Pubdate: Sun, 02 Jul 2006
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A03
Copyright: 2006 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: John Pomfret, Washington Post Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Border+Patrol
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/RCMP
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

AT THE NORTHERN BORDER, NO TALK OF FENCES

U.S. and Canada Collaborate to Enforce Law

BLAINE, Wash. -- Royal Canadian Mounted Police agents watched from a 
clifftop as a helicopter swooped down in a Canadian field, picked up 
more than 300 pounds of marijuana from a waiting truck and skimmed 
across the border into the United States.

Federal agents in Washington state's Okanogan County, in constant 
radio contact with the Mounties, were waiting when the helicopter 
dropped its illicit load in a wildlife area. The U.S. agents arrested 
two men who had scooped up the dope, and the Canadians were waiting 
when the chopper landed back in British Columbia, arresting the pilot 
and another man.

The closely coordinated investigation, announced by authorities last 
week, was about more than busting a drug-smuggling ring, however. 
U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials said it highlighted the 
increasingly close and institutionalized cooperation between the two 
nations' police agencies. Such joint operations, called "parallel 
investigations" because of sensitivity about sovereignty issues, also 
reflect the fundamentally different strategies used to secure the 
United States' two very different borders since the Sept. 11, 2001, 
terrorist attacks.

Along the border in Texas, local police departments have claimed to 
see Mexican army troops protecting drug smugglers, a claim the 
Mexicans deny. Corruption has been common among some Mexican police. 
The United States has constructed walls and fences and stationed 
National Guard troops along the border to keep out illegal immigrants.

Along the Canadian border, there are no plans for fences, and efforts 
focus on smuggling and terrorism. U.S. and Canadian authorities are 
patrolling together on the Great Lakes and have plans to operate a 
joint radio network. In a real-life repeat of the 1990s TV show "Due 
South" that featured a well-mannered Mountie and a hard-bitten 
Chicago cop, American agents and their Canadian counterparts have 
begun to investigate cases on each other's soil.

Americans and Canadians also share law enforcement intelligence. U.S. 
agents aided the Canadians in their investigation into an alleged 
terrorist plot stymied on June 3 with the arrest of 17 men and 
teenagers in Ontario, law enforcement officials said.

Five years ago, only Canadians worked at the Mounted Police 
headquarters in Ottawa, said Joe Oliver, a Canadian police 
superintendent. Now, Americans representing four agencies are based 
there, he said, adding that cooperation is "pervasive."

Just a few years ago, cross-border law enforcement cooperation was 
difficult and ad hoc. "You could get punished for improper disclosure 
to a foreign country," said Roy Hoffman, who runs the Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement operation in Blaine. "You used to need a friend 
on the other side to work a case together with you. Now it's 
ingrained behavior."

The Washington drug-smuggling investigation, known as Operation 
Frozen Timber, began two years ago when law enforcement agencies 
learned that smuggling rings were using helicopters and small 
aircraft to move high-quality marijuana known as B.C. Bud from Canada 
and cocaine, firearms and bulk cash from the United States, said 
Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the Immigrations and 
Customs Enforcement office in Seattle. In July 2005, Playboy magazine 
interviewed pilots who bragged of making $125,000 a week running 
marijuana to the United States.

Winchell said U.S. and Canadian authorities identified suspects and 
infiltrated the organizations. They arranged wiretaps and pooled 
intelligence. Over time, agents arrested more than 40 people in the 
United States and six in Canada. Authorities also seized 8,000 pounds 
of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, three aircraft and $1.5 million 
in U.S. currency. Three alleged smugglers were killed in two 
helicopter crashes in Canada.

"The ability of organizations to move contraband back and forth 
across the border is a national security issue, because these are 
people who figured out a mechanism to penetrate the U.S. and Canadian 
border," Winchell said. "Those small helicopters can move 250 pounds 
of marijuana at a time. But what does a suitcase carrying a dirty 
bomb weigh? Maybe 80."

Culture, the nature of the threat and geography have brought U.S. and 
Canadian law enforcement together. While there are many cities that 
sprawl across the Mexican border, they are usually divided by walls. 
But in most places, the U.S.-Canadian border is delineated by nothing 
more than a ditch or a clear-cut through a forest.

As of the end of April, only 950 Border Patrol agents were stationed 
along the 4,000-mile-long northern border while 10,200 patrolled the 
1,920-mile-long boundary with Mexico. At scores of checkpoints across 
the northern border, when it's quitting time, an orange cone is the 
only thing stopping incursions -- although since the Sept. 11 
attacks, the United States has invested billions to establish five 
air and marine stations, and to install sensors, cameras and other 
technology to firm up the northern frontier.

Border Patrol senior agent Bob Riffle, who worked on the Mexican 
border for a decade before transferring to Washington state, said the 
two borders have different cultures and had high praise for his 
Canadian counterparts. "I trust those guys implicitly," he said. "In 
Mexico, how can you have serious cooperation on a day-to-day level 
with guys who might have just robbed a group of illegals? It's a 
different world down there."

Law enforcement officials also say the nature of the threat demands 
that the two sides cooperate. As of the end of May, 829,109 illegal 
immigrants had been apprehended crossing from Mexico this year. 
Canada's numbers are a tiny fraction of that amount -- 4,066.

But a significant number concern American law enforcement. The only 
terrorist caught entering the United States, millennium bomber Ahmed 
Ressam, came from Canada. Criminal gangs also traffic in Asian sex 
workers from Canada to the United States.

Some law enforcement officials, such as John McKay, the U.S. attorney 
in Seattle who prosecuted Ressam, are not satisfied with the level of 
cooperation. "The good news is it's improved," he said. "The bad news 
is it's not nearly as good as it should be."

When an FBI analysis raised the possibility in 2004 that the massive 
ferry system that plies Puget Sound had been scouted by potential 
terrorists, McKay remembers sitting in a meeting when someone asked, 
"Hey, has anyone called the Canadians about this?" "And everybody in 
the room stopped what they were doing, and blood ran cold," McKay 
said. "We're equally vulnerable. Why isn't there an RCMP constable 
sitting in the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle?"

Canadian officials said a Mountie participates in the task force by 
invitation only.

McKay has lobbied to open up an experimental law enforcement 
database, called Linx, to Canadian law enforcement. "We have people 
who think if we shared sensitive law enforcement records with Canada, 
we would be giving up sovereignty, but we can't be secure unless we 
share information with Canada," he said.

Some in Canada have been wary of the long arm of American justice. In 
2002, a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, was changing planes in New York 
when U.S. authorities detained him and spirited him to Syria, where 
he said he was imprisoned and tortured for nearly a year. Arar's 
charges that Canadian authorities assisted the United States in his 
detention caused an uproar in Canada.

On the American side, there are worries that Canada is not being 
vigilant enough. A recent State Department report called Canada's 
recently tightened immigration policy "liberal" and claimed Canada is 
a safe haven for militants.

One unintended consequence of the increase in cross-border cases is a 
crush of suspects being handed off to local prosecutors and 
warehoused in local jails. More than 85 percent of the cases made by 
federal agents in Whatcom County, in the northwest corner of 
Washington state, for example, are declined by the U.S. attorney and 
end up as state cases. As a result, Whatcom's jail, built to house 
148 inmates, now has 280. People convicted of drunken driving are 
given tickets and are not incarcerated because the jail is packed, 
and people arrested for misdemeanors who do not show up for court 
dates "know there are no consequences," Sheriff Bill Elfo said.

Currently, 700 people in the county have been sentenced to jail but 
cannot serve their sentences because, he said, "there's no room at the inn." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake