xTYBALTx

Mosely, I think you're on the right track, but the whole sea containers issue is a bit of a red herring. If you're a customs official, you're going to see a lot of containers full of BMWs from Germany and Nissans from Japan. Do you need to check each of these containers? What items are freely available in Germany and Japan but illegal here? I suspect right about zero - if anything, Japan and Germany will want to check containers from the US! - looking for firearms. If you're a terrorist assembling a bomb, it's probably not going to be much easier to put it together in Japan or Germany than it is to assemble right here in the US.

If you're a terrorist thinking of putting a bunch of explosive material in a container from your home country of Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, then I suspect that your container has a very high probability of being checked. The number of containers from Pakistan is probably quite small, relatively speaking. Probably quite a bit less than 5%, in fact! You can probably see where I'm going with this: The 5% figure probably allows for almost every single container from places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to be checked, whilst super low risk containers from high volume places like Japan and Germany need not be looked at in the least.

Of course, all of this is a bit silly when your weapon can be assembled right here in the good ol' US of A. This task may be not as easy as it used to be, thanks to the exploits of a certain Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s, but unfortunately probably can be done.

As for getting personel into the United States? Well, fortunately for terrorists, Uncle Sam is actually subsidizing the efforts of anyone who wants to sneak either people or goods across our borders. Because of the incentives created by American prohibitions on activities which millions of people engage in every year, very robust industries have emerged to covertly transfer massive amounts of goods and people into the United States. Need to sneak some fissile material across our border? Just hide it in a bale of marijuana and it will magically find its' way across. Have some shady characters who want in? Disguise them as Mexican day laborers, give them a few thousand dollars, and they will suddenly appear across the border - perhaps even with papers!

Smuggling activities will continue to be subsidized until the American people and their politicians realize that bans simply encourage this sort of behavior. It would not be as easy to sneak people and material across the border if there weren't already massive incentives in place to do so. If you really care about secure borders, then you should be pressing for the end of drug prohibition and for higher levels of legal immigration. With these two sources of smuggling out of the way, the entire smuggling industry will take a huge hit - their two main sources of income will dry up overnight. As the demand for smuggled goods dries up - in this case by legalizing narcotics and foreign laborers - the supply of smugglers available to sneak things into America will similarly with time dissipate. The scale of the smuggling industry will shrink from its' current massive size to a mere cottage industry in comparison.

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El_Gringo_Grande

Here is my question. I had friends that grew up in Maine and some in Minnesota near the Canadian border out in the boonies. They told all kinds of stories of crossing back and forth all the time. Be it they where hunting, fishing, snowmobiling to their favorite spot or visiting other hillbilly types that happened to live in Canada.

While living in Idaho at power school some of my classmates got kinda lost and ended up in Canada while camping in Glacier National Park. They only knew it because they ran into some Canadians while looking for the trail.

Where those people lying? Or has Canadian border security increase greatly?

The Canadian border is much, much harder to control, isn't it? Mexico/US border is pretty flat and open. Much of the Canadian border is dense with trees and mountains, isn't it?

Why are we not talking about putting a fence up there?

I would suspect that Canada, being a more developed country with vast mining areas, has all kinds of explosives. Probably not as corrupt as Mexico so a bit harder to get. But enough money can get you anything.

For that matter why haul explosives into America to begin with? Why not just get them here?

And why does it have to come across the Mexican border? Tons and tons of drugs come over every year through all means imaginable. We have spent how many billions of dollars to stop them and it hasn't really done that much. Why would other dangerous materials be any different?

The more I learn about the border security issue the more I think it is ONLY about politics. That both sides are milking it for everything they can but, in the end, nothing can actually be done about it without strangling our economy. So nothing will be done.

Well, maybe working with other countries law enforcement, people and governments in an open and friendly way? If the money put into the Iraq war was put into places like Columbia to provide better jobs for the cocao farmers? 500 billion would create many jobs I think. Maybe, I don't really know. Just asking.

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- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Beatnik

Because the brown people are to the south.

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AMosely

Very good point. The reason I brought up port security was in relation to the question of bringing 'material' across a border, and that it is far easier to just ship it through normal channels than it is to figure out how to haul it across a desert. My true opinion is that actual border, port and transit security from asymmetric terrorist attack in a country this size is impossible. It is far more worth our while to try and correct the conditions that have brought about some of the situations that we currently find ourselves in (such as Mexican immigration and terrorism).

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xTYBALTx

Dick Armey discusses illegal immigration (video): http://reason.tv/video/show/183.html

'If I'm driving to the drug store to pick up medicine for my babies and the traffic light is stuck on red, I'm going to break the law and run that red light.'

A great analogue for our nations' immigration quotas, I think.

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El_Gringo_Grande

Couldn't +rep ya but that is an excellent find.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

Skylark

Could we try to make it be the berkly city council? Or is that too cruel?


Just as a thought, I would say that all the illegal immigration and drugs are a threat to our national security - just no in the same way. How much money/trouble/etc is caused by these two issues.

Also, everyone talks about what happens when there aren't all these illegals to emplyee, that we aren't willing to take those jobs. The problem is that we aren't willing to take those jobs at such pathetic pay.

I think we need to have a greater number of passes for employment from mexico. That zero number is pathetic (assuming you are true - I have no reason to doubt and am too lazy to look it up myself hehe).

We need to fix the illegal alien situation. I don't know how - I am not smart/informed enough. But having (what is it, 10 million estimated?) illegal aliens in our country is a shame.

As for whole border security, why don't we fix it? Money. How many more people would we have to employ to
a) check every container (if we don't, they could find out where we don't check well and try through there)
b) check the whole border (dude... i've been standing out here in the middle of no where near Canada. Terrorists? DUDE! I saw a moose a while back, but other than that, not even a person! Can I come home now?)
c) check every employer for employing illegals. (heck, what about those that actually think they are employing legals? bought SSN, etc)
d) and so on

I think you get the idea.

I don't know. We'll get attacked again at some point. But dang, I fear that time. Because we will react with even more draconian measures that would probably not be good. But how else... I know I'm rambling but..

i want to fix things, but I don't think it is possible. Israel was mentioned. Doesn't everyone have a mandatory military service time there? Perhaps if we did something like that here, we MIGHT have the manpower for some of this. But it wouldn't work politically/constitutionaly/other-aly etc

How about those for some random musing thoughts of a crazy guy avoiding packing for a trip he has to leave on in 2 hours?

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CingularDuality

Yes, I've personally been involved in terrorism investigations on the Mexican border. The US Border Patrol releases statistics on their apprehensions every year. You should check it out.

The Mexican border isn't the Achilles heel of US national security. But it's definitely a vulnerability. Combine that with our illegal immigration problem and our drug problem and you might begin to grasp why our southern border is a priority.

Funny, but it's a crock. The fact is that coyotes will smuggle anyone or anything for the right price. They are ruthless businessmen that care little for cultural or national boundaries.

Yes, it has increased greatly since 9/11. I think the US Border Patrol presence on our Northern border has more than quadrupled. As you pointed out, that's not saying much. The terrain and vegetation would make the costs of a fence up there much more. Couple that with the fact that we don't have the drug problem or illegal immigration problem that we have on the Southern border, and it's a no-brainer.

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El_Gringo_Grande

But my point is that this is not about "boarder security". It is about something else. We can't really "secure" the border with any real effectivness.

__________________
Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

CingularDuality

You're kinda right. It's a multi-faceted problem for which there is no single solution. But if we took away some of the incentive for illegal immigration, the Border Patrol would have that much more time and resources to concentrate on DTOs and terrorists. I disagree with you when you insist that we can't effectively secure the border. Will it be absolutely 100% inpenetrable? No, but we can effectively keep it from acting like a sieve as it does right now.

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ScratchMonkey

What's a DTO?

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Hambergler

Death to Osama

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CingularDuality

Drug Trafficking Organization... Sorry, it's the PC name for a cartel or large gang.

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ScratchMonkey

Ah, yes, like this evil smuggler:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock#Early_career

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