SEE TEMPTATIONS REFUSED

For 29 years, I've been on the front lines with the U.S. Customs Service,
along with a lot of other hard-working men and women, trying my best to
protect this country from an onslaught of illegal drugs. Just to give you
an idea of the scope of the problem, there is so much money involved in drug
trafficking today that often when drug money is seized it's weighed rather
than counted. As you might imagine, the drug smugglers have no reservations
whatsoever about offering some portion of their illegal proceeds to those
whose duty it is to stop them. As our methods of detection have gotten more
sophisticated, so have the efforts of the drug smugglers to move their
deadly cargo into the U.S., along with their persistence in offering these
bribes to help them do so. In nearly every case, involving not just Customs
but the entire range of U.S. border agencies, such inducements are refused,
and those who offer them are prosecuted. It was very disappointing,
therefore, to read in The Seattle Times of March 7, two articles suggesting
that there is increasing corruption among those who guard America's borders.
That does not bear out the reality I see every day. I am an elected
representative of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), a federal
sector labor union that represents more than 12,000 employees of the Customs
Service, and I see temptations raised - and refused - at virtually every
U.S. border point, whether it be the southern border with Mexico, our
northern border with Canada or at sea and airports around the country. Our
work is difficult and dangerous, but it is the work we have chosen. We do it
with pride, and we know full well that we cannot continue to do it
effectively without the trust of the public we serve. We will do nothing to
erode that trust. Allen Ostrander, Blaine