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The United States and Canada border thread

 
 
Noddy24
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 02:36 pm
Roger--

You are a roguish devil, you are.
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 06:53 pm
I find it interesting, according to this story, that officials used a warrant available under the U.S.A. Patriot Act to enter the U.S. house.

Spokane couple owners of house on U.S. end of dope-smuggling tunnel
at 19:41 on July 23, 2005, EST.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The house at the U.S. end of a 110-metre drug-smuggling tunnel to British Columbia belongs to a Spokane-area couple, the Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Saturday.

Three Canadian men were arrested in connection with the case. The tunnel, reinforced with wooden supports and rebar, stretched from a metal hut in B.C. to a point underneath the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash.

The house is owned by Raman and Kusum Patel, the Whatcom County Assessor's website said. The Spokane County Assessor's website indicates the same couple purchased a home in the Mead area of Spokane County in July 2003.

Neighbours told the newspaper the Patels live at the Mead home. There was no immediate response to a message left on a telephone-answering machine at the only residential listing for Patel in the area.

A U.S. federal search warrant was served at the Mead house Thursday, spokesman Jeff Eig with the Seattle bureau of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told the newspaper.

No arrests were made following the search and Eig would not say whether the Patels are considered part of the investigation.

Charged Thursday in U.S. District Court in Seattle with conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to import marijuana were Francis Devandra Raj, 30; Timothy Woo, 34 and Jonathan Valenzuela, 27, all of Surrey, B.C.

More than 30 tunnels have been found at the southern border dividing the United States and Mexico but this is the first one discovered on the U.S.-Canadian border, officials said.

Construction of the tunnel began over the last year and was finished earlier this month, officials said.

Investigators used a "sneak-peak" warrant available under the U.S.A. Patriot Act to enter the U.S. house July 2 and later installed cameras and listening devices in the home.

Through those devices, authorities said they observed the defendants make multiple trips through the tunnel carrying large hockey bags or garbage bags later determined to contain marijuana.

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
roger
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 07:36 pm
Now, that sounds like an abuse of the Patriot Act.

Not wanting to derail the thread, Reyn, but the comment fits here and nowhere else.
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 07:47 pm
I'm wondering how they justified using the Patriot Act in this case? Suspected, or possible terrorist threat? At this point, seems unlikely. I also wonder if this case may be appealled due to the possible misuse of said Act.
0 Replies
 
Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 07:54 pm
Could it be because it was a tunnel from Canada?
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 23 Jul, 2005 09:35 pm
Intrepid wrote:
Could it be because it was a tunnel from Canada?

Not sure if that made a difference in their decision, as more than 30 tunnels have been found on the Mexican border.

I'm speculating here, but I figure officials needed an excuse to put the cameras and audio bugs in the house and tunnel to keep abreast of the goings-on. Perhaps they claimed that they were making sure the would-be tunnelers weren't bringing possible terrorists into the country. This way, they can say they had legal access to the house in Lynden, Washington.
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 08:56 am
And here's the price tag to build this tunnel....

Got a spare million dollars? I wouldn't be at all shocked if the Hell's Angels were behind this effort. They certainly would have this kind of money.


Feds estimate smuggling tunnel cost $1 million, including land
Authorities kept watch for 6 months

KIRA MILLAGE
THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
July 22, 2005

Since February, U.S. and Canadian law enforcement secretly watched drug smugglers build a tunnel across the border.

Using shovels, more than 1,000 2-by-6's and rebar, the smugglers built a 360-foot-long tunnel complete with ventilation and electricity.

Wednesday afternoon, their elaborate operation came to an end when U.S. federal agents arrested three men exiting the tunnel in Whatcom County just east of the Lynden-Aldergrove crossing.

"This tunnel was ambitious, sophisticated and an example of the lengths individuals and criminal organizations will go to for illegal profits," said Inspector Pat Fogarty of a special Canadian law enforcement team.

The tunnel started in a Quonset hut - a large metal shed - at 26717 Zero Ave. just inside Canada. The property is owned by Francis Devandra Raj, 30, one of the three men arrested.

It stretched under the border and emerged in the living room of 151 E. Boundary Road north of Lynden.

The homeowners are listed as Raman L. and Kusum B. Patel, according to the Whatcom County Assessor's Web site.

They were not arrested but are of great interest, said John McKay, U.S. attorney. They could not be reached for comment.

The tunnel was under construction for more than a year and was big enough for a person to walk through, hunched over, McKay said.

The entrances were 6 feet by 6 feet and the entire tunnel was reinforced on all sides by rebar and wood, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office news release.

The people constructing it put together a pulley and winch system to lift the dirt out and move it north or south to one of the openings, Fogarty said. The tunnel was completed earlier this month.

"It's probably one of the most sophisticated tunnels seen in the U.S.," said Rod Benson, special agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Fogarty estimated the smuggling suspects spent $1 million building it, including purchasing the land.

This is the first tunnel discovered along the Canadian border, Benson said, but it's only one of 34 discovered going into the United States. The others are mostly in California and Arizona, he said. Authorities were not confident this was the only tunnel created, but they don't have any evidence to suggest there are more.

U.S. federal agents installed surveillance cameras and listening devices in the East Boundary Road home earlier this month and monitored action in the tunnel constantly, Benson said.

"We collectively dismantled a criminal organization capable of causing damage to Canadian and American societies," said Kim Scoville, director of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

The three men arrested - Raj; Timothy Woo, 43; and Johnathan Valenzuela, 27; all of Surrey, B.C. - were part of a drug smuggling organization the Canadian Border Services Agency had been investigating since 2003, Scoville said.

"They were well known by the police in the province," Fogarty added.

DEA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents observed Raj, Woo and Valenzuela smuggle marijuana several times through the tunnel, frequently in hockey bags or garbage bags, according to the news release.
Authorities let the smuggling continue until they felt they had enough information to charge the suspects, McKay said.

About 200 pounds of marijuana was seized as part of the investigation and other suspects are being investigated and watched, according to U.S. and Canadian officials.

Jeffrey Eig, DEA spokesman for the Seattle division, said two U.S. citizens arrested in the last week for possession of marijuana are being investigated in connection with the tunnel.

A woman from Twin Falls, Idaho, was arrested Saturday with 93 pounds of marijuana in her vehicle, and a man was arrested Monday morning with more than 100 pounds of marijuana. The DEA is not releasing their names at this time, Eig said.

Authorities said the tunnel will be sealed so it can't be used any longer.

"The Department of Homeland Security considered this a national security issue for both countries," said Leigh Winchell, I.C.E. special agent in charge. "The tunnel could have been used to smuggle aliens into the U.S. or equipment into the U.S."

"Increased security at the ports of entry ... are going to have an effect (on drug smuggling) and (they) will move it another way," he said, adding that the bust will "send shockwaves through the (drug) organizations."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THREE ARRESTED
U.S. authorities arrested three Surrey, B.C., men Wednesday as they came out of a tunnel dug under the border:

Francis Devandra Raj, 30.

Timothy Woo, 34.

Johnathan Valenzuela, 27.

They face federal charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to import marijuana. The three are being held in a federal jail in SeaTac. More charges may follow

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 01:07 pm
I have edited the subject line of this thread from just a "tunnel story" across the border, to a much wider one to include all current and future issues regarding security along the United States and Canadian border.

Security at Canadian border worries many

Associated Press news

Nearly four years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks and after billions in security investment on both sides of this frontier stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, authorities and average folks are still jittery. Here's why:

At the edge of a sprawling raspberry field where Washington state meets British Columbia, a U.S. Border Patrol agent shakes his head at tire tracks that snake between rows of berries and over the international boundary, which here is a gravel ditch so puny a person could leap it.

"They're long gone," says agent Candido Villalobos, who raced to the scene after a surveillance camera spotted the vehicle, transporting contraband? Drug money? Something more sinister? Too late to know. "They beat us," Villalobos murmurs.

At Sandwich, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, the Olde Town Bake Shoppe overlooks the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest trade crossing between the United States and Canada. Thousands of trucks rumble along its lanes daily, loaded with everything from Nova Scotia salmon to U.S. auto parts.

But bakery owner Mary Ann Cuderman worries about what else might be passing, especially given public concern that infrastructure could be a terrorist target. A citizens group she heads, the Windsor West Community Truck Watch Coalition, wants closer scrutiny. "How do you feel secure," she says, "knowing that anybody, at any time, could drive right up on that bridge?"

Near the eastern end of the border, where Maine and New Brunswick touch, the story prompted international headlines, comedians' snickers and lawmakers' ire: A man carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what seemed like blood sought entry to the United States. After confiscating his weapons and questioning him, border agents let him in.

Canadian-born Gregory Despres was a naturalized U.S. citizen returning home, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials explained. But the day after he was admitted to America back in April, authorities in his Canadian hometown found two bodies -- one decapitated, the other stabbed to death. Despres was arrested wandering a road in Massachusetts.

"The whole thing gives me a queasy feeling," says Colin Kenny, chairman of Canada's Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defense.

Two U.S. congressmen, Edward Markey and Stephen Lynch, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, seeking answers about the Despres case and a review of entry procedures. Said Markey: "Giving the green light to this deranged individual to enter our country raises serious questions about these procedures."

Balancing the historic openness of the U.S.-Canada border with today's necessary wariness is a challenge the two nations still have not mastered -- and some fear the continued ambivalence could be harmful.

"Despite what should have been the wakeup call of September 11, 2001, there has been an unsettling lack of progress on both sides of the border to improve efficiency and strengthen security at land border crossings," said a 192-page report issued last month by Kenny's committee.

It calls for a hardening of border security on the Canadian side -- arming of border agents, like their U.S. counterparts, and giving the minister of public safety authority to expedite border infrastructure construction and the right to eminent domain in the name of national security.

And last week, Chertoff and his counterparts from Canada and Mexico met in Ottawa to pledge better integration of terrorist watchlists and other measures to counter threats against the "three friends living in the same neighborhood."

Yet tightening rules along the border is rarely easy. This spring the Bush administration first proposed, then held up, a plan to require passports of everyone entering the United States from Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Panama and Canada. The latter nation is the largest U.S. trading partner, with more than a billion dollars worth of goods crossing the border daily.

"If people have to have a passport, it's going to disrupt the honest flow of traffic," President Bush said, backing off the plan, though he added, "On the larger scale, we've got a lot to do to enforce the border."

Much has already been done, of course. In the Blaine, Wash., border sector, where the raspberry field tire tracks were found, 32 new camera surveillance systems are online and 133 agents on staff, 21/2 times the number prior to Sept. 11.

Still, Eugene Davis, retired deputy chief of this Border Patrol sector, frets: "We are still wide-open." In a letter to the Sept. 11 commission, he expressed fear that terrorists would exploit the porous border.

Canada's welcoming immigration policies and limited border enforcement have long been the subject of scrutiny from Americans, who fear a terrorist claiming refugee status could lie in wait to carry out a mission down south.

That threat still exists, says David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's counterpart to the CIA. Harris asserts more than 50 terrorist organizations have a presence in Canada.

"Canada has essentially said, if you put your foot in Canada and you declare yourself a (Geneva Convention) refugee, then by and large you are," says Harris, who now heads a security firm. "All of that has implications; it means that we're quite susceptible to penetration."

People worry about penetration all along the border.

At the mile-and-a-half-long Ambassador Bridge, vehicles are not inspected before they embark from either country; as with other border spans, that only happens once they reach customs officers at the opposite end.

Skip McMahon, a spokesman for Detroit International Bridge Co., the private owner, declines to spell out safety measures taken since Sept. 11 but says "we have hardened our assets. We have employed armed guards on and around our bridge 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Concerned citizens, he says, should get both federal governments to move on a proposal for inspections of suspicious cargo before vehicles cross.

Canada has one of the most democratic, multicultural societies in the world. Instead of closing doors to immigrants post-Sept. 11, the nation continues to encourage foreigners to come and work. Critics caution that welcoming some 250,000 new immigrants and refugees each year potentially opens the door to terrorists.

"Canada's the only country that I would say hasn't significantly tightened up," says Martin Collacott, Canada's former ambassador to Syria and Lebanon and once director general for security services and counterterrorism within the ministry of foreign affairs.

He describes the refugee system as "dysfunctional." A Canadian government report this year notes that refugee claims can be delayed up to two years, meaning potentially dangerous applicants can disappear.

Though not a refugee, Fateh Kamel, a suspected former ringleader of an Islamic extremist group, easily returned to Montreal in January after serving a prison term in France for terrorist plots there. His Canadian passport (he holds Algerian-Canadian citizenship) gave officials no choice but to admit him -- though some lawmakers have since suggested his citizenship be revoked.

The case has parallels to that of Despres, the naturalized American with the chain saw, who authorities said violated no immigration rule.

About 1,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents work along the U.S.-Canada border, roughly triple the 2001 force but a fraction of the 9,600 agents who patrol the Mexican border, about half as long at 1,900 miles.

On the Canadian side, no single agency specifically patrols the border. Rather, it is monitored by 23 enforcement teams, consisting of officers of the 4,500-member Canada Border Services Agency, supplemented by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and local police departments.

Most of Canada's 160 land and maritime border crossings are staffed by only one guard, unarmed for now. Long stretches between official entry points go unmanned.

On both sides of the border, mountaintop forests and island-dotted waterways harbor hidden nooks where helicopters, motorboats, even kayaks drop off or collect drugs.

Recalling a highly publicized terrorist case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Peter Ostrovsky says, "We're lucky that Ahmed Ressam did not hook up with Canadians smuggling contraband into the country."

Ressam, with ties to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, was arrested in 1999 in Port Angeles, Wash., as he drove off a ferry from Canada. Customs agents, suspicious of his nervous behavior, searched his trunk and found explosives. Ressam, who had been living in Montreal, was convicted of plotting a blast at the Los Angeles airport.

Last August, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security added a small air and marine operations branch south of Blaine to help police 200 miles of water dividing the United States and Canada. In October, a similar base opened in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and branches are planned for Michigan, North Dakota and Montana.

Kenny, the Canadian Senate security committee chairman, wants customs agents on his side of the border to focus more on pulling over other potential Ressams for secondary questioning, rather than nabbing commuters for smuggling in consumer goods.

"We've got to change the culture of having tax collectors to front-line country protectors," he says.

Kenny's committee has found successes post-Sept. 11, such as Canada's modernizing of surveillance technology to identify ships heading to its ports. It praises the government for raising military spending and improving cooperation with the United States.

The friendship between the countries has a potent symbol in downtown Blaine. Peace Arch Park, 20 acres dotted with picnic benches and swing sets, straddles the international line. People from both nations may meander through its gardens -- so long as they go home at day's end.

Many don't.

Palestinian Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, convicted in 1998 of plotting to bomb a New York subway, illegally entered the United States this way.

On June 29, 1996, six days after he'd been caught crossing the border farther east, Mezer jogged through the park. A Border Patrol agent stopped him and returned him to Canada, where he had a pending immigration application. He would return to the United States months later, again crossing the Washington border.

Directly across from Peace Arch Park on the Canadian side is the home of 84-year-old Dorothy Kristjanson. She recalls watching a whole family illegally crossing, heading south; another time, a burglar going north dropped backpacks on her porch and fled.

"It's something that happens every day," she said one recent morning. "If I see somebody go by here with a backpack and I say, `Uh-oh, he looks cagey,' I'll phone (authorities) and say, `Keep an eye on that guy."'

But she isn't too concerned.

"You know," she said, "the border's pretty safe."

Safer, anyway, many officials contend.

A few months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Canada adopted a new anti-terrorism act and a "smart border" plan with Washington intended to increase security while permitting the flow of commerce and some 300,000 people across the border each day. Today, U.S. and Canadian screeners work jointly at eight major airports.

In 2003, a new agency -- Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada -- was created, a counterpart to the U.S. Homeland Security department.

A program that identifies low-risk frequent travelers and gives them speedier crossings has enrolled 76,000 people. An additional 54,000 truckers have been screened for faster passage.

"Security has increased dramatically," says Danny Yen, a spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency. "It's not only on the program side, but also on the intelligence side."

In Blaine, the Border Patrol's Joe Giuliano believes security is greater but speaks pragmatically:

"Am I going to tell you I've hermetically sealed this border? No, that's not true. I can put a million agents out there and have them run willy-nilly across the border catching everything that moves and throwing it back. Two hours later, they're going to try again ... and sooner or later somebody's going to find that one little seam and exploit it."

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
hamburger
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:03 pm
cartoon in toronto newspaper shows american seniors coming out of the tunnel on the canadian side ... they've come to get their prescription drugs in canada. i thought that was a funny look at it. hbg
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:33 pm
hamburger wrote:
cartoon in toronto newspaper shows american seniors coming out of the tunnel on the canadian side ... they've come to get their prescription drugs in canada. i thought that was a funny look at it. hbg
Here it is. It is quite humorous....

http://www.thestar.com/images/thestar/img/050724_corrigan_450.jpg
0 Replies
 
hamburger
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:35 pm
thanks, reyn ! now i can sleep soundly - smiling ! hbg
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sun 24 Jul, 2005 07:36 pm
haha, Glad to oblige! Have a good night's sleep then.... Laughing
0 Replies
 
Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 04:45 am
The Canadian officials look like they are wearing Russiam uniforms Shocked
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 08:19 am
I see the Minutemen organization are doing a patrol project on the Washington /B.C. border here in October.

Drug tunnel stirs fears about northern borderhttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2005/07/24/2002400178.jpgAn aerial photo shows a forest with a cleared line, marking the U.S.-Canadian border, extending into the mountains near Sumas, Whatcom County, and Abbotsford, B.C. Many see such areas as a major security concern.
------------------------

Through his writings, Bissett has consistently raised red flags about border security. "There's so much more we can do, but we probably won't until we have our own incident up here," he said.

John Keeley, with the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank that supports stricter immigration control, pointed out that the United States' northern border is twice the length of its border with Mexico. Yet the 1,000 or so agents assigned to the north are a fraction of the nearly 10,000 who patrol the Mexican border.

"That border is so large and so porous, it ought to be of grave concern for the American government, not because Canada poses any threat, but because Canada has a consistently lax asylum regime and conspicuously lax immigration regime.

"Basically, the mischief makers can get into the United States unimpeded. That's a cold, hard reality."

Monitoring stepped up

United States border officials say the country's northern rim might be undefended but is not unmonitored.

"Just because we don't have people standing shoulder to shoulder on every mile does not mean we don't know what's going on out there," said Joe Giuliano, deputy chief for the Border Patrol's Blaine sector.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2005/07/24/2002400217.jpgSource[/color]
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Mon 25 Jul, 2005 08:55 pm
Does anyone know anything about this hardening foam that is being discussed to use to seal off the tunnel? Is it like sealing gaps in houses that have air leaks?

U.S. authorities to seal off drug tunnel allegedly built by B.C. men
at 18:42 on July 25, 2005, EST.
CAMILLE BAINS

VANCOUVER (CP) - Officials in the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration are working to permanently seal off a tunnel that was constructed to smuggle marijuana from British Columbia.

Joe Giuliano, deputy chief of Border Patrol in Blaine, Wash., said Monday that military and law enforcement personnel are discussing the use of a hardening foam that would be injected into the tunnel to close it off. "Digging through that will be a heck of a lot harder than digging through the dirt in the first place," Giuliano said.

"I'm pretty confident that it's down for the count once that stuff goes in."

American officials had been monitoring the construction of the 110-metre tunnel since earlier this year after Canadian border personnel alerted them to the possibility that a tunnel was being dug between the two countries.

A joint investigation revealed that three B.C. men were allegedly involved in building the tunnel equipped with electricity, ventilation, wood supports and ribbed steel bars to reinforce it.

Construction was finished earlier this month, and U.S. police arrested the Surrey, B.C., men last week after they snuck across a load of pot.

The tunnel stretched from a metal hut in Langley, B.C., to a point underneath the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash., where police had installed cameras and microphones.

Giuliano said he has almost three times the staff since the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the United Sates to be the eyes and ears at the border crossing in Blaine.

Conservative MP Mark Warawa, who toured the Langley property where the elaborate tunnel began, said the Canadian government needs to follow the U.S. example and increase the number of RCMP officers between border points.

"Without adequate resources we can't adequately protect Canada," Warawa said.

More cocaine from the U.S., often exchanged for B.C. marijuana, could have made its way back to Canada had the tunnel not been discovered, he said.

"These people are not sneaking in jugs of milk."

Some of the 160 border crossings have only one officer on patrol so more Mounties need to monitor between crossings, Warawa said.

RCMP Supt. Bill Ard, in charge of border integrity, said that unlike in the U.S., where borders are patrolled, the RCMP does no such job.

However, after 9-11, Ottawa funded 24 Mounties across Canada to work in the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams that exchange information with U.S. officials, Ard said.

"They are working as a team except we're not in the same office," he said.

"Because of limited resources the approach we're taking is targeting areas of the border that we think are being exploited because of whatever intelligence we have or we're targeting organized crime groups."

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Wed 27 Jul, 2005 10:10 pm
Radio technology to help monitor border

Shannon Montgomery
Canadian Press
Wednesday, July 27, 2005

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/media.canada.com/canwest/90/us_visit_072705.jpgCREDIT: CP PHOTO/Tobin Grimshaw
Bob Mocny, deputy director of the US-VISIT program, speaks to the media during a press conference in Toronto on Wednesday July 27, 2005. Mocny discussed the status of the US-VISIT program, including the latest information on the development of automated entry and exit procedures at land border ports of entry to the United States.
-------------------------------------------------------------

TORONTO -- Three northern U.S. border crossings will soon be using high-tech radio frequency technology to monitor visitors from other countries who seek to enter the United States from Canada, a U.S. security official said Wednesday.

The technology is part of US-VISIT, a billion-dollar anti-terrorism initiative launched in December that has kept almost 700 criminals, including at least one posing as a Canadian, out of the U.S., said Bob Mocny, deputy director of the program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"This is a major transformation of how we are going to be gathering information for both entries and for exits," Mocny told a news conference in Toronto.

Canadian citizens are the only ones in the world who are exempt from US-VISIT, which uses biometric information from photos and fingerprints to monitor residents of other countries who enter the U.S., including landed immigrants living in Canada, Mocny said.

Canadian citizens who are either engaged to a U.S. citizen or have applied for a special business visa must also submit their biometric details, he added.

That information is transferred to a tiny wireless device that's lodged inside a document about the size of a large index card, Mocny said. Visitors to the U.S. who are required to carry the document will get one the first time they try to cross the border.

Every subsequent crossing will be fast and easy, Mocny said, because border guards will be able to access the wireless device from up to 12 metres away, helping to ensure those carrying the document can be processed more quickly.

The document can't be tracked past the border crossing area, he added.

"The range is within the border zone right there; it doesn't go beyond that. It's a quick, efficient read of the tag."

The new radio technology will be in place at the border crossing between Lansdowne, Ont., about 50 kilometres northeast of Kingston, and Alexandria Bay, New York, as well as two crossings between Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, Wash., for the technology's pilot phase.

The US-VISIT program, which is now in place at 17 Canada-U.S. land border crossings, was initially denounced by critics as a tool for racial profiling, for fears it would see Canadian landed immigrants treated differently than other Canadian residents.

But members of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, who met Wednesday with Mocny to discuss their concerns, said they think the technology may in fact help to fight racial and religious profiling.

Karen Mock, the foundation's executive director, said she hears many stories of people with "Middle Eastern-sounding names or darker complexions" being stopped and questioned frequently.

She said technology can help by eliminating the possibility of stereotyping.

"Increasingly . . .they are able to ensure that regardless of people's names or what other countries they've been visiting, that if they're frequent travellers and they've already been cleared and their data is fine, then they can move through it much more quickly," Mock said.

"Those who have been screened and are fine, and are frequent travellers and so on, can continue to pass through with impunity, which is the way it should be: without racial profiling, without being stopped an inordinate amount of times."

The program, which has so far cost just over $1 billion US, is "worth the cost at this point," Mocny said.

Nearly 700 people have been kept out of the U.S. based on their fingerprints since last December, many of them arrested on outstanding warrants.

"These 700 people who tried to come in to the country tried to come in as Mark Jones for a visit," he said. "They're actually John Smith with an active warrant for their arrest."

Mocny couldn't say precisely how many of the 700 came to the U.S. through Canada, but cited one example of a man posing as "a Canadian truck driver and frequent border crosser." He turned out to be wanted on murder charges in Germany.

Other improvements to the program released Wednesday include plans to implement biometric security measures at all remaining small border crossings, about 66 of which are with Canada, Mocny said.

Reynald Doiron, a spokesman with Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, said Canada has no plans to implement a similar system for U.S. landed immigrants.

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Wed 27 Jul, 2005 10:20 pm
All eyes on the ocean

Brooke Larsen
Now Contributor
July 27, 2005

Const. Dale Johnstone lifts his binoculars, squints at a far-off powerboat zipping into U.S. waters.

It's a sunny day - youths in bathing suits cut through the ocean on their parents' pleasure crafts.

But the boaters on Johnstone's mind have dark motives. They are drug smugglers, human traffickers, terrorists.

As head of the Integrated Border Enforcement Team's Pacific marine unit, Johnstone patrols the B.C.-Washington marine border in an RCMP police boat.

IBET unit target cross-border criminal activity through a collaboration between U.S. and Canadian agencies like the RCMP and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Johnstone lowers his binoculars, keeping one eye on the disappearing speed boat.

From his vessel, the Peace Arch looks like a tiny first tooth; the border between Tsawwassen and Point Roberts is a thin line shaved out of the forest.

"We like to hang out here," he says, gesturing to the sea. "This is where a lot of the action happens. What we see is the dope going south and coke and money coming north."

Johnstone and Const. Owen Rusticus, his partner for the day, wear police uniforms and high-tech, barely-there life jackets that inflate when they contact water. There's a mini flotation device on the cord attached to Johnstone's sunglasses.

Get arrested out here and you'll wind up wearing a boxy, orange life vest, the kind that slips over your head, allowing Johnstone to handcuff you with ease.

"Last week was the first time I ever booked a guy wearing a life jacket. He wouldn't take it off because he was afraid of the water. Can you believe that?" Johnstone asks.

He's referring to a bust in which two men were arrested near the White Rock pier with pot, cocaine and a stolen credit card on board.

Like the three Surrey men arrested last week in connection with a drug tunnel built under the border, nautical pot smugglers are an inventive bunch.

"I've inspected old, beat-up boats with brand new fiberglass floors. And you ask yourself, 'Now why would you put a brand new floor on that old boat?' To hide marijuana, of course."

(Johnstone's boat, a Titan rigid-hull inflatable with twin, 250-horsepower engines, is only a year old. It's worth around $240,000 and has a top speed of 46 knots or 85 kilometres per hour. There's a GPS system on board, but no bathrooms.)

So Johnstone and his cohorts must be inventive, too. He recalls tipping off U.S. authorities to a human trafficker transporting four men from Crescent Beach Marina across the border. He managed to snap a photo of the men and send it to the Americans, who were already waiting for them.

"A few times the U.S. guys have picked someone up after I called to tell them someone suspicious was leaving the marina. It's kind of fun when it works out that way," Johnstone says.

"Right now if I had something going on I might just pick up my phone and call my U.S. equivalent."

In fact, Johnstone carries two cellphones - one signed up with a Canadian company, the other on an American plan - and walkie-talkies from police forces in both countries. He does this because his patrol often takes him south of the border.

"I'm on a first-name basis with a lot of the Americans. We go out for chicken wings _ And that's what IBET is all about - integration."

IBET was created in 1996 in response to cross-border crimes occurring on the land, air and marine borders between B.C. and Washington.

The project is a collaboration between the RCMP, Canada Border Services Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The B.C. IBET averaged $1 million per month in seizures of weapons, drugs and tobacco in 2000. The 2001 federal budget included $135 million over five years for more IBETs; now there are 23 of them operating in 15 regions the length of the Canada-U.S. border.

Because IBET's primary focus is national security, its importance has increased after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The difference before and after 9/11 is just huge," Johnstone says. "But our mandate has always been watching for terrorists and the protection of Canada."

Luckily, he hasn't had any dealings with terrorists so far. The ocean may look the same on either side of the border, but it isn't, he says.

"Most of the terrorist threat is to the United States. That's not to say we're not a target, but most of them are already in Canada and want to head south."

Still, Johnstone's job is dangerous because he must sometimes confront armed smugglers with only one partner to help him.

"If you get into trouble it's a long way to go for backup," he chuckles.

Another difference between the U.S. and Canadian sides is manpower; although Johnstone is secretive about how many people work in his IBET, he says there are many more people doing his job south of the border.

"But there's also more people down there, more crime. Things are a lot crazier down there."

On Friday, July 29, Johnstone leaves his post; he's been promoted to watch supervisor with the White Rock RCMP.

Will he miss this?

"Oh, no kidding, no kidding, I'll miss it. It's great to be out here on a nice day with the breeze on your face."

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
husker
 
  1  
Reply Wed 27 Jul, 2005 10:33 pm
Reyn wrote:
I find it interesting, according to this story, that officials used a warrant available under the U.S.A. Patriot Act to enter the U.S. house.

Spokane couple owners of house on U.S. end of dope-smuggling tunnel
at 19:41 on July 23, 2005, EST.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - The house at the U.S. end of a 110-metre drug-smuggling tunnel to British Columbia belongs to a Spokane-area couple, the Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Saturday.

Three Canadian men were arrested in connection with the case. The tunnel, reinforced with wooden supports and rebar, stretched from a metal hut in B.C. to a point underneath the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash.

The house is owned by Raman and Kusum Patel, the Whatcom County Assessor's website said. The Spokane County Assessor's website indicates the same couple purchased a home in the Mead area of Spokane County in July 2003.

Neighbours told the newspaper the Patels live at the Mead home. There was no immediate response to a message left on a telephone-answering machine at the only residential listing for Patel in the area.

Source[/color]


recent local news here in Spokane the Patels claim they were not aware of any property registered in their name.
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Thu 28 Jul, 2005 08:07 pm
Do you believe in what this article says, or should the status quo be carried on with the border security?

Tear down barriersSource[/color]
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Fri 29 Jul, 2005 08:35 pm
U.S. looks at options for border crossing
A travel card, which would be half the price of a passport, is one idea the government offers.

By Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News

Federal officials are proposing a travel card for U.S. citizens that would cost half as much as a passport and allow smoother travel at border crossings.

The U.S. Secretary of State and Homeland Security are likely to sign off by mid-August on the proposal, a State Department official said Thursday. A period for public reaction would follow.

The new I.D. is among several measures being explored to beef up border security that were outlined to Metro Detroit and Windsor business leaders and tourism officials during an informational session at the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce.

"We recognize the U.S. passport is not the answer to the needs," said Frank Moss, deputy assistant secretary for consular affairs at the State Department..

Congress has set a Jan. 1, 2008, deadline for its Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which requires all U.S. citizens traveling to the Caribbean, Mexico and Canada to have a passport or other secure documents to re-enter the United States. Before that deadline, federal officials want to improve the technology embedded in passports and make border checkpoints more efficient to avoid long waits.

The proposed travel card would cost half as much as a U.S. passport, which has an application fee of $95. It comes at the urging of tourist and business officials who say that border crossings must be kept quick and cheap.

"If the public begins to hear, 'I need more and more documentation,' it will drive further people away, particularly the day visitor," said Thomas McMahon, director of community relations for the Detoit International Bridge Co., which owns the Ambassador Bridge. "That amounts to a major impact to the economy on both sides."

The Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel are among the busiest border crossings.

Source[/color]
0 Replies
 
 

 
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