Hildebrando117 Reloaded: Remembering the Aristegui Demonstration

Here is what I was talking about earlier with respect to public-private partnerships in data brokerage on the ISOSA model (“FBI Slush Fund For Data Brokerage Deals!”).

Carmen Aristegui of CNN Español’s original breaking news report on the Hildebrando117 database interface affair — hastily subtitled, but you get the gist.

July 30, 2007: “FBI wanted to buy customer data from telecoms firms.” We have actually seen a fascinating case of this kind before, in Mexico, where the FBI hired ChoicePoint to deliver it database records on 65 million Mexican voters. Execs from the contractor who sold ChoicePoint that data were found criminally liable for doing so, but got off with fines. In the meantime, CNN Español reported that the PAN political party also may have had illegal access to and made illegal use of that data as well. See what I mean?

The domain in question, by the way, is now (according to a whois query) owned by a “near-shoring” company known as E-Siglo, whose federal “smart government” and “smart citizen” contracts include the Seguro Popular program, the controversial ISSSTE educational workers’ retirement program, Pemex, and others.

Comparable case: the SWIFT surveillance flap, which led the Europeans to declare our government the moral equivalent of The Who’s Uncle Ernie: Do not trust your data privates to Uncle Sam. He fiddles about.

See also

• What’s So Great About International Transparency?
• PANdemonium in Veracruz: Blueprint for Election Fraud
• Dicking Democracy, Down South American Way