One step foreward, three steps back

David Agren (The [Mexico City] News) reports that

Lawmakers on Thursday voted to approve the creation of a new federal police force that they say will eventually take the place of the military in the war on organized crime.

The bill passed by the Chamber of Deputies aims to convert the Federal Preventive Police, or PFP, into a new force simply known as the Federal Police, which would remain under the management of the Public Security Secretariat, or SSP. It will have expanded investigative and intelligence-gathering powers.

Proponents say that the new force resolves a major challenge facing the PFP, which lacks the ability to carry out investigations and gather intelligence and is unable to employ surveillance techniques such as placing wire taps and having undercover agents infiltrate organized crime groups.

“In Mexico, police don’t have the powers of investigation to anticipate crimes,” Deputy David Mendoza of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, said. “We’re now giving them the ability to investigate, under judicial controls.”

The latter is something Rudolf Giuliani and company never cottoned on to when there were here a few years ago making their high-priced recommendations (and misrepresenting themselves to people in the U.S. as “cleaning up Mexico City’s Police Department”).  In Mexico City, it’s more complicated, with each Delegacion having it’s own police (analogous to a county sheriff’s department), as well as different types of police at both Federal District and Federal level — Judicial Police, Security Police, Preventative Police (and traffic police, as well as a few special departments like the Embassy Security police, the Banking and Industrial Protection Police and the Waterway Police — the latter patrolling the canals in Xochimilco).

The Federal Government, the states, as well as most larger municipios, also have divided police departments, divided among different agencies, and different branches of government.  As it is, investigators don’t do preventative work, Protective Police don’t gather evidence.  It would have taken a bureaucratic miracle to combine jealously guarded agencies (the Judicial police are — not suprisingly — part of the judicial branch of government, the Security Police an executive agency) and the first attempt to create a coordinated agency (Unipol) became a political liability after what should have been a simple operation (a crackdown on underage drinking) went horribly wrong at the News Divine Club.

I’ve said before that a single police agency is probably necessary, and the federal bill is a good step.  There are some civil rights concerns (the proposed new agency would be premitted to do undercover operations, to tap suspects’ communications, and –– as it’s worded in Jornada, use “simulados para la prevención de delitos” — there’s no good Spanish phrase for “run sting operations’).

It’s not like police don’t do this now, though it’s usually a scandal, and at least — in theory — this would put the police under civilian legal control.  It’s much less scary that an Administration proposal to create “States of Exception”, that would basically leave the military in the streets as policemen.  And, give the military access to the courts, as well as civilian legal records.  In other words, making what’s now a dubiously legal enterprise (putting the military in the streets) in some jurisdictions (like Juarez) legally permissible… and probably long-lasting.

There have been several reports recently on military abuse, (Reuters here) but — as it stands now — at least in theory, the civilian authorities have ultimate control.  There’s no guarantee a “State of Exception”  would be solely for narcotics trafficking control, nor would there be any way to stop the executive branch from using the miltiary for other activities.  AND… as it is, the executive branch is in no hurry to send the troops back to their barracks:

Technical director of Calderon’s National Security Council, Monte Alejandro Rubido, said the troops have until 2013…

2013, please note, is after Calderon’s term expires.  “No Re-election” was a rallying cry for the 1910 Revolution, and strict term limits has been the final defense against single strong-man rule.  Most Latin American nations adopted the single presidential term as a democratic measure, though after Alvaro Uribe (with U.S. assistance) used Colombia’s “drug war” to justify a second (and now a third) term, multiple terms have been pushed through in several nations.  You’ll note that only in those countries unfriendly to the United States (Venezuela in particular) is this considered undemocratic.  My bet is that the Obama Administration, and Hillary Clinton in particular, will back Calderon when he starts making noises about doing away with what’s the final defense against the “indespensible man”… and he can be not elected again.