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posted by Dopefish on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the money-no-longer-talks dept.

c0lo writes "No, unfortunately surveillance evangelism has not been made illegal overnight.

The EFF reports that, in an ironic twist of karma, FBI agents arrested a Mexican tycoon named Jose Susumo Azano Matsura at his Coronado, Calif. home on Wednesday as part of a political bribery investigation based on captured emails, seized banking records, and covertly recorded conversations. Azano, and three Americans who acted as his agents, are now facing felony charges in an alleged conspiracy to illegally pump roughly $500,000 into local election campaigns in the border city of San Diego.

Does SoylentNews have contributors from Mexico to share with us some insight (or just local gossip) about this shoddy character?"

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  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Buck Feta on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:15AM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:15AM (#7056) Journal

    Shady?

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:17AM (#7060)

      Will the real Slim Shoddy please just sit down and shut up already?

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by tftp on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:20AM

      by tftp (806) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:20AM (#7061) Homepage

      2. intentionally rude or inconsiderate; shabby: shoddy behavior. Link [reference.com].

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:27AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:27AM (#7063)

        Well, political bribery is pretty inconsiderate.

    • (Score: 0) by Fry on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:19AM

      by Fry (642) on Thursday February 27 2014, @12:19AM (#7660)

      Yes, you are correct. TFS should read shady character, not shoddy character, which frankly, sounds ridiculous. Something like shoddy character development is correct (but not applicable here), but he's a shoddy character is not. Looks like the "editors" are not much better here than on that other site. And you got downmodded for your troubles, which suggests the users aren't much better. Wonderful...

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:35AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:35AM (#7068) Homepage

    I'll provide a little context to all this, living in San Diego and all:

    • The guy in question threw money at a variety of candidates with differing political affiliations, because money talks.
    • He runs a software surveillance company? That's news to me! That makes him an asshole!
    • But wait, he's not an asshole because he was fucking with Sempra Energy (us locals know them as their subsidiary SDG&E which is a local for-profit utility monopoly) and a handful of greedy redevelopment interests on prime waterfront property. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
    • People who choose to live on Coronado are either sailors or assholes, and the two are not mutually exclusive.
    • He's not-very-bright for chosing to fuck with a lot of bigger, most established assholes who are now handing his ass to him via the federal law enforcement, er, National Security enforcement -- sorry hombre, we have finesse here in the U.S. we don't just walk up to somebody important and pat 'em on the back while stuffing an envelope of unmarked bills between their lapels.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Pav on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:52AM

      by Pav (114) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:52AM (#7080)

      I'd say it just comes down to "first mover advantage"... there are slimey characters and companies already filling that niche. A little parallel construction [wikipedia.org] and he's eliminated, and as a bonus there's some good press for surveilance : see? Surveilance stops corruption by dirty Mexicans dontcha know. As far as "finesse" I think that comes down to making sure you have US citizenship before bribing politicians - bribery is free speech [wikipedia.org] after all.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:30PM

        by bucc5062 (699) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @12:30PM (#7248)

        The leading opinion viewed spending money as a form of political "speech" which could not be restricted

        Simply amazing. The court never ceases to amaze me. In reading Burgers dissent I felt there was at least one mind on the court that understood some basics

        1 - Congress understands Congress
        2 - Money can have a bad influence on elections
        3 - The court is pretty stupid to say that a person can only contribute $1000 to a candidate, but a contributor can spend unlimited amounts for the candidate. WTF?

        So money is speech, but it is treated as a class right. Individual people have less speech then the Corporate Person...God Help America.

        This was a pivotal ruling that sadly changed the nature of politics to what we have today. Congress, in a fit of what, lunacy, presented and passed sweeping campaign reform in an attend to rein in (if not stop) corruption in the election process. That seems to upset some "established" representatives (who could be assumed to be already enjoying Corporate lucre) so they sue to say that getting a bribeH^H^H^H^Hcampaign contribution is really just to guys having a chat...with greenbacks.

        Imagine if one judge has seen the same reason as Burger, today not only would there (maybe) be less corruption in government, but most importantly Citizens United would either never have surfaced or had been stuck down.

        Amazing how the hubris and narcissism of a few politicians can tear down a republic.

        --
        The more things change, the more they look the same
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:36AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:36AM (#7069) Journal

    I think the summary should have mentioned how Azano is chairman of a company called Surveillance Tracking Devices (rather aptly abbreviated STD...), which got a no-bid contract to provide phone and computer hacking technology to the Mexican military in 2011, and how he has been promoting and encouraging the use of such technology worldwide, mostly to governments. It wasn't immediately clear until I skimmed the EFF link why he was called a "surveillance evangelist".

    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by darinbob on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:42AM

    by darinbob (2593) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:42AM (#7073)

    Confusing summary. Not sure what "surveillance evangelist" means at first. This means that the opening words of "in an ironic twist of karma" means nothing without knowing the background. Sure all that information is in the linked story but it would be nice to have a summary that describes what the story is about.

    (even after reading the story there's not much irony in it)

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:50AM

      by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @02:50AM (#7078) Journal

      The irony it seems is that Azano was hoist with his own petard and arrested by use of the very same surveillance technologies and techniques that he and his company promote so heavily.

      --
      Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by JimmyCrackCorn on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:09AM

      by JimmyCrackCorn (1495) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:09AM (#7105)

      Agreed. Furthermore, the use of "Americans" is ambiguous, and degrading to any thoughtful reader. USA, US citizen, people from USA....

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Tr1mT4b on Wednesday February 26 2014, @07:49AM

      by Tr1mT4b (3352) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @07:49AM (#7183)

      I agree and would go so far as to say the Title and summary on the front page needs to be updated. If one wants to lead with how someone is a "surveillance evangelist" and how something ironic happened, then for crying out loud:

      It's important to state front and center that the person in question owns a company that sells spyware to governments and that he has a history of promoting invasive technologies to further fuel state powers.

      Then one can see the irony and bask in the glory, rather than
      a) get annoyed and go somewhere else
      or b) like me dig deeper, still annoyed.

      I only researched further because I saw EFF was involved and they have a history of being on target. On Slashdot this post would get flamed to pieces I think. We need higher standards over here no? ;-)

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:34AM (#7109)

    Well, if he's the same man I met a few months ago, he's a heavy-weight in politics in the state of Jalisco (home of Tequila) and in the Defense Secretariat in Mexico, where he is one of the leading suppliers.

    Posting anon because I currently work for a company in Mexico that does sell equipmnent and services to several public safety and defense-related departments and this guy wanted to buy the company; fortunately the private shareholders decided against it and then he offered a large amount to become a partner, but was turned down again.

    A couple of the shareholders told me that his money comes from shady deals done by his father, a "godfather" figure according to what they said. So, like father, like son.

    No hard data, but gossip was called for in TFS.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Bob9113 on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:42AM

    by Bob9113 (1967) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @04:42AM (#7113)

    Azano, and three Americans who acted as his agents, are now facing felony charges in an alleged conspiracy to illegally pump roughly $500,000 into local election campaigns in the border city of San Diego.

    Wow, I'm impressed. It takes some skill to find a way to give money to a US politicians that isn't legal. You pretty much have to be caught on video saying, "I will give you this wheelbarrow full of laundered twenties after, and on the condition that, you vote in favor of my pork." I'm pretty sure even that is legal as long as you then turn to the camera and say in a stage whisper, "Just kidding."

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:31AM (#7129)

    The last link in the summary mentions that Susumo Azano is a billionaire with high connections to the government but I had not heard of him until today. But then I read about the no-bid contract with the Defense for several billion pesos and now I remember there was a little brouhaha about how it had a huge markup and the shadiness of the deal in general.

    Seems like the guy likes to keep a low profile, his father was moderately successful in the construction business until he got connected to the local politicians from the Partido Accion Nacional (PAN). When the Defense contract story hit the papers it came to light that the Azano company got other contracts in the Jalisco state in areas where they had no prior experience like making license plates. Now that another party is in power I don't know how he is faring (not very well I think) with his government contracts, but it looks like he's looking for other opportunities.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by WildWombat on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:47AM

      by WildWombat (1428) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @05:47AM (#7136)

      --"When the Defense contract story hit the papers it came to light that the Azano company got other contracts in the Jalisco state in areas where they had no prior experience like making license plates."

      Well, he has experience making license plates now, so he should fit right in where he's headed. :)

      Cheers,
      -WW

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:37PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday February 26 2014, @03:37PM (#7339)

    No, unfortunately surveillance evangelism has not been made illegal overnight.

    While I can understand the anger the submitter has about surveillance, is he really suggesting that we should arrest people who come out in favor of it? Clearly against our First Amendment principles.

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"