U.S. Department of State Loves Mexico

by ^SUBv

I'm a small business owner who mainly sells my geek skills to small state and local government shops in an effort to make government more efficient and pay my bills.  I've recently become annoyed by my biggest contract and have started looking for new opportunities/contracts.  In my search, I found myself on yet another website designed to give the Small/Medium Business (SMB) an opportunity to sell their services and warez to government agencies.  As I was perusing the new site, I saw this title as one of the bid opportunities "RFQ for Mexico Technical Surveillance System" put out by the Department of State (DoS - no, not denial of service) with an ID number of: SINLEC12Q0006

The title, of course, caught my eye not because this is a service that sounds anything like the services I provide, but because it seemed awkward at best to me that such a request would be publicly made on a site I didn't even have to register for.  I, being the curious type, downloaded the RFQ to see if maybe this was just a case of a bad naming scheme or something stupid.  I blew past the first ten pages of legalese explaining what a Request For Quote (RFQ) was, as if the SMBs looking for bid opportunities somehow didn't know what the DoS meant when they said RFQ.

On page 11, I got to the meat of the document: the Statement of Work section.

"This procurement action is undertaken to add additional capacity to the existing Technical Surveillance System.  This additional capacity will provide the Government of Mexico with the capability to intercept, analyze and use intercepted information from all types of communications systems operating in Mexico.  Together with the original system the requested additional capacity will continue help deter, prevent and mitigate acts of major federal crimes in Mexico that include narcotics trafficking and terrorism."

Yes, you read that right!  The first thing that jumped out at me was that they are asking to expand an existing surveillance system currently in use to intercept and analyze all types of communication in Mexico.  As we read on, it seems as though the American taxpayer will be flipping the bill for this expansion and, once complete, turning the system over to the Mexican government or, more precisely, the Secretaria de Seguridad Publica (SSP).

After settling down and allowing it all to sink in, a question surfaced in the ether of my mind.  Why would the DoS be interested in procuring a surveillance system for a neighboring country?  The RFQ seems to suggest that the objective of the project is to thwart narcotics trafficking and possible terrorist threats.  Now maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in my head, but that doesn't add up.

Doesn't the U.S. set up "listening stations" covertly all over the world?  Why would we set up a station in Mexico, then turn it over to the Mexican government?  We could be messing ourselves out of valuable intelligence if Mexico decides not to play nice and share the info they glean from the system the U.S. taxpayers purchased for them.

As I pondered this, an idea bubbled up in my head.  This surveillance system will not only be monitoring the communications between Mexican narcotics traffickers, but it will be listening to conversations between citizens of Mexico and citizens of the U.S.  I'm not a legal expert, but I don't believe the DoS has jurisdiction to monitor U.S. citizens within the United States.

Even if they are allowed to monitor U.S. citizens within the States, I'm pretty sure the only U.S. government entity that can wiretap without a warrant authorized by a judge is the FBI (thank you, PATRIOT Act).  So it appears to me that the American taxpayer is purchasing a system that we will give over to the Mexican government (SSP) so that the SSP can spy on the people who paid for it.

I have to ask myself if our borders are as secure as the current administration emphatically suggests, then why do we need to expand the system in the first place?  I wonder to myself how the FBI feels about the DoS trampling all over their turf?  Shouldn't a portion of the money for procuring this system have gone to the FBI to create and/or expand their surveillance system near the border?

Lastly, this seems like pretty sensitive stuff - if I can find it, doesn't that suggest that the drug traffickers and terrorists the system is supposed to monitor will also be aware of the system's existence?

References

www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=170236de75cad7166a4eb688500fe4ea

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