Foreign Policy and National Security
-
Ecuador has announced a move to shut down the Andean Foundation for the Social Observation and Study of Media, better known as Fundamedios, the country’s main organization dedicated to monitoring threats to freedom of expression. The National Communications Secretariat (Secom) alleges that the group has not complied with a law requiring civil society organizations to…
-
With perceptions of citizen insecurity on the rise in the world’s most violent region, many Latin American countries have begun calling on their militaries to play a larger role in combating crime and violence. But a recent panel of experts questioned the efficacy of this approach and highlighted numerous potential drawbacks to tasking military forces…
-
Colombian law enforcement and intelligence agencies have been significantly expanding their ability to intercept electronic communications for more than a decade with help from private firms in the US, Europe, and Israel. According to a new two–part report by the human rights group Privacy International, these companies have helped Colombia construct a “shadow mass surveillance…
-
While doing some online research, I recently stumbled across the “extranet” of the U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM, the arm of the Defense Department responsible for U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean. (An extranet is the part of an organization’s internal computer network accessible to outside users.) The site says it is produced by…
-
Despite the failure of their previous attempts to reach the United States — not to mention the obvious dangers of the journey — on February 26, [José Luis] Hernández and 16 other AMIREDIS activists set out from Honduras in a caravan to Washington, DC, with the intention of raising awareness about the circumstances that force…
Mike LaSusa 