Pacific Views

We feel more secure already.

We see that the US Dept. of Homeland Security is ever-vigilant to make sure that nobody sneaks across the US border unnoticed. Take the case of Maine resident Richard Albert, who was caught by government cameras as he came back across the border from attending Sunday services in the Quebec town of St-Pamphile. Even though his local Customs post was closed, Albert crossed the border to avoid a 200-mile drive on logging roads to the next-nearest border crossing. He was fined US $10,000 for making what to us seems like a very sensible decision.

The local U.S. customs station is closed on Sundays, so he just drove around the locked gate, as he had done every weekend since the gate appeared last May, following a tightening of border security.

Two days later, Albert was summoned to the customs office, where an officer told him he had been caught on camera crossing the border illegally.

Ottawa has granted special passes to some 300 U.S. citizens in that region so they can enter the country when Canadian customs posts are closed, but the United States canceled a similar program last May.

After reading this story, we pulled out a map of that part of the US-Canada border to look at the drive Albert was trying to avoid. You will not even believe how far out of his way Albert would have had to have driven, over roads that are the lowest type shown on the map. But then the person responsible for cancelling the US program that gave special passes for crossing into the US undoubtedly has never had to drive so far on roads that bad.

Via Reuters.