U.S. installs more cameras on Canada border

Published 1 April 2009

The federal government has focused security efforts on the U.S.-Mexican border, but DHS says “the terrorist threat on the northern border is higher”; in response, DHS will add 64 cameras to the 20 cameras already installed (note: the U.S.-Canada border is 4,000-mile long)

The United States will expand its use of security cameras on the Canadian border to see whether it can set up an extensive monitoring system similar to what protects the Mexican boundary, DHS announced yesterday. The department this summer will position 44 cameras in Detroit along Lake St. Clair, which separates the city from Canada, and 20 cameras in Buffalo along the Niagara River. There are now about 20 cameras along the entire 4,000-mile border between Canada and the continental United States.

USA Today’s Thomas Frank writes that the $20 million program marks the department’s first major effort to see whether the northern border, which has large swaths of woods, hills and lakes, can benefit from the extensive camera network along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexican border, said Mark Borkowski, head of the department’s Secure Border Initiative.

The federal government has focused security efforts on the U.S.-Mexican border, but DHS says “the terrorist threat on the northern border is higher,” according to a November report by Congress’ Government Accountability Office (GAO). That’s because of the “large expanse of area with limited law-enforcement coverage,” the report says. In 2007 the GAO found that investigators could drive along Canadian roads near the United States, walk 25 feet to the border, and hand a duffel bag to an investigator on the U.S. side. The test aimed to simulate terrorists smuggling in radioactive material.

Northern-state lawmakers such as Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) have said that DHS is not doing enough to protect the U.S.-Canadian border. Two days after taking office in January, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano launched a review of strategy along the U.S.-Canadian border. The cameras, mounted on towers and buildings, will be operated remotely by the Border Patrol, Borkowski said.