Force projection Mexican Style

Drug cartels in Mexico have a proven need for force projection in order to secure their territory. Learning from dictators and criminal enterprises before them, they use a variety of tools to accomplish this ranging from public execution to kidnappings. In the video below, a cartel is filmed using armored civilian vehicles with armed men to demonstrate the prowess of their strength akin to what one would expect to see in far away lands like Somalia not a city a few hundred miles from the world's most powerful democracy.

Does the Border Fence work? by thewalldoc

Is the Border fence "working"? Is it stopping illegal immigrants and drug smugglers? Go to http://TheWallDocumentary.com to watch more. The Wall is available on DVD on Amazon.com! http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0047PF7KC

Pretty cool app from the folks at Homeland Security

Found a pretty nifty tool from the folks at the Department of Homeland Security.  It's a service called SelfCheck.  It's similar to the E-Verify service US employers use to verify your employment eligibility.  It pulls data from US credit agencies and your Passport file to ask identity related questions.  From there, it verifies your eligibility against what I presume other databases (aka "watchlists") and makes it determination.  According to it, I'm "good-to-go".  Note to any companies or agencies I've applied to: That means you CAN hire me.

Self Check is a voluntary, fast, free and simple service that allows you to check your employment eligibility in the United States. If any mismatches are found between the information you provide and your Department of Homeland Security or Social Security Administration records, Self Check will inform you of how to correct those mismatches.

As a side note, you need to be in a location that participates in the service.  Here's some more info on that:

USCIS is releasing the Self Check service in phases. At this point the service is offered only to users that maintain an address in Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Colombia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, or Washington. The availability of Self Check will be limited for the initial launch as the service is tested and improved upon based on the outcomes of the initial implementation.