The Nation, Drama-Free Reporting, and U.S. Northern Border Security

By Keith Edmund White

Editor-in-Chief

A response to Todd Miller's recent piece in The Nation, and the dangers of histrionics in writing about the Canada-U.S. border.

Todd Miller paints an fascinating, if incomplete and somewhat falsely alarmist, view of America's emerging approach to border security.  

Miller deserves credit for highlighting what could be a troubling trend in border arrests--only 1 percent of border arrests (in Rochester) being of a person of "fair" complexion. 

Sure, the numbers sure seem cherry-picked, but Miller does deserve credit for highlighting what may be a serious problem of race and security border.

It's the rest of the article that has me concerned.

Walling the Border...What?

From Miller's article:

Bert Tussing, US Army War College Homeland Defense and Security Director, realizes that when people think of border security, what immediately comes to mind is the US-Mexico border. After all, he is speaking in El Paso, Texas, where in the early 1990s the massive transformation and expansion of the border enforcement apparatus was born. Operation Blockade (later renamed Operation Hold-the-Line) became the Clinton administration’s blueprint for the walls, double-fencing, cameras, sensors, stadium lighting and concentration of Border Patrol agents now seen in urbanized areas—and some rural ones as well—from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California. Tussing believes that this sort of intense surveillance, which has literally deformed communities throughout the southwest, should be brought to the northern border as well.

My thoughts:  Before we start seeing dysoptian images of America turning into West (or East?) Berlin, let's take a beat. Canada and America's trade relationship, wherever walls may or may not be, can't afford further delays at the border. And there are some areas--the Great Lakes, for example--where I don't think anyone would mind greater scrutiny of the goods that are traded and the people who may be crossing back and forth. Whether organized crime or terrorism, this seems like smart policy.

The Private-Public Hybrid to Border Security: An Issue that Merits Our Attention

From Miller's article:

A former Marine with close-cropped brown hair, Tussing has a Napoleonic stature and despises being stuck behind a podium. “I kind of like moving around,” he quips before starting “The Changing Role of the Military in Border Security Operations,” his talk at last October’s Border Management Conference and Technology Expo.  

Perhaps Tussing realizes that his audience holds a new breed of border-security entrepreneur when his initial Army-Marine joke falls flat. Behind the small audience are booths from seventy-four companies selling their border-security wares. These nomadic malls of the surveillance state are popping up in ever more places each year. 

My thoughts:  Now this is interesting, and if Miller provided a bit more substance could have made a great article. What are the trade-offs with taking a hybrid public-private approach to border security? Are we paying more for a quick, but lower quality security net? Miller gets credit for implicitly raising these questions.

The Constitution-free zone:

From Miller's article:

That zone—up to 100 miles from any external US border—is the area that the Supreme Court has deemed a “reasonable distance” in which to engage in border security operations, including warrantless searches. As in the Southwest, expect more interior checkpoints where federal agents will ask people about their citizenship, as they did to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in 2008. In the zone, you have the developing blueprint for a country not only in perpetual lockdown, but also under increasing surveillance. According to the ACLU, if you were to include the southern border, the northern border and coastal areas in this zone, it would contain 200 million people, a potential “border” jurisdiction encompassing two-thirds of the US population.

My thoughts:  First, I have some real concerns with Miller running with the ACLU's label of "constitution free" border.  My off-putting ranting aside about the shallowness short-form reporting requires aside, I have a feeling this border zone doesn't allow the local cops or FBI of 200 million people to endure warrantless searches at the drop of a hat (err...badge).  But  I'll get back to this after consulting the ACLU and any other resources that might around.

Conclusion:  "Drama-Free" Need for Numbers & BTB

If the United States has been on a spending bulge to secure our northern border, the rational approach would be:  (1) look dispassionately at what has resulted from this security push and (2) are we getting our money's worth.

But budget and policy analysis aside, it seems that--at the very least--the United States, if it's--in Miller's view--is throwing money at private contractors, planning to seal off our nation, and taking away almost half of the public constitutional rights, shouldn't we at least put a tiny fraction of that money into ways to improve Canada-U.S. trade so that we can create more jobs.

Oh, and we already have a blueprint for that:  the Beyond the Border Initiative.

If I'm going to live in a "constitution-free" zone, might as well get the advantage of cheaper pork at the market, a job to buy it, and then the surplus income to buy (another) flat-screen TV.