Security risks

The Spokesman Review published this editorial on 3 October 2o07 regarding our continuing porous borders with Canada. After all, Ahmed Ressam, the Millennium bomber, used a Canadian route to try to enter the U.S. from Canada with a 130 pounds of explosives to target Los Angeles international airport and anyone attempting to rescue the victims. The only reason he did not succeed 8 years ago, was because of alert border guards. That was 8 years ago when Clinton was still in office.

As this editorial noted 7 years after 9/11/2001, the GAO ran fake terrorist tests on the Canadian border and found: they were sometimes videotaped, but border guards weren't on-hand to intercept them. An alert citizen called the border guards, who talked to them, but did not inspect what they carried, a duffel bag. They found routes in rural areas in which they could cross at will undetected. Even before this editorial ran, The Inlander (free weekly paper) discussed how easily BC bud could be smuggled into this country. Well, the potential terrorist could easily use the same routes as the GAO discovered.

7 years after 9/11/2001 and a local paper discloses the fact that we are not secure along our borders and terrorists could cross them at any time and strike anywhere in this country. I had harped about them when I have discussed the failures to address security by the GW administration. So has CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight." Border guards who don't populate the border, who are incurious about what gets carried in uninspected duffel bags. That is an invitation to disaster.