BORDER GETS HI-TECH HELP

Air surveillance, high-speed boat to target drug runners, terrorist activity

Drug runners, people smugglers and terrorist activity along the Canadian
border will be the main targets under a new Department of Homeland Security
program which features high-tech air surveillance and specially trained
staff.

The first of the five new air and marine security bases along the northern
border in the U.S. has opened in Bellingham, Wash., on the border with B.C.

The second station will open on the Quebec border in Plattsburgh, N.Y., also
expected by the end of the year, followed by bases near Detroit, Grand
Forks, N.D., and Great Falls, Mont., said Gary Bracken of the U.S. Office of
Air and Marine Operations.

He said the Detroit area base is expected to open within two years.

Bellingham Air Marine Branch will have a specially trained staff of 70, two
helicopters, an airplane filled with high-tech sensory equipment and a
high-speed boat.

He said each base -- including the one in the Detroit area -- will start off
with the same levels of equipment and staff.

"I can't give any other specifics right now," said Bracken of the
Detroit-area base.

"We can't say yet exactly where it will be located in Michigan."

"It's still in the process of us determining where and what's next, but it
will move ahead quickly."

Bracken says the new security planes and helicopters will not routinely fly
into Canadian airspace, but instead will work closely with the RCMP on
cross-border situations.

"Smuggling is a two-way street," Bracken said. "We are already working
closely with the RCMP, sharing information with them all the time.

"We could communicate information to them on work for the other side."

The new U.S. air and marine security program on the Canadian border will
fall under the authority of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part
of the Department of Homeland Security.

Similar bases have policed the Mexican border for three decades, but are
being introduced for the first time on the Canadian border.