Mexican Cartels Staring Down Anonymous, Bloggers, And Anyone Else Who Oppose Them

Dangerous social-networking times in Mexico. And since the Second-Amendment fanatics that run the NRA these days are becoming enriched from the proceeds of the gun shows that are so essential in supplying the Mexican cartels with the arms they need, it is only a matter of time before Second-Amendment fanatics start employing similar tactics here too:

MEXICO CITY - Gangsters killed and beheaded an Internet blogger Wednesday in Nuevo Laredo, the fourth slaying in the city involving people associated with social media sites since early September.

...The victim, identified on social networking sites only by his nickname - Rascatripas or Belly Scratcher - reportedly helped moderate a site called En Vivo that posted news of shootouts and other activities of the Zetas, the narcotics and extortion gang that all but controls the city.

The beheaded body of another blogger, 39-year-old Elizabeth Macias, who contributed to the blog, was found in the same location in late September.

A young man and a woman were hung from a highway overpass earlier that same month. A sign left with their bodies said they too had been killed for their social media activity.

...Social networks buzzed with the news. Some Twitter and blog posts encouraged others to press on against the criminals despite the dangers.

"No matter, I have to die of something," said one post. "It will be for my people."

With mainstream newspapers and broadcasters terrorized by the criminal gangs, whose violence has killed upward of 50,000 people across Mexico in five years, social media networks have become key information sources in many towns and cities.

...Two weeks ago, a man representing himself as a member of Anonymous, the Internet hacker organization, posted a video on YouTube claiming that the Zetas had kidnapped one of the group. He demanded that the Zetas return the victim unharmed or Anonymous would publish identities of Zetas members and their protectors in government and business.

A few days later, the group said they were dropping the threat because of the danger it posed to innocent lives. A debate raged in Mexico and elsewhere over whether the kidnapping and subsequent threat to the gangsters was real or a hoax.

...A Wednesday posting on Nuevo Laredo En Vivo after the blogger's death declared, "Let's continue denouncing them, now that we've seen it burns them, hurts them .... We have to continue. We can't give in."