[LINK] "U.S. discovers the undefended border"

[rfmcdonald]

The CBC's Greg Weston has a somewhat snarkish take on the latest American identification of the Canadian border--unsecured, open--as a threat to the United States. Ceding national sovereignty's not much more palatable than having to deal with a much, much tighter border.

Canada is once again being painted a code-red terrorist threat to the United States, this time after a U.S government watchdog agency discovered that the world’s longest undefended border is, ahem, largely undefended.

This week, the American government’s accountability office reported the obvious — most of the Canada-U.S. border is not exactly the Berlin Wall, especially the several thousand kilometres that run through wilderness and down the middle of the Great Lakes.

Nonetheless, the revelation prompted a couple of prominent American senators to proclaim the U.S. is facing a clear and present danger of terrorists pouring over the northern border from Canada.

Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the powerful U.S. homeland security committee, called the report “absolutely alarming,” and suggested an urgent call for action by both countries.

[. . .]

[T]he U.S. accountability report comes just as the Canadian and American governments are about to embark on formal discussions about creating a continental “security perimeter” around both countries.

Whatever that ultimately means, this week’s study and the over-wrought political horror that greeted its findings may become a persuasive club in the hands of U.S. negotiators.

If you can’t stop terrorists at a porous Canada-U.S. border, then both countries need to find ways to keep undesirables out of both countries to start with.

Practical as it may seem, the concept of a fortress North America is political dynamite in this country, sure to provoke debates over Canada’s ceding sovereignty to the U.S. on issues such as immigration.