If it wasn't so filty, despicable, illegal and subversive of everything the Constitution is supposed to defend us against, you'd have to applaud the slick way the US and Mexican governments are collaborating in spying on each other's citizens. Pesky civil libertarians demanding you at least get a bought-and-appointed judge to okay warrants to surveil people? Ship your spying equipment to MEXICO, that Switzerland of the Americas, reknown for good government, honesty, and devotion to civil liberties. They say they want this gear, and those powers, to combat "drug gangs." Oooh, drugs. Bad. There's no right or liberty we can't throw away fast enough if the cause is the druuuug. Our beloved tyrants government wants these powers and this equipment to combat "terrorists." See previous rule re: drugs. And of course once they have not just the ability but the legal right to spy on your every waking (and sleeping) action and communication, they'll only use these powers for Good. Right? History proves this.

As an added bonus the whole program has to be done with (1) secrecy in both countries (hmm, don't governments usually like to boast and brag loudly about Good Things they are doing for their people?) (2) via a Mexican company that's a state-controlled monopoly (Telmex) and a US one that nobody's ever heard of ("The system, scheduled to begin operation this month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc., a politically well-connected firm based in Melville, N.Y., that specializes in electronic surveillance." I feel so reassured, don't you?)

I quit reading the LA Times awhile back after they refused to get rid of the odious Jonah Goldberg and the really loathesome Max Boot from their editiorial roster, but this story may bring me back to up their hit counts again. Go read. And be embarrased at how far we've sunk when we have to have the concept of bedrock liberties explained to us by others:

Legal experts say that prosecutors with access to Mexican wiretaps could use the information in U.S. courts. U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that 4th Amendment protections against illegal wiretaps do not apply outside the United States, particularly if the surveillance is conducted by another country, Georgetown University law professor David Cole said.

"Calderon's proposal is limited to 'urgent cases' and organized crime, but the problem is that when the judiciary has been put out of the loop, the attorney general can basically decide these however he wants to," said John Ackerman, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. "Without the intervention of a judge, the door swings wide open to widespread abuse of basic civil liberties."

The proposal is being considered by a panel of the Mexican Senate. It is strongly opposed by members of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. Members of Calderon's National Action Party have been lobbying senators from the former ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, for support.

Renato Sales, a former deputy prosecutor for Mexico City, said Calderon's desire to expand federal policing powers to combat organized crime was parallel to the Bush administration's use of a secret wiretapping program to fight terrorism.

"Suddenly anyone suspected of organized crime is presumed guilty and treated as someone without any constitutional rights," said Sales, now a law professor at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. "And who will determine who is an organized crime suspect? The state will."

No shit. I know we have a heavy karmic debt to our neighbors to the south over that Mexican War thing, but bringing our two nations together in a joint fascism is not perhaps the best way to get payback, si?