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Arizona’s state police force, the Department of Public Safety, went into something of a panic on Thursday night after a group of brazen hackers broke into the email accounts of a handful of officers and leaked secret law enforcement documents to the world.

The agency shut down its own website, froze parts of its email system and launched an investigation to try to figure out how bad the breach was and how it happened.

Yet in all the posturing and fist-pounding state officials did in the hours that followed, the question of whether Arizona has a strategy to deal with future attacks seemed to be lost in the noise.

Instead, the focus was on the seven officers, some of whom had their names, home addresses, cell phone numbers, passwords and personal financial information posted on the internet.

State Speaker of the House Andy Tobin said the officers’ lives were in danger. He dubbed the hacker group, known as LulzSec, “cyber terrorists” and called for them to be severely punished — that is, if investigators can ever figure out who they are.

Likewise, after getting its website back online, DPS posted a statement calling LulzSec a “cyber terrorism group” and saying the security of its own officers had become “the agency’s top priority.”

Gov. Jan Brewer, meanwhile, said nothing, despite her state’s own police saying they had fallen victim to terrorism.

There is no question the hacked officers are having difficulty now that anyone with an internet connection and a little savvy can download all their personal information. Some reported receiving harassing phone calls. A Phoenix TV station reported one of the officers planned to move his family out of their house for the time being.

But what officials like Tobin, Brewer and DPS Director Robert Halliday have yet to say — or perhaps realize — is that the hack shows Arizona was at least somewhat unprepared to deal this.

Put another way: If hacking seven police email accounts can send the state into a panic for a day or two and be seen as “terrorism” in the eyes of top officials, what will happen if hackers hit Arizona with an even bigger attack? Is the state ready for that?

Those are hard questions to answer without a full investigation. But LulzSec’s hack brought to light a number of surprising details, including what poor shape some of DPS’s computers are in.

In an agency memo leaked by the hackers, dated Aug. 25, 2010, Sgt. Gary Phelps of the Highway Patrol Division wrote about whether his bureau’s computers, which are scattered across offices throughout northern Arizona, were up to the task of running a new piece of training software.

One DPS office in the town of Wikieup, he wrote, “is equipped with two computers and a dial-up internet connection…One of the computers is old and can only be used as a word processor.”

An office in the town of Beaver Dam, Phelps wrote, had five computers and a faster DSL connection. But two of those computers were “older and only used for word processing.” In Springerville, two computers were OK and two were now only used as word processors. In Holbrook, two of ten computers were word processors only.

At office after office, the situation was similar. Officers were often working on computers so old as to barely function. Some DPS computers, particularly those in small towns, had the type of internet connections most users haven’t seen in almost a decade.

In its postmortem of last week’s attack, DPS said its officers at exactly those types of rural outposts were the ones who fell prey to the hackers. “Because we have people stationed all over the state, not everyone is on the same password requirements,” agency spokesman Steve Harrison told the Arizona Republic. The agency, he added, was now “in the process of changing that.”

The agency also put a statement on its website listing four “safeguards” it has in place to protect its digital records. The list includes having “industry-standard” firewalls and anti-virus software as well as having digital security staffers employed at each state agency.

On his blog, information security professional Jim Lippard wrote that the list represents a “less-than-minimal set of security controls” and could indicate how little the state’s police force understands the problem.

“It’s an embarrassing list,” he wrote, “which suggests they’ve had poor information security and continue to have poor information security.”

Lippard went on to provide his own, much larger list of questions that have yet to be answered publicly in the wake of the attack.

Meanwhile, the hacker group that broke into the DPS email accounts posted a statement Saturday saying it was disbanding. However, it pointed followers to another hacker group carrying out similar operations.

Even as Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces the most intense scrutiny of his career from federal investigators, local authorities and his own men, records released Thursday show his 2012 re-election campaign is raising money at a faster pace than ever.

The Maricopa County sheriff hauled in more than $650,000 in less than six weeks, bringing his total grab to about $3.6 million since winning a fifth term in 2008, according to financial disclosures filed with the county elections department.

That pace, more than $100,000 a week, far exceeds what he brought in earlier this year, when he was raising money at about $50,000 a week, and shatters his 2009 rate of about $20,000 a week.

The cash grab took place between Aug. 5 and Sept. 13, a time when he was running television commercials in the Phoenix area that said his policies were coming “under attack” from some of his fellow Republicans.

But despite his heavy local ad buys, the records show much of his fund raising is coming from out of state, with donations arriving from as far away as New York and Washington.

Arpaio also recently hired the Virginia-based firm Eberle Associates to help raise money. The firm calls itself “America’s trusted conservative fund raiser” and boasts of clients including Americans for Tax Reform and the Linda Tripp Defense Fund.

Still, most of the fund raising to date has been handled by Arpaio’s campaign manager, Chad Willems of the Summit Consulting Group in Phoenix, who was paid almost $190,000 during the same six-week period for his efforts. Willems did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

All of this comes at a time when Arpaio has come under the most intense scrutiny of his career. He and his office have been under federal criminal investigation since 2008, with a federal grand jury meeting in recent months to determine whether to charge him or his associates with abuse of power.

The financial disclosure was also filed in the same week as revelations that one of the sheriff’s own men has come forward, claiming corruption and law breaking within the highest levels of the agency.

Arpaio’s next election isn’t until 2012, but he already has opponents lining up to challenge him. Republican Mike Stauffer has been campaigning since January and Democrat Dan Saban announced earlier this week he will run for his party’s nomination.

Stauffer’s last financial disclosure on Aug. 12 showed he had raised $445. Saban has yet to file any fund raising reports.

He tried twice to unseat Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and lost both times. But former Buckeye Police Chief Dan Saban is going to try again, saying Monday he believes he can pull off an upset in his third run for the office.

Saban told Heat City he gave the county notice of his campaign last week after being overwhelmed by calls to get into the 2012 race despite losses to Arpaio in 2008 and 2004. “I just got bombarded with emails,” Saban said.

Unsure whether he would ever return to politics after the last election, Saban said he spent the first five months of this year on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, helping train the nation’s police force there. When he returned to Arizona in late May, he discovered his supporters were already organizing for a 2012 race. The momentum was too strong to pass up.

“I came back to this groundswell of support that I didn’t even know was going on,” he said, pointing to a Facebook page with more than 1,400 fans calling for him to run. “It’s a fight worth being in — trust me.”

In an email late Monday, Arpaio’s campaign manager, Chad Willems, said the sheriff welcomes all challengers to the race. “Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a strong supporter of the right to free speech and the right of those who want to enter the political process as a candidate for office,” he said.

Saban, who ran as a Republican in his first race and as a Democrat for the second, said he is sticking with the Democratic Party this time. He cited the fact that he finished with more than 550,000 votes in the last election — about 42 percent of the total — as proof of having strong support from the party as well as from other voters.

“That’s half a million people who want change,” Saban said.

But the path to victory this time, just like before, is not an easy one.

Arpaio and his fellow Republicans have savaged Saban’s reputation over the years, largely using unsupported allegations of seedy behavior to go after him.

In 2004, for example, Arpaio’s office opened up a criminal investigation into 30-year-old allegations by Saban’s adoptive mother. The case was handed over to another agency and eventually thrown out but not before it was leaked to the media by Arpaio’s office.

Saban lost the Republican primary that year, taking just 44 percent of the vote. Arpaio won with 56 percent.

Four years later, after Saban became a Democrat, the state Republican Party funded a television ad that repeated those same allegations and added a few more. One allegation was based on an investigation the Mesa Police Department launched after a friend of Saban’s told an off-color joke about him at a party. That investigation was also dropped for lack of evidence, but it was nonetheless included in the ad.

The TV spot also brought up testimony Saban gave during a 2005 lawsuit against Arpaio. In it, he admitted to masturbating at home once while on lunch break from duty as a volunteer for the sheriff’s office in the 1970s. Because of the graphic language in the ad, some TV networks would only air it after 9 p.m.

Asked why he would want to open himself up to the same kinds of attacks for a third time, Saban waved off any concern. He said he hoped to make the race about issues, not innuendo.

“He’s never once attacked me on my professional experience,” said Saban, who spent more than 30 years in law enforcement, most of it at the Mesa Police Department.

Perhaps an even bigger problem for any challenger, however, is the reality that Arpaio has become a campaign fund-raising powerhouse since winning his fifth term in 2008 with 55 percent of the vote.

With two years until the next election for sheriff, Arpaio has already shattered every fund-raising and campaign spending record in Maricopa County history. He has put together at least $3 million and already spent more than $1 million of it to raise more cash and try to help his allies in this year’s elections.

This year alone, the sheriff has been raising money at a pace of more than $50,000 a week. By comparison, Saban raised a total of about $160,000 for his 2008 run.

But all is not rosy for the sheriff, either. He has come under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury looking into allegations that he abused his position as sheriff for political gain.

The investigation stems from a long-running feud between the sheriff and numerous officials in Maricopa County leadership. At one point in December 2009, Arpaio’s office was investigating all five elected county supervisors, the top two appointed county administrators and at least three judges, all of whom had other conflicts with the sheriff.

Arpaio’s popularity rating dipped as low 39 percent in January as a result of the feud. But it appeared to pick up later in the year as immigration become the state’s top issue and he contemplated running for governor.

For Saban, however, the fund raising and past polls mean very little. He is confident voters will see him as the right candidate for the job this time.

He is already starting to raise seed money and plans to have his campaign fully operational within the next several weeks.

“I can fix this mess,” Saban said. “He obviously underestimates my resolve.”

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has apparently changed his mind about a candidate he recently spent big bucks trying to defeat.

Last month, the Maricopa County sheriff was dishing out hundreds of thousands of dollars to attack Tom Horne, a Republican running in the Arizona attorney general’s race.

Arpaio, a fellow Republican who wanted instead to see his ally Andrew Thomas win the GOP nomination, paid an estimated $300,000 for television ads linking Horne to Democratic President Barack Obama, accusing him of unethical behavior and saying he favors amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Horne, however, ended up winning the nomination anyway. He beat Thomas by 899 votes.

Now, the sheriff has changed his tune about the Republican who could become the top law enforcement officer in Arizona if he beats Democrat Felecia Rotellini in November.

Arpaio announced Tuesday he is endorsing Horne for attorney general. He now says he believes Horne, the current superintendent of Arizona’s public schools, is “the best candidate for this important job.”

He also said he believes Horne opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants, a full reversal of what he said in his attack ads.

The ads, which began airing in late July, were explicit about what Arpaio believed was Horne’s position on giving citizenship to illegal immigrants.

“Tom Horne favors amnesty for illegal immigrants, which would cost taxpayers billions,” the narrator said with a grainy black and white photo of the candidate plastered on the screen. The ad also said Horne had “falsely and unethically accused the sheriff of political retaliation.”

But when Horne released word of the endorsement on Tuesday, Arpaio’s was saying almost exactly the opposite thing.

“Tom Horne will enforce our laws against illegal immigration, will oppose amnesty and support SB 1070,” Arpaio’s written statement said. ” I strongly encourage voters throughout the state to join me in voting for Tom Horne for attorney general.”

Horne did not return a call seeking comment on the discrepancy. But he has denied in the past that he supports granting citizenship to illegal immigrants as part of any immigration reform plan.

In fact, Horne felt so strongly that his position was being skewed that he sued Arpaio two weeks before the Aug. 24 primary, saying the sheriff was breaking the law by airing the ads.

Horne said he believed the spots amounted to a back-door campaign contribution for his opponent. He estimated the sheriff spent $317,000 on them while contributions were limited to $140. “That is patently illegal,” Horne said in documents he filed Aug. 10.

The damage would be severe, Horne pleaded to the judge. He could lose the election because of it.

But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Buttrick declined to pull the ads from the air, saying they plainly also asked people to vote for Arpaio in his re-election campaign in 2012. Therefore, the judge said, the sheriff was free to attack Horne or anyone else. He threw out the lawsuit two days after it was filed.

Arpaio’s campaign manager, Chad Willems, told Heat City on Wednesday that Arpaio and Horne met sometime last week after a winner was declared in the GOP race. They sat down, talked and agreed to end their feud.

“Oftentimes in campaigns, there are misunderstandings,” Willems said. “And they got that cleared up.”

Willems pointed to a 2007 newspaper article in which Horne was quoted as saying he “would have no objection” to a plan giving citizenship to illegal immigrant students who graduate from high school and pass an extra test.

“There was some confusion in the air about the comments that Tom had made two, three years ago,” Willems said. But Horne and Arpaio now “see eye to eye on the issue.”

And as for the idea that Horne had accused the sheriff of political retaliation, Willems said: “They’ve aired that out, too.”

The primary battle between Horne and Arpaio’s ally Andrew Thomas was one of the nastiest in recent Arizona history. And the sheriff spent at least $400,000 in advertising during the primary, Willems said, though he wasn’t sure how much of that went to the ads involving Horne.

But that’s all water under the bridge now, Willems said. “He won. It couldn’t have hurt him that bad.”

Challenger Bill Montgomery pulled out a major upset in the Republican race for Maricopa County attorney on Tuesday by unseating one of the most familiar names in Arizona politics, Rick Romley.

Romley conceded the race within hours of the polls closing after unofficial results showed him down by almost 12 percent. Montgomery was leading 50 percent to 38 percent.

“In a way, it feels very satisfying to have hard work pay off like this,” Montgomery said in an interview afterward.

The challenger had the backing of the county’s powerful Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who not only endorsed him but spent big money on an ad campaign attacking Romley in the final weeks of the race. Elections officials on Tuesday determined some of the ads were illegal, but the ruling came down after the damage had already been done.

Montgomery said Arpaio’s overall support was a bigger key to his victory. But he acknowledged the attack ads were effective, too.

“To the extent that it educated voters about my opponent’s record, sure, it helped,” said Montgomery.

But the former deputy prosecutor, who used to work under Romley at the county attorney’s office, gave even more credit to the driving political force known as S.B. 1070, Arizona’s new immigration law.

Even though the most controversial parts of the law were blocked by a federal judge in July before they could take effect, Montgomery said the issue helped cement him as the tougher of the two candidates on illegal immigration.

Romley vowed to enforce the law, but he also urged Gov. Jan Brewer to veto it earlier this year, saying it was tearing apart the community.

With the win, Montgomery is all but guaranteed to be elected as the county’s next chief prosecutor in November. Democrats chose to stay out of the race this year. So his only opponent will be Libertarian Michael Kielsky, who has yet to raise any money or even launch a campaign website.

Romley, who had the support of a number of Democrats in Arizona, also put to rest any speculation that he would try to run as a write-in candidate in the fall.

“I just don’t see it,” he told Heat City. “We just move on. I’m just going to keep doing the job through November.”

It was the first loss of Romley’s long political career. He held the county attorney’s office for 16 years, winning his first election in 1988 and earning three more terms after that until he retired in 2004.

Then in April, after a five-year absence, he agreed to accept an appointment to his old seat when his successor, Andrew Thomas, resigned to run for state attorney general. Tuesday’s primary and November’s general elections are part of a special process to find someone to finish out the final two years of Thomas’ vacated term.

“It’s my first loss,” Romley said. “And it’s not easy here.”

During the five years he was gone from the office, Maricopa County’s government descended into a major feud among most of its high-ranking leaders.

On one side were Thomas, Arpaio and a handful of other agency heads. On the other side were the Board of Supervisors, the county’s chief administrator and several judges. The battle resulted in numerous lawsuits and criminal charges, and the fallout from it continues even now.

Romley was picked by the board to help smooth out the mess. He said Tuesday that he hopes his brief return to the office will ultimately prove to have done that.

“When (Montgomery) comes in, if he prevails in November, it will be in much better shape,” Romley said.

He also said he and his staff tried to stay out of the mud during his campaign, a difficult feat given the volume of Arpaio’s attacks against him.

“Campaigns today are very nasty and when I chose to come back in, I really meant it when I said I was going to try to restore the dignity of the office,” Romley said. “We took the high road. And you can question whether it was good or wrong. But I think we conducted ourselves in a manner that we’re very proud of.”

In the end, he believes those very attacks by Arpaio were what did him in. He estimated that Arpaio spent $700,000 to defeat him, though the official tally won’t be known for several more weeks.

The most recent records from the county Elections Department show that Arpaio had spent $236,000 on “media buys” as of the end of July. His ads against Romley have been running regularly on network TV ever since.

“Maybe I was naive,” Romley said. “We knew it would have a tremendous impact, but I guess I’m surprised it was that big.”

Romley, by comparison, raised $172,000 for the race and Montgromery put together $99,000.

For his part, Montgomery pledged to stay out of the ongoing Maricopa County feuds. Though many of his law enforcement policies are staunchly conservative and similar to those of Andrew Thomas, he said he wants to be a no-drama officeholder.

“What I’ve pledged to the sheriff and the people of Maricopa County is that I’m going to be a partner in law enforcement,” he said. “I’m not interested in feuds and battles.”

Arpaio celebrated the victory of his likely future partner, too. “That’s going to make my job very easy,” he said. “It’s a great night for the Republican Party.”

Onetime presidential nominee Sen. John McCain weighed in on the fierce political feud in Maricopa County on Thursday by endorsing Rick Romley in the Republican primary for county prosecutor.

In an email to Romley’s supporters, the Arizona senator praised the interim county attorney as a prosecutor who has the wherewithal to help sort out a nearly two-year political feud that has plagued the local government here.

“The extraordinary powers to indict and prosecute come with the extraordinary responsibility to apply them honorably,” McCain said. “Rick does.”

Romley, who previously served 16 years as county attorney, took over the office again in April after Republican Andrew Thomas resigned to run for state attorney general.

During Romley’s five year absence, Thomas used his role as chief prosecutor to target nearly a dozen county officials who he said engaged in a massive conspiracy to undermine his authority.

When Thomas resigned in April, one of his targets, the county Board of Supervisors, appointed Romley to help smooth out the feud.

“If you believe, as I do, that experience matters — that character matters — then you’ll understand why I’m so proud to stand with Rick Romley in the race for county attorney,” McCain said in his statement.

By endorsing Romley, McCain essentially butted heads once again with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the senator’s longtime adversary who is backing Romley’s opponent in the GOP primary.

Arpaio endorsed challenger Bill Montgomery, a former prosecutor in the county attorney’s office, and even paid for television commercials attacking Romley.

Romley and McCain, however, share more than just a common foe in Maricopa County. Both men are also veterans of the Vietnam War, where McCain was a POW and Romley lost both his legs.

McCain, who is also facing challengers in Tuesday’s primary, referred to the war connection as part of the endorsement, saying Romley “has spent nearly his entire life in service to others.”

“From his service to our country in Vietnam, where he lost both legs during battle,” McCain said, “to his relentless pursuit of justice for the victims of crime, Rick understands that doing what’s right, popular or not, is the true measure of service.”

The winner of Tuesday’s primary will go on to face Libertarian Michael Kielsky in the November general election. No Democrats are running in the race.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio continued dishing out huge amounts of campaign cash during June and July, surpassing the $1 million mark in total spending with more than two years still to go before he is up for reelection.

Arpaio, a Republican who has now raised nearly $3 million for his 2012 reelection campaign, spent just shy of $400,000 during those two months alone.

That brings his total campaign spending to $1.07 million since starting his fifth term in January 2009, according to reports he filed last week with the Maricopa County Elections Department.

It makes the sheriff one of the top political spenders in Arizona, putting him ahead of most candidates for Congress and all but one person running for statewide office.

According to the latest disclosure, most of Arpaio’s spending in June and July, roughly $236,000, went to buying ads in local media.

While the report doesn’t say anything specific about the media buys, Arpaio appears to have only bought television air time for two ads this year. Both of them have led to an investigation by county elections officials.

The ads appear to have little to do with Arpaio’s own 2012 reelection, although they mention he plans to run for a sixth term. Instead, the 30-second spots attack two of his fellow Republicans who happen to be running in primaries this year against candidates Arpaio has endorsed.

The ads, which target Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley and attorney general candidate Tom Horne, make passing reference to Arpaio but go on to lump the two candidates in with Democratic President Barack Obama and liberal politics.

Arpaio has endorsed Romley’s primary challenger Bill Montgomery and Horne’s primary opponent, Andrew Thomas.

After a complaint by Romley earlier this month, the county elections department opened an investigation into the ads, trying to determine whether Arpaio is allowed to use his reelection money to weigh in on other races.

Only four Arizona candidates have spent more campaign money this year than Arpaio, according to the latest campaign reports.

Sen. John McCain has spent $19.2 million for his reelection campaign. His Republican primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth, has spent $2.6 million. Republican gubernatorial hopeful Buz Mills spent $3.3 million before dropping out of the race in July. And Rep. Gabrielle Giffords spent $1.1 million for her reelection bid.

Watch one of Arpaio’s ads:

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is more than two years away from his next election, but he has spent more money campaigning in recent months than almost any candidate running in Arizona this year.

Only Sen. John McCain and wealthy gubernatorial candidate Buz Mills have spent more money. Both Republicans, however, are in red-hot primary races that go to the polls next month.

Arpaio, meanwhile, doesn’t face his next contest until the second half of 2012. Yet his most-recent financial disclosure shows the Republican sheriff has already spent $671,318 on his campaign.

By contrast, Gov. Jan Brewer, arguably the most popular politician in the state right now, has spent just $135,886 in her fight to keep the seat.

Records show most of Arpaio’s money has gone to the Summit Consulting Group, a Phoenix firm that’s been managing a huge nationwide fundraising blitz for him.

Carried by Arpaio’s popularity with conservatives nationwide, the effort has shattered Maricopa County fundraising records by bringing in $2.5 million, much of it coming from out of state.

From April 2009 through May 2010, Summit received $600,765 for the campaign. It’s not clear precisely how the money was spent, with most of the payments, 35 in all, listed as simply “Fund raising, consulting, adm” on Arpaio’s disclosure forms.

Summit’s president Chad Willems did not immediately return a call seeking comment, and Arpaio could not be reached.

The latest disclosure, which was filed June 22, shows the sheriff’s supporters gave him $1.2 million in just the first five months of this year.

That’s double the $610,000 he raised back in 2008 when he last won an election. That campaign was believed at the time to be the most expensive in Maricopa County history.

Most of Arpaio’s fundraising this year took place as he was flirting with a run for governor. Had he run, Arpaio could have shifted the money from his campaign for sheriff into the gubernatorial bid. He ultimately ruled out the run for higher office on May 3.

Tom Horne and Andrew Thomas threw gallons of political mud at each other when they last faced off on June 3 in front of a Scottsdale tea party group. They largely ignored the moderator and instead tossed around accusations of lies, corruption and secret agendas for almost two hours.

Tonight’s debate, which will be televised at 7 p.m. on KAET (Channel 8) in Phoenix, promises to be somewhat more civilized. It will last just a half hour with the candidates seated at the same table and facing questions from veteran moderator and host Ted Simons.

Still, there may be no avoiding the goop these two want to sling.

Since the last debate, Horne has launched a website that, in part, focuses on the fact that Thomas is under criminal investigation by the FBI for allegedly abusing his power while serving as Maricopa County attorney.

Meanwhile, Thomas has called an investigation of Horne, the state schools superintendent, for failing to disclose a bankruptcy he had in 1970.

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The Mexican government formally joined the fight to stop Arizona’s new immigration law on Monday, telling a U.S. court the law “threatens to poison the well” of diplomacy between the two nations and exposes Mexican citizens to racial profiling by police.

In a 28-page brief filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, lawyers for Mexico said the creation of the law, widely known as S.B. 1070, “has been closely followed at the highest levels of the Mexican government and throughout Mexican society.”

The government said it believes the Arizona law, which among other things makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally, violates the U.S. Constitution. It asked the court to throw the law out entirely.

During a joint session of Congress last month, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon called the law a “terrible idea” that “ignores a reality.” But Monday’s so called friend of the court brief marks the first time Mexico has weighed in on the attempt to challenge the law in court.

It also comes just days after the Obama administration confirmed it plans to file a lawsuit to block the law before it goes into effect on July 29. That suit could come as early as next week.

For its part, the Mexican government said it believes the law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on April 23, will severely hurt its ability to do business with Arizona and the U.S.

The briefing notes that Mexico is the third-largest trading partner with the United States and the second-largest buyer of American exports. Nearly 20 million Mexicans lawfully visited the United States last year, the filing said, and Mexican citizens spend about $7.35 million every day in Arizona alone.

“If S.B. 1070 takes effect,” the briefing said, “Mexican citizens will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure out of concern that they will be subject to unlawful police scrutiny and detention.”

The government also said the law puts down a major stumbling block for comprehensive immigration reform, which both the U.S. and Mexico see as a necessity.

The briefing quotes Mexico’s own ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhan, as saying the law “threatens to poison the well from which our two nations have found and should continue to find inspiration for a joint future of prosperity, security, tolerance and justice.”

Finally, the briefing compared S.B. 1070 to police actions targeting African Americans in the south before and during the civil rights era.

The Mexican government said it believes bias and stereotyping will be an inherent part of enforcing the law, despite Arizona’s promise that it will not.

“S.B. 1070 gives local officers carte blanche authority to stereotype and to rely on the popular perception that appearances of “foreign-ness” are justifiable means for disparate treatment,” the filing said.

“This inevitably will lead to casting an overbroad net in the pursuit of ‘illegal immigrants.’”