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Article Excerpt
The US has opened its spying activities in the region to privatization. Using private companies that buy entire databases as intermediaries, US agencies including the Department of Homeland Security have bought personal data on millions of individuals in Central America. The story first broke in Mexico, where US intrusion into Mexican government files has now become a major scandal as Mexican authorities scramble to find an appropriate response to its neighbor's unprecedented surveillance (see SourceMex, 2003-04-30).
Now authorities in countries of the isthmus have found that the Guatemala-based company Infornet, in collusion with the US company ChoicePoint, has also mined the databases of various government agencies and made off with the confidential personal data of their citizens.
In El Salvador, lawyers, experts, politicians, legislators, and a magistrate of the Corte Suprema de Justicia (CSJ) have agreed that the sale of the information by a foreign company is illegal and unconstitutional. The information includes names, addresses, phone numbers, family relationships, court and legal records, even individual taxation-identification numbers. The newspaper El Diario de Hoy reported that Infornet obtained this information on four million individuals and legally incorporated organizations. Some of this information could only have come from the confidential files of the Justice Department.
Representatives of the Guatemalan company would only say that they...
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More articles from NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs
GUATEMALA'S JUSTICE SYSTEM SET BACK IN MACK TRIAL REVERSAL., May 08, 2003
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION APPROVES WEAK RESOLUTION ON CUBA., May 08, 2003
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