue and help violate others.
Expect this to get worse. Legalizing will just open this avenue of attack to many more assholes.
ironic captcha: altered
Legalize all drugs (for you lefties, this means neutering the FDA too).
albeit privately owned .
So when is everyone else going to join in the revolt against google?
Prohibition fails. Google are just supporting the problem, not the solution. They should be advocating decrimilization and treatment as an illness, not as a crime.
If google declares war to drug cartel and illicit network, it will become the enemy of many political groups and this will not increase the support from other political groups. Google is already a target of many criticism. With this movement, they either commit suicide or change radically the world.
When you prohibit something with a large, inelastic demand you create violence
That is exactly the goal. The more violence, the more justification for expanding the trillion-dollar business of government.
Thats just what I saw in the movies. aka the French Connection etc.
Lots of comments here about drugs licit and otherwise, but the real problems that need to be dealt with are on Wall Street and in the banks. Drugs affect us one family at a time. The money industry lately? One communal organization at a time. Local Governments, businesses small and large, unions, you name it. Just read the headlines - Libor, Goldman Sachs and on and on.
More positive effect would come more quickly by focusing on the money industry and it's army of lobbyers, and the results would show you just how deeply politics is involved in any illegal activity.
Prohibition never ends; the sweet spots merely change. The government grants black marketeers an oligopoly on many products; if we revoke the charter for one of them (e.g. alcohol) then the oligopoly just moves on to whatever had been the second-most profitable one.
Or they diversify, using all their government-enforced exclusive rights. That way, if the populace decides to revoke other charters, they'll already be configured to adapt to whatever we allow them to keep.
But each market for which we revoke our support for them, does cost black marketeers revenue. (Alcohol in particular, has a very wide customer base; I doubt that marijuana is in the same league.) And drug gangs are impotent incompetent children compared to Wal-Mart.
I'd expect drug cartels to lobby heavily against revoking any more prohibitions, though. And the currently existing policies bear that prediction out; your congressman likely doesn't vote on this issue (or introduce legislation) that is anything close to what the polls say people want.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
How Google sees itself: http://i.imgur.com/cnqsX.jpg. Where do I even start? If governments were relly serious on attacking organized crime they would go against money laundering, all the way up to the top. Instead, we have this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18866018/ And this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs/ So, dream on...
Even many in law enforcement--cops, judges, etc--support ending prohibition on drugs: http://leap.cc