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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | May 2007 
US Funds Expanded Wiretaps in Mexico
 Sam Enriquez - LATimes
| | Documents suggest that the U.S. government could have access to information derived from the surveillance. Officials of both governments declined to comment on that possibility. |
Mexico City - Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and email using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country's conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with United States on law enforcement.
The expansion comes as President Felipe Calderon is pushing to amend the Mexican Constitution to allow officials to tap phones without a judge's approval in some cases.
Mexican authorities for years have been able to wiretap most telephone conversations and tap into email, but the new $3 million Communications Intercept System being installed by Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency would expand its reach.
The system would allow authorities to track cell-phone users as they travel, according to the contract specifications. It would include extensive storage capacity and allow authorities to identify callers by voice. The system, scheduled to begin working within the next month, was paid for by the U.S. State Department and sold by Verint Systems Inc., of Melville, N.Y., which specializes in electronic surveillance.
Documents describing the upgrade suggest that the U.S. government could have access to information derived from the surveillance. Officials of both governments declined to comment on that possibility.
"It is a government of Mexico operation, funded by the U.S.," said Susan Pittman, of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Calderon's office declined comment.
But the U.S. government's contract specifications say the system is designed to allow both governments to "disseminate timely and accurate, actionable information to each country's respective federal, state, local, private and international partners."
It's unclear how broad a net the new surveillance system would cast: Mexicans speak regularly by phone with millions of relatives living in the United States. Those conversations appear to be fair game for both governments.
Within the United States, legal experts say that if prosecutors have access to Mexican wiretaps, they could use the information in U.S. courts. Supreme Court decisions have held that Fourth Amendment protections against illegal wiretaps do not apply outside the United States. |
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