AT THE NORTHERN BORDER, NO TALK OF FENCES

U.S. and Canada Collaborate to Enforce Law

BLAINE, Wash. -- Royal Canadian Mounted Police agents watched from a
clifftop as a helicopter swooped down in a Canadian field, picked up
more than 300 pounds of marijuana from a waiting truck and skimmed
across the border into the United States.

Federal agents in Washington state's Okanogan County, in constant
radio contact with the Mounties, were waiting when the helicopter
dropped its illicit load in a wildlife area. The U.S. agents arrested
two men who had scooped up the dope, and the Canadians were waiting
when the chopper landed back in British Columbia, arresting the pilot
and another man.

The closely coordinated investigation, announced by authorities last
week, was about more than busting a drug-smuggling ring, however.
U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials said it highlighted the
increasingly close and institutionalized cooperation between the two
nations' police agencies. Such joint operations, called "parallel
investigations" because of sensitivity about sovereignty issues, also
reflect the fundamentally different strategies used to secure the
United States' two very different borders since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.

Along the border in Texas, local police departments have claimed to
see Mexican army troops protecting drug smugglers, a claim the
Mexicans deny. Corruption has been common among some Mexican police.
The United States has constructed walls and fences and stationed
National Guard troops along the border to keep out illegal immigrants.

Along the Canadian border, there are no plans for fences, and efforts
focus on smuggling and terrorism. U.S. and Canadian authorities are
patrolling together on the Great Lakes and have plans to operate a
joint radio network. In a real-life repeat of the 1990s TV show "Due
South" that featured a well-mannered Mountie and a hard-bitten
Chicago cop, American agents and their Canadian counterparts have
begun to investigate cases on each other's soil.

Americans and Canadians also share law enforcement intelligence. U.S.
agents aided the Canadians in their investigation into an alleged
terrorist plot stymied on June 3 with the arrest of 17 men and
teenagers in Ontario, law enforcement officials said.

Five years ago, only Canadians worked at the Mounted Police
headquarters in Ottawa, said Joe Oliver, a Canadian police
superintendent. Now, Americans representing four agencies are based
there, he said, adding that cooperation is "pervasive."

Just a few years ago, cross-border law enforcement cooperation was
difficult and ad hoc. "You could get punished for improper disclosure
to a foreign country," said Roy Hoffman, who runs the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement operation in Blaine. "You used to need a friend
on the other side to work a case together with you. Now it's
ingrained behavior."

The Washington drug-smuggling investigation, known as Operation
Frozen Timber, began two years ago when law enforcement agencies
learned that smuggling rings were using helicopters and small
aircraft to move high-quality marijuana known as B.C. Bud from Canada
and cocaine, firearms and bulk cash from the United States, said
Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement office in Seattle. In July 2005, Playboy magazine
interviewed pilots who bragged of making $125,000 a week running
marijuana to the United States.

Winchell said U.S. and Canadian authorities identified suspects and
infiltrated the organizations. They arranged wiretaps and pooled
intelligence. Over time, agents arrested more than 40 people in the
United States and six in Canada. Authorities also seized 8,000 pounds
of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, three aircraft and $1.5 million
in U.S. currency. Three alleged smugglers were killed in two
helicopter crashes in Canada.

"The ability of organizations to move contraband back and forth
across the border is a national security issue, because these are
people who figured out a mechanism to penetrate the U.S. and Canadian
border," Winchell said. "Those small helicopters can move 250 pounds
of marijuana at a time. But what does a suitcase carrying a dirty
bomb weigh? Maybe 80."

Culture, the nature of the threat and geography have brought U.S. and
Canadian law enforcement together. While there are many cities that
sprawl across the Mexican border, they are usually divided by walls.
But in most places, the U.S.-Canadian border is delineated by nothing
more than a ditch or a clear-cut through a forest.

As of the end of April, only 950 Border Patrol agents were stationed
along the 4,000-mile-long northern border while 10,200 patrolled the
1,920-mile-long boundary with Mexico. At scores of checkpoints across
the northern border, when it's quitting time, an orange cone is the
only thing stopping incursions -- although since the Sept. 11
attacks, the United States has invested billions to establish five
air and marine stations, and to install sensors, cameras and other
technology to firm up the northern frontier.

Border Patrol senior agent Bob Riffle, who worked on the Mexican
border for a decade before transferring to Washington state, said the
two borders have different cultures and had high praise for his
Canadian counterparts. "I trust those guys implicitly," he said. "In
Mexico, how can you have serious cooperation on a day-to-day level
with guys who might have just robbed a group of illegals? It's a
different world down there."

Law enforcement officials also say the nature of the threat demands
that the two sides cooperate. As of the end of May, 829,109 illegal
immigrants had been apprehended crossing from Mexico this year.
Canada's numbers are a tiny fraction of that amount -- 4,066.

But a significant number concern American law enforcement. The only
terrorist caught entering the United States, millennium bomber Ahmed
Ressam, came from Canada. Criminal gangs also traffic in Asian sex
workers from Canada to the United States.

Some law enforcement officials, such as John McKay, the U.S. attorney
in Seattle who prosecuted Ressam, are not satisfied with the level of
cooperation. "The good news is it's improved," he said. "The bad news
is it's not nearly as good as it should be."

When an FBI analysis raised the possibility in 2004 that the massive
ferry system that plies Puget Sound had been scouted by potential
terrorists, McKay remembers sitting in a meeting when someone asked,
"Hey, has anyone called the Canadians about this?" "And everybody in
the room stopped what they were doing, and blood ran cold," McKay
said. "We're equally vulnerable. Why isn't there an RCMP constable
sitting in the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Seattle?"

Canadian officials said a Mountie participates in the task force by
invitation only.

McKay has lobbied to open up an experimental law enforcement
database, called Linx, to Canadian law enforcement. "We have people
who think if we shared sensitive law enforcement records with Canada,
we would be giving up sovereignty, but we can't be secure unless we
share information with Canada," he said.

Some in Canada have been wary of the long arm of American justice. In
2002, a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, was changing planes in New York
when U.S. authorities detained him and spirited him to Syria, where
he said he was imprisoned and tortured for nearly a year. Arar's
charges that Canadian authorities assisted the United States in his
detention caused an uproar in Canada.

On the American side, there are worries that Canada is not being
vigilant enough. A recent State Department report called Canada's
recently tightened immigration policy "liberal" and claimed Canada is
a safe haven for militants.

One unintended consequence of the increase in cross-border cases is a
crush of suspects being handed off to local prosecutors and
warehoused in local jails. More than 85 percent of the cases made by
federal agents in Whatcom County, in the northwest corner of
Washington state, for example, are declined by the U.S. attorney and
end up as state cases. As a result, Whatcom's jail, built to house
148 inmates, now has 280. People convicted of drunken driving are
given tickets and are not incarcerated because the jail is packed,
and people arrested for misdemeanors who do not show up for court
dates "know there are no consequences," Sheriff Bill Elfo said.

Currently, 700 people in the county have been sentenced to jail but
cannot serve their sentences because, he said, "there's no room at the inn."