[Assam] A Fence for Good Neighbors

[Dilip/Dil Deka]

>From the NYT. 
Treating all of North America as one region for travel makes a lot of sense.
I didn't know we are receiving Canadian garbage under NAFTA. :-)
Dilip
 
 
Op-Ed Contributor 
A Fence for Good Neighbors   
 



By STEPHEN HANDELMAN
Published: June 12, 2006
FEW things infuriate Canadians more than to be told (by Americans) that their quiet, tolerant nation treats potential terrorists with kid gloves, putting their neighbors in mortal danger. Some of the wind has gone out of that argument since the arrests this month of 17 men in the Toronto area who were allegedly planning to attack Parliament buildings in Ottawa and behead the prime minister. Some of the wind, that is, but not all. 
 
Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, warned last week that "very liberal" Canadian immigration and asylum laws encouraged a large Qaeda presence north of the border. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, noted darkly that trucks carrying Canadian garbage to America receive little or no scrutiny. 
The 49th Parallel is indeed riddled with security gaps. But the most high-profile solution on the table would complicate the lives of millions of Canadians and Americans, and perhaps seriously damage their closely linked economies. That solution comes out of laws passed by Congress in response to 9/11 mandating that next year Americans and Canadians crossing the border by airplane will need passports or other federal government-approved identification to get through United States customs. In 2008 similar requirements will be imposed at the 140 land-border crossings between the United States and Canada. 
The Canadian government and a coalition of business groups in both countries have been lobbying for a postponement, and they have a point. There are about 300,000 crossings daily between America and Canada, and most involve Americans and Canadians in border towns for whom the trip is less a foreign excursion than a few hours' shopping or a commute to work. Until now the only proof of identity required has been a driver's license or birth certificate. The sheer volume of travelers means that customs guards at land crossings sometimes don't even bother to check ID's.
Many of these day-trippers don't have a passport, and a survey commissioned by businesses found that more than 70 percent would not go through the bother and cost of obtaining one. Business owners in both countries say the added security provided by the jumped-up ID requirements won't compensate for the loss of tourism and consumer revenue. 
Homeland Security officials have been considering a simpler alternative to passports: the wallet-sized People Access Security and Service card. The idea hasn't gained much traction. Others have proposed enhancing driver's licenses with electronically coded information — the so-called Real ID — but several states have balked at the expense. 
There are smarter options. Europeans have created a passport-free zone of 13 member states of the European Union along with Norway and Iceland, called the Schengen system. They agreed in 1985 to draw a "virtual" border around countries that had agreed to harmonize visa rules. The Schengen frontier is policed by the customs authorities of each participating country, but everyone plugs into a shared intelligence database that stays alert to outside threats and tracks suspected felons, drug smugglers and terrorists inside the zone.
A variation of the Schengen approach in North America deserves a serious look. Establishing a security perimeter around Canada, the United States and possibly Mexico could be accomplished with agreements that further strengthen the systems of intelligence-sharing and cooperation on law enforcement and customs that have been in place since 9/11. In fact, the success of the six-month Toronto terrorism investigation depended in part upon the teamwork of American and Canadian authorities.
An agreement to harmonize visa rules would be tougher to achieve, since all three countries are determined to preserve their autonomy. And there are real privacy concerns about swapping sensitive data. Yet all three national leaders are already committed to a "common approach to security" under the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership.
A North American version of Schengen might not provide fail-safe protection against homegrown terrorists bent on, say, booby-trapping Canadian garbage. But neither will forcing every cross-border mall shopper to carry a passport. What North America needs is border security that makes good neighbors, not enemies. 
Stephen Handelman covered Canada and domestic security issues for Time Canada from 1998 to 2006.
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