Thread: U.S. begins beefing up Canadian border security

U.S. begins beefing up Canadian border security
44 commentsby Bob Drogin - May. 9, 2009 11:37 AM

High above the rugged border, an unmanned Predator B drone equipped with night-vision cameras and cloud-piercing radar scanned the landscape for signs of smugglers, illegal immigrants or terrorists.

Armed agents checked the identification of border crossers while radiation sensors and other devices monitored vehicles entering by road. Soon, a new network of telescopic and infrared video cameras mounted atop 80-foot-tall metal towers will rise above critical locations.

The beefed-up border security is not taking place along America's chaotic southern border - riven by drug smuggling, gun running and illegal immigration - but, rather, its traditionally boring northern boundary with Canada.

The changes have jarred communities along the 3,987-mile border - the longest undefended border in the world.

"Those of us who grew up here never considered it to be a border," said Bernadette Secco, a communications consultant on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls who sometimes dines or shops in the U.S. three times a day. "We're neighbors, not terrorists."

The U.S. has ramped up security along the Canadian border ever since Sept. 11. But changes are coming more quickly now, driven by fears of terrorists exploiting the relative quiet of the northern border and complaints that the U.S. has been disproportionately soft on Canada.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made the get-tough policy clear in recent comments.

"One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feeling among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border," Napolitano told a conference in Washington.

"In other words, we shouldn't go light on one and heavy on the other."

Since they share "one continent," as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement to promote trade and investment, the secretary said, "there should be some parity there."

Before February 2008, the northern border was so open that an oral declaration of citizenship was sufficient to enter the United States.

Starting June 1, however, U.S. authorities will require anyone crossing from Canada to present a valid passport or a secure travel ID card. That has prompted protests from some residents along the border, who say a way of life is ending.

"It was so easy, so habitual, for so long," said Catherine Schweitzer, a Buffalo, N.Y., activist who chairs a regional historic preservation group. "Now suddenly there's a gate. And all these new restrictions. And guards with guns. It's scary."

Unlike the Mexican border -- which is half as long - no drug war or chaos rages in the north. Arrests and drug seizures in 2008 totaled less than 1 percent of those down south.

"It's a whole lot quieter up here," said Azel J. Price, a border patrol agent in Buffalo, who previously worked for seven years in Yuma, Ariz.

That's not to say that border authorities aren't looking for signs of trouble.

On a recent afternoon, an 18-wheeler with Canadian plates set off a radiation alarm as soon as it crossed the Peace Bridge to Buffalo, the northern border's busiest crossing.

The driver was ordered to pass another monitor and park in an inspection bay. A metal arm swept the truck's top and sides and produced a gamma ray image of the cargo. A guard used a hand-held device to identify the offending isotope. Another grabbed bolt cutters and snapped the truck's rear lock.

He quickly found the problem in boxes stacked inside: scented kitty litter. Clay in cat litter emits harmless radioactive traces of uranium, thorium and other natural elements.

"We see this all the time," said Brad Kovach, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. "Sludge, medical waste, tiles, we get hits maybe a dozen times a day. It's not a problem."

Then there's bingo. Isotopes are used in many medical procedures, and patrons of a popular bingo parlor on the Canadian side regularly trigger the alarms on the way home.

The quiet may be deceiving. U.S. officials warn that a terrorist attack, at least in theory, is more likely to emerge from Canada than Mexico.

After all, Ahmed Ressam - the "millennium bomber" convicted of plotting to blow up Los Angeles International Airport - was stopped coming off a ferry from Canada in 1999 with a carload of explosives.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection report to Congress in 2008 noted a "significant concern" that extremists could slip across the northern border. It cited the "undisputed presence in Canada of known terrorist affiliate and extremist groups," including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria.

Contraband and illegal immigration from Canada also pose challenges. In a November 2008 report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office cited "networks of illicit criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, currency, people and weapons between the two countries."

Canadian officials, however, say the threats are overplayed and recently chided Napolitano after she suggested terrorists regularly cross the northern border.

In an interview on "The National," Canada's main evening TV news show, Napolitano said April 20 that "to the extent that terrorists have come into our country ... it's been across the Canadian border."

Asked if she was talking about the Sept. 11 perpetrators, she replied, "Not just those, but others as well."

Ressam is the only known example of a suspected terrorist trying to cross the border. None of the 19 skyjackers came through Canada, according to the 9/11 Commission report. Napolitano later said that she knew of other cases that had not been made public "due to security reasons."

Canadian officials in Ottawa contacted Napolitano's office to complain, and Canada's ambassador to Washington, Michael Wilson, said he was "frustrated" by the comments.

Regardless, the buildup along the northern border continues.

The border patrol opened its first northern base for unmanned Predator B aircraft on Feb. 16 at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Other high-tech equipment also will be deployed. The border patrol unit based in Swanton, Vt., will add ground sensors that detect motion, heat or metal.

"To cross in our sector, where we have a land border, it's as simple as crossing the street in Los Angeles," said Mark Henry, operations officer for the Swanton sector. "You walk through a field, you walk across a road, and you're in the U.S."

The network of video cameras is being set up at 16 sites along the St. Clair River in Michigan and the Upper Niagara in New York. Cameras also operate in other locations.

"It will provide us the extra eyes that we need," said Price, as he drove to Beaver Island State Park north of Buffalo. A bulldozer recently broke ground there for one of the new 80-foot-high towers.

Up the road, at the border patrol sector headquarters on Grand Island, N.Y., three specialists monitored 10 screens that showed video of railroad and highway bridges, river gorges and other entry points.

One agent twisted a knob to focus on a bicyclist near the Whirlpool Bridge, and flipped a switch to go infrared. The cyclist glowed bright white on the screen, but he soon peddled out of sight.

"It's quiet today," Price said. "As usual."


http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... er-ON.html

Unlike the Mexican border -- which is half as long - no drug war or chaos rages in the north. Arrests and drug seizures in 2008 totaled less than 1 percent of those down south.

"It's a whole lot quieter up here," said Azel J. Price, a border patrol agent in Buffalo, who previously worked for seven years in Yuma, Ariz.

Oh yes! Those dangerous, dangerous Canadians... the very bane of our existence. NOT!!!!!

This woman needs to be fired immediately. This just yanks my chain no end...

gotta worry about those crazy Canooks slinging "Moose Nuggets" and snowballs at us as well as those south of the border slinging lead and grenades at us while kidnapping Americans

uuuuuuuuuuuuh someone tell me why this grossly Incompetent goof ball running the department of homeland Insecurity still has a job

If they need to be all PC, and beef up security on the northern border and pretend like we need it, I say fine. Go ahead and go through this symbolic act, as long as you're REALLY, TRULY, ACTUALLY going to follow it up with securing the southern border.

Unlike the Mexican border -- which is half as long - no drug war or chaos rages in the north. Arrests and drug seizures in 2008 totaled less than 1 percent of those down south.

Yup, that makes sense....lets treat them both equally

Just yesterday our border with Canada was the "longest undefended peaceful border in the wordl"! Now thanks to a minority population of sociopathic druggies, their suppliers at home and abroad, and the C of C, we have to have a fence up there for no reason but to placate the corrupt narco state to our south and its supporters!

"In other words, we shouldn't go light on one and heavy on the other."

I have no problem with equal security being provided on both borders. However, I do have a problem with Napolitano' logic behind beefing up security along the northern border. Read this comment:

"One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feeling among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border," Napolitano told a conference in Washington.

After reading the above comment, are we supposed to actually believe that national security has anything to do with enhancing security along our border with Canada? Let's be honest, Janet real interest here is appeasing Mexico and the whining pro-illegal alien advocates that live along our southern border.

I say secure the northern border because it's necessary for national security, not because Mexico and illegal alien advocates are whining about mistreatment.

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

gotta worry about those crazy Canooks slinging "Moose Nuggets" and snowballs at us as well as those south of the border slinging lead and grenades at us while kidnapping Americans

uuuuuuuuuuuuh someone tell me why this grossly Incompetent goof ball running the department of homeland Insecurity still has a job

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http://www.alipac.us/article4208.html

I lived in New Hampshire for years and the Canadians are SNEAKING across the border. To go to our hospitals. The thing with them though is they bring their checkbook.