Check out this promotional video for Torre Centinela:
No, it’s not a sci-fi movie about a near future dystopia.
That building is being erected in downtown Juarez.
The building will house security operations for the state of Chihuahua.
It will be home to monitors for 3,000 video cameras, 70 drones, and license plate readers.
Great, you might say. Juarez has a huge crime problem. They should use every tool to deal with it no matter how invasive. The ends will justify the means.
But did you know that in 2022, Mexico was the most deadly country for journalists in the world?
Lots of those journalists were killed after investigating links between government actors and criminal gangs.
And, according to TheGuardian.com (and other sources),
Journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico were hacked using spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group as recently as 2021, even after the country’s current government swore it was no longer going to use the hacking software, new research has found.
The alleged victims of the spyware include two journalists who report on issues related to official corruption and a prominent human rights defenders, according to digital rights researchers at R3D (Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales) and The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks such infections.
Big brother is watching, and he might be in league with the bad guys.