Editorial: Not-so-smart identification

Tuesday, June 6, 2006 | 7:14 a.m.

Canadian authorities' weekend arrests of 17 men suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in that country has sparked new debate over whether security measures should be strengthened along the U.S.-Canadian border.

Last month U.S. Border Patrol officials increased security enforcement at the Canadian border in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, requiring that all travelers entering the United States from Canada show identification and pass background checks, Reuters news service reports. But the move was a regional, rather than national, effort.

Tightening security along the 4,000-mile border between the United States and Canada isn't a new concept. Questions arose in 1999 when U.S. Customs officials arrested the so-called "millennium bomber," Ahmed Ressam, who is serving a 22-year prison term after being convicted of ferrying explosives into Washington state from British Columbia in a plot to blow up Los Angeles' airport.

Security concerns were reignited after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the Homeland Security director has until January 2008 to enact a plan that requires those entering the United States from Canada to present either a passport or an as-yet-undeveloped "smart" identification card. U.S. officials are concerned that the driver's licenses and birth certificates now accepted are too easily forged.

But in a report last month to the Government Accountability Office, Homeland Security officials said that plans for a new form of identification are drawing opposition from both sides of the border. According to Reuters, 300,000 people cross the U.S.-Canada border daily, generating $1.2 billion in daily trade.

U.S. attention and resources seem totally focused on building fences and increasing patrols along the Mexico border - where no recent terrorist plots have been uncovered - while the longest undefended border in the world goes largely ignored. If lawmakers are truly concerned with safeguarding America from future terrorist attacks, all of the nation's borders should be under scrutiny.