Sunday, July 03, 2005

Canada And US Border A Sieve Says Canadian Customs

This article from FOXNews shows how vulnerable we continue to be at our northern border. Roy Cullen from the Canadian parliament responds like your typical liberal buffoon trying to mask the failure to be proactive with old fashioned bullcrap.
Whichever way you look, our borders are in trouble and the governments of our neighbors seem reluctant to help secure them. What does that say about the neighborhood?


VANCOUVER — The 4,000-mile-long line that separates the United States and Canada is a "sieve," say the very people entrusted with securing border between the two countries.

The union representing Canadian customs agents identified 225 roads along the U.S.-Canadian border that are currently unguarded, 50 of them in British Columbia.

The roads run right along the frontier, and in many cases there's only a ditch that separates the two countries.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are in charge of patrolling the area, but in all the time FOX News was in Canadian border towns last week, the news crew didn't see a single Mountie or surveillance camera. The American side is watched over by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Since Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security has doubled the number of agents on the northern border, but it's still not enough to cover all 4,000 miles. To supplement the manpower, the United States has installed cameras every couple of miles.

Canadian customs agents complain that there has not been a similar buildup on their side.

"It's a real potential [opportunity] for terrorists to come across with the tools of the trade," said Tom Granger, a former Canadian customs agent. "Easy, come at night, drive your truck and cross the border."

Ahmed Ressam, the would-be "Millennium Bomber," later convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve, entered the U.S. by driving over the Canadian border into Port Angeles, Wash., in late 1999.

But he did so at an official border crossing, and was caught by an observant U.S. customs agent. Officials found nitroglycerin and four timing devices concealed in his car's spare-tire well.

More thoughtful terrorists could simply drive through an unofficial, unguarded border crossing.

Roy Cullen, a Liberal member of the Canadian Parliament from Toronto and parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, justifies the allocation of funds.

"The whole approach to policing and law enforcement and the fight against terrorism has changed and evolved," said Cullen. "It's now very much a predominantly intelligence-based policing."

2 comments:

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