Mexican attach� attempts to make off with White House BlackBerrys

We're a bit frightened by the fact that high-ranking political officials are told to leave their BlackBerrys outside in an unguarded basket during high-level meetings (really, it's "common practice"), but nevertheless, one chap who tried to take advantage of the situation didn't quite make it out undiscovered. During a recent political meetup in New Orleans, a Mexican press attaché managed to slip a half dozen or so BlackBerrys into his pocket before darting to the airport with visions of black market markups in his head. Before he could exit the country, however, Secret Service had tracked him down after catching him via surveillance footage. As it stands, the responsible individual has been fired from his post, but there's been no word on whether the US will take any further actions. Reevaluating the whole "leaving them out in the open" practice may be a good start -- just sayin'.

[Via The Boy Genius Report]

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 26th 2008 2:01PM]

The recent "political meetup" in New Orleans the article was refering to is regarding the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America ) which is an agreement between The US, Canada and Mexico to create a "trade union" with absolutely no input from any of the countries legislative bodies, some would call this undemocratic. This is the 4th such meeting in 3 years.

[ran Posted Apr 26th 2008 7:19PM]

Just charge the criminal with treason and execute him!

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 27th 2008 1:00AM]

From the original article:

"Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, Rafael Quintero Curiel, served as the lead press advance person for the Mexican Delegation and was responsible for handling logistics and guiding the Mexican media around at the conference."

RTOA before jumping on the hype-wagon people.

Nice flame bait nonetheless, hotel cameras are so highly visible, you would have to be out of your mind to consider stealing.

Let's see how the conspiracy theorists do on this one. I'm expecting to see the presidential candidates spin this one into fear mongering rhetoric for more xenophobic policies.