Those of us concerned with civil liberties have been fighting with our eyes closed. The reason that we are getting no traction is that we are dismissing the reality of the brutality and terrorism being committed everyday by the meta-criminal organizations that now straddle the Mexican border.
IT IS THIS VIOLENCE that is driving the increasing militarization of even our own police forces. It is not the weakness of our arguments, it is that we are proposing no alternative to the constitutionably-questionable executive tactics that have accompanied the desire to prosecute ever-stronger cartels and organized terror.
I have found the motives, the intent of those charged with our safety to be honorable, even laudable, they're not fascists, they're overwhelmed and they are scared. When they adopt historically-repressive tactics in desperation, it is for lack of any other ideas.
We are trying to protect liberties by poking holes in their arguments in favor of harsh tactics, when it is not their arguments that drive the harshness, it is the facts.
What we need to address is "How else are to to protect ourselves?"
When unreasonable practices blooms, reasonable peoples do something about it. OK, what?
What we are already doing is the only option anybody has yet placed on the table. When it hasn't been effective the only response so far is has been to do more of it.
If progressive forces are to have any positive impact upon the way suspects rights are managed in the face of global terror AND well-funded murderers chasing profit, it is incumbent upon us to propose a more, not less, effective alternative.
Police corruption is the favorite tactic of both terror and crime. Corruption leads to compromise, cops are getting killed. Honest cops are open to new approaches, they don't want to die, they don't want to be blackmailed, or to have their families placed in jeopardy, either. If those charged with fighting corruption are corrupted, we have no effective tool at all against civil corruption. The press is powerless, a target of the same people, too. Without secure local reporters and local papers, all the remote media can give us are the crime blotters. Prepared by the police.
This is what is upon us all, left and right:
IT IS THIS VIOLENCE that is driving the increasing militarization of even our own police forces. It is not the weakness of our arguments, it is that we are proposing no alternative to the constitutionably-questionable executive tactics that have accompanied the desire to prosecute ever-stronger cartels and organized terror.
I have found the motives, the intent of those charged with our safety to be honorable, even laudable, they're not fascists, they're overwhelmed and they are scared. When they adopt historically-repressive tactics in desperation, it is for lack of any other ideas.
We are trying to protect liberties by poking holes in their arguments in favor of harsh tactics, when it is not their arguments that drive the harshness, it is the facts.
What we need to address is "How else are to to protect ourselves?"
When unreasonable practices blooms, reasonable peoples do something about it. OK, what?
What we are already doing is the only option anybody has yet placed on the table. When it hasn't been effective the only response so far is has been to do more of it.
If progressive forces are to have any positive impact upon the way suspects rights are managed in the face of global terror AND well-funded murderers chasing profit, it is incumbent upon us to propose a more, not less, effective alternative.
Police corruption is the favorite tactic of both terror and crime. Corruption leads to compromise, cops are getting killed. Honest cops are open to new approaches, they don't want to die, they don't want to be blackmailed, or to have their families placed in jeopardy, either. If those charged with fighting corruption are corrupted, we have no effective tool at all against civil corruption. The press is powerless, a target of the same people, too. Without secure local reporters and local papers, all the remote media can give us are the crime blotters. Prepared by the police.
This is what is upon us all, left and right:
"A crackdown on a vicious Mexican drug gang has led to the arrest of five Tijuana police officers, including two who had been at the forefront of the border city’s efforts to rid the force of corruption...The five officers were caught at a house along with six cartel members who were holding two rival gangsters captive, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of the federal police, said... About 130 Tijuana officers have been jailed on corruption charges in a force of about 2,000. An additional 250 have been fired or pressured to resign.
"President Felipe Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers across the country to lead the crackdown on cartels. Drug violence has since surged, claiming more than 15,000 lives since Calderon took office in December 2006. Most were victims of turf wars between rival gangs, but police, government officials and journalists have also been targeted."
From http://www.streetgangs.com/cops/020910_tijuana
"Thirty-one police officers have been arrested in a central Mexican state on suspicion of collaborating with a gang of drug cartel hit men. The Public Safety Department says the officers were arrested as part of a months-long investigation into alleged ties between police and the Zetas in Hidalgo, a state north of Mexico City. Ninety-two police were arrested there in June, and the latest 31 were detained Monday...The investigation began last October, when federal police arrested seven suspected Zeta accountants and found evidence of monthly payments to Hidalgo police from the gang, which is linked to the Gulf cartel. Hundreds of police have been arrested across Mexico for alleged ties to cartels during federal government’s battle against drug trafficking".
From http://www.streetgangs.com/cops/091509_mexicanpolice
This did not become business as usual on this scale until fairly recently, and is one of the Elephants in the Room in any discussion of civil liberties. Only the Department of Homeland Security can tell you how big the corruption problem is in the battle against terror, and one cannot help but wonder about our defense and intelligence organs in their some-times quiet battles against state-sponsored forces.
(c) 2010 Craig Chereek
