High-tech watchtowers in works for U.S-Canada border 최첨단 국경 감시벽을 미국,캐나다 국경에 설치 운용. 국가간에 국경경비가 없이 8890 킬로에 달하는 미국과 캐나다 국경지역중,먼저 마약밀매와 테러분자들의 침투가 가장 많이 예상되는,브리티쉬콜럼비아주와 남부 온타리오주 지역에, 미국정부는 캐나다국경에 우선 첨단설비를 갖춘 경비벽을 설치하여 캐나다로부터의 불법밀입국자들을 막게 될것이라고 미국토방위청 관계자가 말했다. 첨단 감지기, 적외선 카메라, 그리고 전망대등의 장비가 부착된 경계벽이 계속적으로 전 국경에 설치하게되면,3년에서 6년 사이에 전국경 감시가 가능하게 된다고 말했다. 미정부 관계자의 말에 의하면, 매년 백만명이 넘는 멕시코인들의 미국으로의 밀입국을 효과적으로 감시하기 위한것이 국경감시벽을 설치하게된 주 원인이라고 한다. 캐나다로부터 미국으로 밀입국은 2004년에 약 10,000명이 채 못됐었다고 한다. 그러나 미관리들의 말에 의하면, 캐나다로부터의 밀입국자들은 거의가 마약을 반입한다는점이다. 그의 말에 의하면, 시카코에 소재하고 있는 Boeing 사가 6천 7백만불에 계약을 체결하고 곧 일을 착수하게 된다고 한다. 우선 45킬로미터에 달하는 Tucson,아리조나주와 멕시코국경에 감시벽을 설치하고, 이후 캐나다와 멕시코 국경중에서 마약밀매와 밀입국이 많이 예상되는 지역에 계속설치하게 될것이라고 한다. 이상은 오늘자(9월 22일자 National Post지의 기사일부입니다. 좀더 자세한 내용은 아래의 원문을 참조 하시면 됩니다. 얼마전 브리티쉬 벵쿠버 지역에서 한인들의 불법밀입국이 적발 된적이 있었음을 첨언합니다. Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service Published: Friday, September 22, 2006 WASHINGTON - Sections of the Canada-U.S. border in British Columbia and southwestern Ontario - areas deemed most vulnerable to drug smuggling and terrorist infiltrations - are likely the first locations where American authorities will deploy a ''virtual fence'' of high-tech monitoring equipment to stop illegal crossings, Homeland Security officials said Thursday. Detailing plans for an array of sensors, infrared cameras, watchtowers, and drones that will eventually stretch across America's entire 8,890-kilometre border with Canada, U.S. authorities said their goal is to have the world's longest undefended border under surveillance within three to six years. ''We are looking at making it just that, making it a guarded border,'' U.S. Border Patrol chief David Aguilar told reporters. His comments followed a Department of Homeland Security announcement that Chicago-based Boeing Corp. had been awarded an initial $67-million contract to begin work on the project, known as the Secure Border Initiative. Starting with a 45-kilometre section of the U.S.-Mexico border south of Tucson, Ariz., the project will expand along both the Canadian and Mexican boundaries based on evaluations of the threat posed by illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and terrorists. ''What we are looking to build is a virtual fence, a 21st-century virtual fence,'' said Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff. ''The border is not just a uniform place. It is a very complicated mix EWhat applies in one stretch of the border is not going to be what applies in another stretch.'' U.S. officials said their priority is to gain operational control of its southern border with Mexico, where more than one million immigrants are caught sneaking into the country every year. Fewer than 10,000 people were detained trying to enter the U.S. illegally from Canada in 2004, but American officials have struggled to prevent the flow of narcotics across its northern border. It has also identified Toronto and Vancouver as hubs for the smuggling of Asian immigrants into the U.S. ''We will expand rapidly to take on the task at hand,'' said Michael Jackson, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security. ''Our preliminary focus is on the southwest border but from the very beginning we will be looking at the northern border and trying to define the right (surveillance equipment) to do the job there.'' Aguilar identified border areas stretching from Detroit to Buffalo, N.Y., the area surrounding Blaine, Wash., and remote stretches in Vermont and Maine as the areas most in need of high-tech surveillance. It was at the Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing, west of Blaine, that border agents apprehended would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam in December 1999. In 2005, U.S. agents discovered a 120-metre-long smuggling tunnel linking a Quonset hut in Canada to the living room of a house in Lynden, Wash. ''Those are basically your lay down areas of interest to us,'' Aguilar said. ''We don't ignore the others. But based on a risk-management prioritization, those are the ones we take a look at.''