U.S. INSTALLING $5-MILLION SYSTEM TO COMBAT SMUGGLING

Vancouver (CP) -- American officials are installing state-of-the art spy
cameras along a 50-kilometre stretch of the Canada-U.S. border south of
Vancouver to combat drugs and people smuggling and the threat of
infiltration by terrorists.

Fibre-optic cables will be hooked up to 28 cameras, which will then be
monitored in the control room of the border patrol office, said Carey
James, Blaine sector chief of the U.S. Border Patrol .

"We are a test site for cameras linked by fibre-optic cable," he said Thursday.

"We are a week away from installing the conduit in the ground for the
fibre-optic system. It's a $5-million project."

James said the cameras will have day-and-night capability and eventually
will be patched into an existing current sensor system used to detect
border jumpers.

Both the U.S. Congress and Senate expressed concerns about the border
following the discovery of bomb-making equipment in the trunk of a car
driven by an alleged terrorist.

The man was arrested in December at Port Angeles, Wash., after taking the
ferry from Victoria.

Last month, three Washington state leaders, Congressman Jack Metcalf and
Senators Slade Gordon and Patty Murray, called on Doris Meissner,
Immigration and Naturalization service commissioner, to hire more border
patrol agents.

"Drug smuggling has exploded and last year's arrest of suspected terrorist
Ahmed Ressam illustrates that we must be vigilant at all our northern
points-of-entry," they said in a letter to Meissner.

"Staffing should be quickly increased."