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Radiological Weapons: Canada May Use Radiation Detectors at Ports Canada is “seriously investigating” a proposal to give lapel-pin radiation detectors to customs agents to increase their ability to detect terrorists smuggling radioactive materials over the U.S.-Canada border, Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan said yesterday (see GSN, March 18). The small devices beep to indicate the presence of radioactive material and so might help agents find nuclear bombs or radioactive weapons. The devices would be part of a five-year program to increase detection devices and scanners at Canadian points of entry. Canadian officials are also expected this week to announce an order for 10 sophisticated X-ray machines to examine containers crossing the border. Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian customs inspectors yesterday began assignments on each other’s territory in an effort to improve security and information exchange (see GSN, Jan. 18). Canadian customs agents went to ports in Seattle and Newark, New Jersey, and U.S. officers began working in Canada in Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver (Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail, March 26). U.S. inspectors will have the authority to check ship manifests at the Canadian ports and ask Canadian officials there to check any suspicious goods. Canadian officials at U.S. ports will have the same authority. “It’s just a more efficient, smarter way of managing the border,” said Roy Jamieson of the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in Halifax. “They’ll be exchanging information back and forth about goods that are coming into our respective countries.” “We get access to their databases, they get access to ours,” Caplan said yesterday. “It’s a reciprocal and shared program to increase security as well as see that goods move more smoothly across our border.” The program is not completely new. Canada and the United States have had an agreement for years that allowed U.S. inspectors at the Newark port to ask their counterparts to examine certain items. The difference is that the agents will now actually be stationed on each other’s territory (Canadian Press/Saskatoon Star Phoenix, March 26). The customs agents exchange program should last “as long as there’s a continuing threat from terrorism, and that looks like for the foreseeable future,” U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said yesterday. Bonner added that it may be the program should be expanded to other countries that trade with each other (Jeff Hutcheson, CTV Television, March 25).
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