Mexican Cartel Beheads Another Blogger 536
sanzibar writes "The Zetas killed and beheaded an Internet blogger Wednesday in Nuevo Laredo, the fourth slaying in the city involving people associated with social media sites since early September. '"This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks," advised a note left before dawn with the man's body at a key intersection in the city's wealthier neighborhood. The victim, identified on social networking sites only by his nickname — Rascatripas or Belly Scratcher — reportedly helped moderate a site called En Vivo that posted news of shootouts and other activities of the Zetas, the narcotics and extortion gang that all but controls the city.'"
ISP has to be giving them up (Score:4, Interesting)
How else could they track them if their ISP wasn't cooperating?
Streisand effect, with a vengeance (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm not saying that anonymous internet nerds are going to be a threat to these guys. But, the more news reporting there is of how completely evil they are, the more outraged people get at their behavior, the more likely it becomes that either the Mexican or American authorities take them more seriously and launch an all-out war against them. If/When that happens, they'll wish they had learned the lessons of the Mafia: stay hidden, stay quiet, and don't call any attention to yourself.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think they care all that much about bloggers who aren't in the local area watching them.
OTOH, maybe a means of helping those bloggers who are left down there set up VPN tunnels and encryption, so that anonymous broadcasts of gang activities can get out to the public Internet and be broadcast anyway to all interested parties. That way the reporting is perfectly anonymous, but the targets of that reporting are not.
Re:corner ? (Score:5, Interesting)
anon/lulzsec member in china or russia can harm them. what will mexican drug cartels do ? send a mexican to xiyghuan province, to behead the hacker ?
Not at all. They will pay the Triads or Russian Mafia to take care of the person for them. Assassinations are a source of revenue too. The better question is do the Mexican drug cartels care enough to pay the going rate?
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Anon couldn't even take down Facebook when they promised to. Paper tigers.
Re:They should hire a social media consultant with (Score:5, Interesting)
They don't need to, what they want is to keep control of the street, something that they manage to do by terror. They don't want to have secure communications, they want to leave people isolated. For example they cut the fibers of the phone exchange in the small town of my wife's grandparents. People was without phone service for 3 weeks, the phone company crew was unable to restore service until a Army's detachment went to the town and guarded them.
No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This ain't hollywood.... (Score:5, Interesting)
If assassins had a union, the union would terminate any member who chills business by snuffing out any prospective customer who shows up, unless everyone is pretty sure you kept your solicitation close to the vest.
I suppose it's like the priest who hits a hole in one on the golf course when he should have been preaching: Who can he tell? When you run with a crowd where you can reveal your murderous solicitations as insurance against the instant double-cross, we call it organized crime.
In any case, with this kind of intimidation, there's often a tipping point where there's too much to suppress and too much risk in doing so. When the heads pile up to the sky, it becomes a political issue.
On a podcast the other night, I heard that stern discipline of children promotes frequency and skill at lying. Some parents care enough to give their children a big headstart on a lucrative career path.
Re:corner ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Recently there was a plot by Iranians to kill the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, [go.com] and they hired a Mexican gangster to do it. Iran claims it was a dissident group that did it, but.....
There is plenty of evidence of opposing groups helping each other out. The 2001 Indian Parliament Attack used weapons smuggled by a famous Indian smuggler, despite it being a Pakistani plot. During the Bosnia-Kosovo fighting in the late 90s, there was cooperation on both sides of the war to smuggle cigarettes (they are highly taxed in many parts of Europe, making black market cigarettes lucrative). There are even rumors that some Russian gangs are making a franchise out of there name, loaning it out to other gangs in exchange for money (because their name is so feared).
So yeah, criminals don't mind working together.
The country is not colapsing (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an utter lie.
The real economy in Mexico keeps moving and the immense majority of the population does not experience any violence at all, politics proceeds as usual, and even today's tragedy of losing the Government Minister to an accident (and the Education Minister having been diagnosed with cancer) won't bring things to a standstill, other people people will be named, and the business of government will continue as usual.
Of course the environment is tense and the situation is unacceptable and horrific, but Mexico is a big country and most of it leads a normal life.
I am not trying to minimize the situation: it is pretty bad, but it is a bad situation happening in a civilized country which is fighting back (scores of policemen are being fired if corruption is found, the army is on the streets since its command structures and loyalty are more reliable than the police's).
It is also noticeable that foreign governments, international organizations (G20 for example) and sports bodies (FIFA for example) see Mexico as a safe enough place to make business with.
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you. The media has spun this story to appear as though Anonymous backed down out of fear. I wonder why that is.
Because groups like Anon who are good at obtaining information and causing grief for major corporations tend to piss off powerful people. Powerful people tend to be well-represented in the media.
What, did you think the news was somehow objective? The media are populated by fascists, other statists, and those heavily invested in the status quo. They're just careful not to tell an outright lie that is easily falsified. Mostly they spin and they deliberately omit details that don't serve their agenda. Their priorities are roughly as follows:
1. Promote government control and the increasing centralization of both power and wealth, either by fearmongering (gotta stop those terrorists and protect the children!) or by appealing to the nanny-state (because someone might hurt themselves and it's for your own good after all).
2. De-emphasize individuality and personal responsibility. Anyone featured in the news must be identified according to the group identity -- if someone is black or a woman or any other minority group, a big deal must be made of this (a total rejection of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion of going by the content of character). Everyone who ever suffers in any way is always a victim -- there are no adults who suffer because they make poor decisions. Anyone who successfully stands up for himself must be ignored or downplayed, which is why a citizen with a conceal-carry permit who uses his gun to stop a crime will be described as "the perpetrator was subdued until police arrived" but any psychopath who goes on a shooting spree with a semi-automatic glorified deer rifle will be described as "a GUNman with an ASSAULT RIFLE" (nevermind that an assault rifle has features such as a select-fire switch not present on the firearm in question and they know this term is wrong and does not apply).
3. Dumb everything down and promote childishness and emotional immaturity among adult people. Use words like "lawmaker" because "legislator" might confuse someone, et al. Write and speak at about a 6th-grade reading level. Cater to small-minded gossips by watching every move every actor, singler, dancer, or athlete makes in their personal lives and covering it at length as though it were important. Make a big deal out of every marital problem a celebrity has, every trivial lifestyle decision they make, every unqualified opinion they have as though a thinking person would ever care about such idiotic and insignificant trivia. Then promote this as normal without ever questioning its validity.
4. Never, ever, ever offend a corporate sponsor or release any story that might possibly make them look bad, no matter how important or relevant such a story might be (cf Fox News and BGH milk).
5. Pretend like the linear, one-dimensional thinking that is "Left vs. Right" represents every possibility of human thought that ever has occurred, is occurring, or ever could occur in the future. Pretend also that the two major parties have any significant differences that could radically alter the course of the nation if implemented. Anytime a political figure takes an official position, just parrot what they say instead of applying critical thought to whether it holds water and really makes any sense.
6. If the above criteria are met, cherry-pick events that happen and report on them as long as no significant change could ever occur from these events becoming widely known. Or report them so long as the event is too big or too embarassing to be ignored and then perform the role of damage control by spinning and downplaying anything not favorable to the status quo. Or throw one person under the bus and crucify them for what is actually a systemic or institutional problem of which they happened to be an easy example.
7. Flash something different on the screen every 10-15 seconds or so to a
Re:If they're going to do this shit anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
Pot consumption is decriminalized in BC and you don't see a swarm of retarded Washington idiots flocking across the border or the downfall of society either. Its time to turn off the reality distortion field.
Re:No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:2, Interesting)
Why the fuck do you still live there?
Re:No one will report any of this in Mexico (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Guns are illegal in Mexico (Score:2, Interesting)
I hate to quote the NRA, but guns are illegal in Mexico
I wouldn't quote the NRA either, since it's likely they never said what you attribute to them. A quick trip to wikipedia shows your statement to be false:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Mexico
Mexican gun laws are restrictive, but the right to bear firearms is in the Mexican constitution.