Lawmakers to Vote on Expanding Domestic Military Operations, Authorizing Mass Spying Alex Gonzalez - WSWS.org
go to original March 13, 2017

Secretary of Defense General Salvador Cienfuegos (Google)

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies is preparing to pass a law that provides the legal framework for the military to intervene in matters that “endanger stability, safety or public peace.” The proposed law would also grant the armed forces the authority to “make use of any method of data collection” and would force non-governmental institutions, as well as private entities, to hand over users’ private information. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies is expected to vote on the proposed law by April 20.

The Internal Security Law (Ley de Seguridad Interior), proposed in Congress last November, marks a milestone in the ruling class’s efforts to defend its rule against mass mobilization of the Mexican working class. Widely discredited and deeply unpopular, the Peña Nieto administration is taking steps to ensure that any future social unrest is met with police state measures.

Under the proposed law, the Mexican Army, Marines and Air Force can be formally deployed for wide-reaching operations that include fighting organized crime, investigating corruption, combating terrorism and “restoring order” after national disasters. In addition, the armed forces will be permanently tasked with “internal security,” vaguely characterized as preventive actions “fundamental to anticipating the State’s actions against phenomena that seek to violate internal order.”

While the military has already been informally carrying out these operations without a legal framework under the guise of the decade-long “war on drugs,” the Internal Security Law aims to legalize and make permanent the use of the military in conducting anti-drug operations, a move that is sure to produce further human rights violations from a force already notorious for its acts of torture and abuse.

The Internal Security Law also lays the foundation for mass spying on the Mexican population. Telecommunications service providers will be forced to deliver “private communications, real-time geographical location or delivery of retained data on mobile communication equipment” without any form of judicial overview or accountability. According to the Digital Rights Defense Network, a Mexican privacy rights organization, the law’s broad language leaves open the possibility for the government to ask application and content providers to “establish vulnerabilities, deliver encryption keys or establish another type of back door to facilitate surveillance.”

The military, as stated in the proposed legislation, can be mobilized by the president at any time, as well as by Congressional actions. Last year, Mexico amended its constitution to grant the president the authority to establish a state of emergency and declare martial law in instances that “place society in grave danger or conflict.” As with the Constitutional amendment, the Internal Security Law is a carte blanche for the State to suspend civil rights and suspend basic democratic rights under the pretext of fighting organized crime and preventing terrorist attacks.

The law is being sponsored by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the National Action Party (PAN). Both parties have been in power during and have played a role in escalating the bloody war on drugs, which has killed over 166,000 and disappeared 28,000 over the last decade.

The National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and the Party for Democratic Revolution (PRD), the nominal “left” Mexican bourgeois parties, have opposed the legislation from the standpoint of Mexican nationalism.

...Human rights groups and academics have widely denounced the proposed law, warning its adoption would gravely endanger human rights in the country.

Read the rest at WSWS.org

Related: Mexico Defense Secretary Walks Back Criticism of Militarization (Insight Crime)

Related: Mexican Army to Remain in the Streets to Fight Organized Crime (Prensa Latina)

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