Mexican Data Grab

Since the terror attacks on New York and Washington, the U.S. Justice Department has gotten access to the personal records of more than 300 million Latin Americans, including the citizens of its two most populous nations, Brazil and Mexico, in addition to Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

The U.S. information grab has not been a big hit in Latin America. In Mexico, it has triggered political shock waves. "Alarm over sale of millions of Mexicans' records," headlined Reforma, the rightwing daily that broke the story of how U.S. info giant ChoicePoint acquired the data. "Attack on national sovereignty," editorialized its leftwing rival, La Jornada, "Mid-term elections threatened."

Under an agreement signed in September 2001 with the U.S. Justice Department, ChoicePoint, the Atlanta information entity that was implicated in the 2000 elections shenanigans, provided Washington with dubiously acquired Mexican data, Reforma reported. Attorney General John Ashcroft received access to updated Mexican voter registration lists containing personal information on sixty-five million citizens, Mexico City drivers' license records dating back to 1997 and updated each month, and all automobile registration data collected in the capital during that same period.

The political scandal exploded just two months before a make-or-break midterm election for President Vicente Fox's rightwing National Action Party (PAN) and has spawned an investigation by Ashcroft's counterpart, Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. Whereas in the United States, such public records are fair game for direct mail advertisers, telemarketers, political candidates, and other annoying hucksters, in Mexico their confidentiality is closely guarded. Their sale to ChoicePoint -- and ultimately the U.S. government -- has raised issues of national security and sovereignty.

"I didn't register to vote so that the government could sell my name to the gringos," fumes barber Lalo Miranda, snipping hair in his downtown Mexico City market stall. Miranda grew curious about the sale of his name and address when he began to receive unsolicited junk mail -- in English. "I don't even speak English," he snorts.

The scandal has been made even more conspicuous by ChoicePoint's refusal to divulge from whom or how it obtained the databases, citing confidentiality clauses in the purchase contracts. According to preliminary findings by Macedo's electoral crimes prosecutor Maria de los Angeles Fromow, ChoicePoint bought voting lists from a Mexican database for $250,000 two years ago. When the scandal broke, the Atlanta corporation agreed not to offer the lists for commercial sale while the legality of the information transfer is under investigation, confirms ChoicePoint spokesperson Chuck Jones.

But the brouhaha over the Mexican records goes far beyond junk mail and nuisance phone calls. Voter registration and drivers' license databases are prime law enforcement tools to track suspects and fugitives. And ChoicePoint's leasing of access to this information to the Department of Homeland Security's Quick Response Team worries not a few Mexicans that Big Brother is beaming in from Washington.

Reforma speculated that the data could be used to expand watch lists of undesirable foreigners at all U.S. points of entry as mandated by the Secure Borders Act of 2002. La Jornada Washington correspondent Jim Cason was alarmed that the Mexican data bases could be incorporated into the Terrorism Information Awareness operation being run out of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by Retired Admiral John Poindexter, convicted of five felony counts of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra scandals. Poindexter's project would incorporate all public and private databases to develop profiles of potential terrorists. In a half dozen years of doing business, ChoicePoint has become the largest purveyor of public records to U.S. law enforcement and other investigative agencies, claiming that it can supply "10,000,000,000 records on individuals and companies." "Whether you are looking for a fugitive or tracking their assets, we provide mission-critical information with a flick of the finger," ChoicePoint's flag-bedecked web page brags. "We get you the info you need now." (That slogan is trademarked, by the way.)