NATIONS TO TEST GUN-TRACING SOFTWARE IN SPANISH

Aim: Defuse Supply of Arms to Drug Cartels

MEXICO CITY - Police in Latin America will soon have access to a
Spanish version of a U.S. gun-tracking system that could widen efforts
to hunt down crime suspects and weapons traffickers.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said
Wednesday that it is about to begin testing a Spanish-language version
of eTrace, the computer system that helps police trace who buys U.S.
firearms.

"This is to allow the infrastructure to make it easier for law
enforcement throughout Latin America to track the firearms in their
own language," said Scot Thomasson, an ATF spokesman.

National police in Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica will be the first
users of the new system.

The ATF is trying to stop buyers who funnel weapons to drug cartels.
Because many police officers in Latin America do not speak English,
the ATF hopes the Spanish-language eTrace will encourage them to
submit serial numbers of guns they find at crime scenes, Thomasson
said.

Where a gun came from and who bought it is valuable data for Mexico,
which has been fighting a bloody battle with drug cartels for years.
Mexico says that thousands of weapons are smuggled to the cartels from
the United States. The ATF agrees, though it notes that thousands of
weapons found in Mexico have not been traced to the USA.

The eTrace computer system allows the ATF to track the unique serial
number of a weapon. Requests for a trace are made by police to the ATF
through a website. Then, police sometimes can identify "straw
purchasers" who buy guns for others illegally or gun sellers who may
be dealing with cartels.

The Spanish-language eTrace could conceivably help U.S. authorities
prosecute the cartels' gun suppliers, said Maureen Meyer, Mexico
associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank. But
many Latin American police forces lack the manpower to submit traces
on the guns they seize, she said.

"The greater challenge is to have the authorities in any of these
countries actually submit this information in a timely manner," she
said.

The eTrace system in English has been used outside the USA for years.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) says it worries that expanded use
of eTrace could lead to private information about gun owners being
leaked.

"There's always a potential, especially when things are online, for
errors to occur," said Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman. "All it
takes is one person clicking the wrong button, and all of a sudden a
whole lot of information could be made public."

Thomasson said there were no known cases of trace information being
misused by foreign authorities. He said that only a few foreign police
officers are allowed to use the system and that the ATF had vetted
them.

John Velleco, director of federal affairs for the Springfield,
Va.-based Gun Owners of America, said many Mexican police have been
charged with passing other types of sensitive information to criminals.

"We don't trust our own government to have a national list of gun
owners, much less a government whose corruption is legendary," Velleco
said. "For the U.S. to give that type of government access to our
records of gun owners is an outrage."