CTV, the G&M, the Star, and NaPo are all reporting on the Transport Canada "heightened alert" for Canadian airports this last weekend, a full two weeks after the Detroit underwear bomber told of 20 more guys in Yemen planning attacks on North America."Vigilance is at a medium level. This is not 9/11, but the information we have
received is of concern and we need to have heightened vigilance," said Mr. Baird.But the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day could be a "pilot project" for attacks on North America and represents the first time al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula has attempted to strike this part of the world, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said.
And apparently there's also the other terrorists ...
"But sources say Canadian intelligence also had credible information of other terrorists planning to come to Canada.So we should be scared, but not too scared?
Federal authorities say the terrorists did not pose a direct threat to Canada. They were not planning to blow up a Canadian airliner, nor were they planning terrorist attacks at the Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, or some other target in Canada."
The terrorists want to use Canada as a jumping-off point to get into the U.S."
Robert Fife wastes no time getting to the point : The Canada-US border would be shut down immediately, he said - a disaster because 75% of our trade is with the US.
Then CTV, the Star, and the G&M all end their reports with :
In addition to the heightened security already in place, Transport Canada said it will install full-body scanners at major Canadian airports by the spring.even though full-body scanners would not have stopped the underwear guy anyway.
Say, will we be buying the scanners promoted by former Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff, who now represents Rapiscan, "one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines"?
Security theatre plus expensive new shiny things.
Scanners might not be any good at detecting whatever device the next Detroit bomber is carrying; what they will do is keep our trucks rolling across the Detroit River.
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4 comments:
Shiny scanners won't find anal bombs either. It'll be interesting to see what happens with airport security the first time someone blows a hole (or tries to) in a plane with one of those.
Those shiny things from Chertoff's company with a $150,000 to $180,000 price tag preordered without knowing they will work...when hand held units the Chinese use cost $20,000?
I feel safer already.
Homeland (In)Security and graft are transnational in scope.
If the US is going to have our border as an on-again off-again thing perhaps it is time to look at the 2nd option for trade.
See what the EU wants, maybe some more with Japan/China - we already are working on 'free trade' agreements with some S. American countries ... get serious about increasing trade with them.
Wadda we do, 90% of our trade is with the US - that is unhealthy anyway.
It's times like this i start to feel old. I'm pretty sure Dief the Chief said a 30% trade with the U.S. was an excessive dependency back in the 1950's. Of course, in those days we had a tariff wall and subsidies designed to keep east-west movement of freight competitive with the costs of the much shorter north-south routes : the only way to preserve an internal Canadian distribution system.
NAFTA just lets us bleed to death.
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