It just so happens that Hildebrando developed the vote counting system used during Calderón's election. Making matters worse, a group of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Móxico mathematicians analyzed the published results of the Mexican Federal Electoral Board and concluded that the votes had a "mathematically impossible behavior" and that as votes were added for Calderón, the percentage was reduced equally for his rival.

Of course, these claims are disputed vigorously within Mexico, as you might imagine. But, getting back to our U.S. national security question for a moment and without taking sides on the voting issue itself, the Mexican election issue shows us a few things. First it shows us that duplicity may well be within the makeup of the current Mexican government. And, it also shows that, at the highest levels of government, Calderón has, at the very least, "I know a guy" access to computer expertise in his brother-in-law Diego Heriberto Zavala Gómez.

According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2007 Mexico had 7.629 million Internet hosts (IP addresses, not servers) and 22 million Internet users. While Mexico's military isn't huge, the CIA World Factbook 2008 estimates Mexico to have the 9th largest available military manpower in the world, ahead even of Germany, the UK, France, Canada, and Iran. They have the second largest defense budget in the region.

Bottom line: Mexico is a world power with considerable intelligence and technological resources and it is well within its capabilities to have orchestrated the BlackBerry theft as an intelligence operation.

What do we do about it?
I've made recommendations before about the secured handling of handheld devices. If you recall, I recommended the establishment of an Electronic Communication Protection Detail, a group I've recommend be created as part of the Secret Service to manage all of the email security issues. I've recommended each staffer issued such a device needs to be trained to notify the Electronic Communication Protection Detail immediately when a device is lost.

But clearly more is required. It's clear that both the White House and businesses need to establish a complete end-to-end asset management policy for handheld devices. Guidelines need to be established for where these devices can be taken, when they can be removed from one's person, and how they should be handled in secured situations like that which occurred at the Windsor Court Hotel.

Finally, a true rapid-response operation needs to be established so data can't fall into the wrong hands. I've recommended that no communication device be issued to White House staffers without two key features: location and destruction.

It is possible to both remotely erase certain BlackBerry devices and remotely locate them. When lost, a team from the Electronic Communication Protection Detail should first trigger the remote erase and then a tracking team needs to be dispatched to recover these little mobile nightmares as quickly as possible.