Walk past a closed checkpoint to go to church? Pay $10K fine!

[Mairead]

MONTREAL (Reuters) - Crossing the U.S.-Canada border to go to church on a Sunday cost a U.S. citizen $10,000 for breaching Washington's tough new security rules.

...

Like the other half-dozen residents of Township 15 Range 15, crossing the border is a daily ritual for Albert. The nearby Quebec village of St. Pamphile is where they shop, eat and pray.

...

The local U.S. customs station is closed on Sundays, so he just drove around the locked gate, as he had done every weekend since the gate appeared last May, following a tightening of border security.

Two days later, Albert was summoned to the customs office, where an officer told him he had been caught on camera crossing the border illegally.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=2&u=/nm/20040210/od_nm/crime_canada_border_dc


Naturally terrorists will respect all such closed checkpoints and try to infiltrate only during business hours!

And we're paying these people? With real money?

[cornermouse]

1. Terrorists? Don't be silly.

They're going to come into the country legally during business hours. They'll be among the workers that we are going to start importing en mass to take the jobs at lower wages.

[havocmom]

2. Montana has a long stretch of border with our friends to the north.

It is mostly frontier. Truckers tell tales of waiting and waiting and waiting .... nobody home at the checkpoints a lot of the time. Hay trucks can't wait till somebody shows up eventually as time is money and cows need their cow chow. Have also heard tales of trucks and vans waved through without a second glance when the checkpoints are actually manned. The truckers really laugh at the phrase 'Homeland Security'. They also get pretty annoyed with the suits that try to convince the US public that everything is OK and they are on the job. Those who use the border regularly know it is a myth.

Isn't the US/Canadian border rather a long stretch? Do they no realize how easy it is for anyone to cross where there are no highways? Bears do it all the time. So do the deer and the antelope.

Sort of foolish to fine a chap for going to church and let the bear poachers run amok in search of the pricey makings of some Chinese medicine potions...

sorry for the rant, but I am stuck in the house as there is an Alberta Clipper blowing at 38 MPH with gusts to 50 and I don't wanna go outside to play today... Jeeze, ya think the cold wind had to stop at a checkpoint?

[yankeedem]

5. Alberta clipper

Doesn't it enter the US at odd hours? Can we fine the Alberta Clipper so that it will never enter the US again?

[pacifictiger]

3. hes been doing this weekly since last May

and they only JUST caught onto it?

[havocmom]

4. makes one hope he was not carpooling with terrorists for the 8 months

before they caught on to his unlawful activities.

Maybe he was going to the 'wrong' church? Not tithing to Falwell or Roberston probably has it's downside in the theocracy.

[drb]

6. I just sent this to a bunch of my Christian buddies...

....with the subject line:

"Well, well! Guess who they're coming after now!"

;)