How many Americans knew that Obama was in Canada yesterday?

Was the socialization of Europe a conspiracy? One man's agenda is
another man's conspiracy.

 

LOL! That is an interesting comment given the title of this thread (IOW
- I sure would like to have seen Obama present his real birth
certificate the other day on his crossing the border in either
direction).

--
Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Read this:

http://proinmigrant.blogspot.com/2008/08/border-fence-between-canada-and-us.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_Line,_Vermont

The border between Canada and USA is marked by a line in this room in
the library:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/world/americas/18border.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

I've driven rental cars between France, Netherlands, Belgium, and
Germany, and have never encountered any sort of border control. I
believe that is the point of having a Union. Similar to the border
situation between all US states (continental US states).

No. The USA has always been very "uptight" about it's border with
Canada. While pretty much all Americans that live within 100 miles of
the Canadian border know that there really isin't much point for having
such a tightly-controlled border, the perception in Washington DC
(politicians) is that the US must defend itself from rogue elements from
Canada just as much as from Mexico. They think Canadians want to enter
the USA in droves, while hiding in secret compartments of cars and
trucks, to work for a few dollars a day and take jobs away from
Americans, strain the US social heathcare and welfare programs, and add
to the criminal underground problem caused by undocumented aliens (don't
laugh at the word "alien". It is a correct term used by US Immigration
and border services to refer to anyone who is not a US citizen).

That was before 9/11. After 9/11, in addition to the above, Americans
also think that there are thousands of terrorists up here in Canada that
are trying to cross the border between Saskatchewan and North Dacota by
walking on miles of dirt roads between huge fields of wheat in the
middle of the night.

As a frequent cross-border traveller, there was a huge change in the
"hassle factor" on the US side for Canadians entering the USA after
9/11. There was one or two FALSE reports very early in the 9/11
coverage that claimed that some of the 9/11 hijackers entered the US
from Canada near Maine or Boston. Those reports were completely false,
but were never recanted sufficiently by the news media and many
Americans believed that a lax Canada-US border played a role in the
attacks.

The rabbid dog (Lou Dobbs - CNN) interviewed the Canadian ambassador to
the US about 3 or 4 years ago, and Lou mentioned this supposed
connection between Canada and some of the 9/11 hijackers, and the
Ambassador quickly made sure Lou knew it was not true.

US border cities really suffer economically when the Canadian dollar was
at par with the US dollar but the negative border experience prevents
Canadians from driving across the border to shop in the US.

It would be nice if, at some point in the future, that driving from
Ontario to Michigan was like driving from Michigan to Ohio (or from
Netherlands into Germany). What prevents this is (a) Americans have an
issue with drugs like marajuana, estacy, etc, entering the US, and (b)
we have issues with guns that enter canada from the US. Half of all
guns used in crime in Canada came smuggled into canada from the US (the
other half were stolen from their registered, legal Canadian owners).

 

The vast majority (in terms of vehicle traffic) between US and Canada
happens at bridge crossings. Ontario has no land border crossing points
with the US. Only about 4 bridges, 1 tunnel and a handful of ferries.

And yes, you are always required to be interviewed by an agent in the
country that you're entering (regardless of your citizenship). That was
the case all the time, not just since 9/11.

That was true. The worst fear for anyone in a car was for Canadians
entering back into canada and trying to bring more than their allowable
amount of purchased goods and lying about it. The fear was that your
car would be searched and items found that weren't declared.

It might have seemed that way, but your car did pull up to a customs
booth, and the driver did have to tell the agent the nationality of
everyone in the car, and what was the reason for the visit. The driver
probably didn't have to flash any id, and certainly the passenger's
didn't. They just had to smile and look up at the agent from the back
seat.

You're a little wrong about one point.

It is only starting in June 2009 that FOR SURE you will need either;

a) A passport (US or Canadian), or
b) an approved US or Canadian driver's licence

to enter the US. I don't believe that there is any such requirement on
entering Canada, but anyone entering the US will naturally have this ID
when coming back to Canada anyways.

Up until a few years ago, a driver's license and birth certificate was
all you needed. Even further back (before 9/11) all you really needed
was to flash your birth certificate (and they don't have photo's on
them).

The approved driver's license is being issued only by some US border
states and Canadian provinces. They have RFID or some other enhanced
technology. There is also a special form of US passport that is cheaper
than a regular passport - I think it's the size of a credit card, and it
is only good at land border crossings.

 

Nice job with the explanations....

 

Exactly so.

Erecting barriers is just giving in to terrorists' ways.

A few years ago I visited a little company in a small town that was mainly
technically in The Netherlands but it was easier to drive to from the
Belgian motorway.

The premises were just behind the NL border sign (when viewed from Belgium).
Other than that sigh you could not tell you were crossing borders, and why
should you be able to? Are the people pink with yellow stripes and three
noses on one side and yellow with pink stripes and three ears on the other?

Even the communist regimes with their walls and fences never managed to
eliminate old links permanently. The gardens and roads cut after 1963 were
soon rejoined after 1989.

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"

 

I am sure Obama would have had other credentials! Who the heck routinely
carries one's birth certificate anyway?

DAS
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"...establishing a N.A. equivalent of the E.U., which is on the agenda of
certain people."


DAS
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See below.

DAS
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DAS: Indeed. Possible even before the Schengen Agreement, particularly
with Benelux (a close association of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg).

And, I gather, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic was
completely open until the rise of terrorism, when the Brits needed to try to
keep tabs on or even try to catch IRA terrorists who had their refuges in
Eire.
As I have never been north of the Dublin-Athlone line I have never seen this
for myself.

DAS: The British authorities seem to think similarly...

Oh, "alien" is not unique to the USA. I was an alien when I first came to
the UK in my late teens and needed an annually-renewed Aliens Registration
Cerificate to stay here. This obligation fell away after the UK joined the
EC and they could not actually refuse me entry. Some years later I became
"naturalised" when I acquired British citizenship. Clearly I was not normal
before...

Doesn't Canada have this terminology, too?

Interestingly, despite restrictive legislation being introduced post Sep 11,
progress in opening borders did not stop. As I mentioned, Switzerland even
joined the Schengen agreement. AFAIK the Common Visa has now been
introduced, so that visa holders can enter any of the Schengen countries.

However, I recall my drive, as a student in the early seventies, round
various countries in western Europe + Yugoslavia, crossing several borders
in 8 weeks with a friend of mine from India. Although he actually held
valid visas for all the countries we visited he was hardly ever asked for
his passport. I was the driver and mine sufficed. Carefree days.

DAS: These are, of course, legitimate concerns and justify, among other
reasons, Britain not joining the Schengen agreement. In fact, border
crossing time has increased because all passports are now read by a scanner
when enering the UK, so even the EU-citizen queues move a bit more slowly
than before, a real drag at Heathrow on a Friday evening.

In general the authorities are most concerned with arms and drugs smuggling
and tend to target their swoops. That is why one will often find Customs
desks unmanned... (but the officials are watching, supposedly, through
one-way mirrors).

At the Channel Tunnel border we do have (or did have) a people-smuggling
problem, but the French government was encouraged to introduce better
security measures. And the tunnel operator has erected bigger fences with
more barbed wire -- horrible, really, since so many of the people are so
desperate -- reminiscnet of borders between the old East and West...

 

Dori -

Bill is touching on the issue that there are those that feel that Obama
is not a "born American" citizen. To be President of US, you must be a
"natural" American (ie born on US soil) according to the US
constitution.

There is a feeling by some in the US that Obama wasn't born in Hawaii,
and that his real birth certificate is being hidden or shielded from
public view. They speculate he was born (I think) in Africa or
South-east asia but very soon after taken to Hawaii to be registered as
American citizen by his mother.

PS: John McCain might have had a similar problem. He was born in the
Panama Canal zone, which might not qualify as US soil.

 

No. Canada does not use the term "alien" to refer to non-citizens who
work or live in Canada.

If Britain had a land border with Europe, I bet it would be different.

It was always strange to land in Amsterdam or Frankfurt, get my luggage
and simply walk out of the airport, with no secondary customs
inspection.

A big difference compared to air travel between US and Canada.

I can't imagine there'd be anything like that if the Canada / US border
was completely open.

 

Yes, I see what you mean. I was aware of John McCain's potential issue.

Don't remember a controversy about Barack Obama's birth.

Time to change the Constitution...)))

DAS

 

Below.

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DAS: Maybe, maybe. I wonder how the land border Eire/UK is handled. In the
old days flying between the two was like a domestic flight - no docs, but
now one needs documents/identification for any flight.

DAS: People cross Europe from eastern Europe and beyond to get into
Britain. Not clear why, but probably because they think benefits are
highest here, we speak English and it's not so easy to 'disappear' in all
countries en route...

What I don't know exactly how big the percentage of illegal flow is.
Probably not that great. Most flows are from the new EU members and the UK
government opted for no transition period.

 

I do. Most Canadians who visit(ed) the US regularly usually have(had)
a wallet size certificate issued by the appropriate provincial
registrar. Until passports are mandated for land travel, a birth
certificate and a photo driver's licence can still work.....I take my
passport though.

 

I'm puzzled by any feeling of strangeness with using the word 'alien' to
mean foreigner. If it's because we think of beings from other worlds,
that makes no sense as that was a meaning invented in the imaginations
of men long after the original natural meaning of the word for foreigner.

 

That last part is not just a feeling - it is a fact.

Kenya, where his grandmother used to claim to have midwifed him (I
suspect she is silent on that point now). I also suspect that the
plaque that was to be put up in the village marking the claimed place of
his birth has been indefinitely delayed too.

No - John McCain meets the criteria because he was born in an
at-that-time U.S. territory - either that or on a U.S. military base, I
forget which - to U.S. citizens.

 

That sounds a little like saying "Putting locks on my house and car is
just giving in to thieves. There are buildings all around that don't
have any locks on them".

It is pretty much a done deal in much of Europe anyway. When a country
like Spain has an unsustainable birth rate (close to zero) among
non-Muslims and a several times the sustainable birth rate among its
Muslim population, how many years do you think it will be before Spain
is under sharia law or something that might as well be? Similarly in
other European countries. Also, when you look at the ever increasing
ratio of non-working people being economically supported by working
people, things could add up to get very interesting in a similarly short
number of years.

So, yes - in those regards, some semblance of maintaining secure borders
has limited value.

 

There was no potential issue.

It's largely ignored anyway, and President Obama has stated that it is
an extremely flawed document whose time has passed. His beliefs on that
are consistent with other radically different forms of government.

 

What deal is done?

The UK government in particular has used the excuse of terrorism prevention
to impose and still try to impose unconscionable limits on civil liberties
such as 28 days; detention without trial (an extension to 42 days was
roundly defeated in parliament), universal identity cards (might yet fail,
especially if the Opposition wins the next election), access to phone data,
more spy cameras.

Given that only a handful of Muslim countries actually operate a form of
Sharia law (I can only think of Saudi Arabia and Iran presently) I am not
sure what you are on about.

DAS

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