Passports will be needed to travel to Canada Jan 1 2007

[Peter]

I heard on the news tonight that passports will be needed to travel to and from Canada and Mexico starting Jan 1 2007 including US citizens. Sorry Stan that means you to. Passports will be needed for all other countries in Central america and South america by Jan 1 2006. New rules from Homeland Security.

[darlene]

Peter, come join us in the Canadian Forum under Politics. This topic is being discussed there. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Dr. Shane]

I live on the Mexico border and have been using my passport for sometime now. Although it is not required it makes getting in through the checkpoint a little easier. I would prefer a national ID we could carry since passports are such desired items by thieves.

[Amelia]

Well there's the reason Ive been looking for to renew my passport. I have dreams of heading up north to visit Gail, The Boss and Darlene. Too bad I'll have to get a new pic. My old one is soooooo much better looking. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blink.gif" alt="" />

[Peter]

The reasoning behind this is to have one more hoop for the would be terrorists to jump through in order to get into the USA. Hopefully we will catch some who are on our watch list. That is the hope anyway. The Royal Canadian police caught some Al Qaida cell casing out a US Nuclear power plant. They were using rubber rafts to cross the border on the great lakes and landing on the American beaches near the plant. The Royal Canadian police rounded up the whole cell. Passports would not have stopped these guys.

[Amelia]

Maybe we should have a mini-sub navy in the great lakes. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mittelgr124.gif" alt="" />

[Peter]

Subs huh. What happens when the great lakes freeze over which they do every so often. Maybe snow mobile patrols?

[Amelia]

Sled Dogs and igloo outposts.

[Ron Lambert]

Lakes Erie and St. Clair, and the Detroit River which connects them, never freeze over all the way across, because of the current. There is year-round shipping. Ice does form along the shores.

Detroit Edison's Fermi II nuclear power plant in Monroe is located south of Detroit, so the most direct route to it would be across the western end of Lake Erie. There is also the Perry nuclear power plant near Cleveland, on the south side of Lake Erie.

Because the Detroit River is so much narrower, it might be more practical for terrorists to cross there. Then they could find refuge somewhere in the large Arab community in the southwestern Detroit area, and travel overland down to Monroe or Cleveland. But the Detroit River is obviously closely watched for those reasons.

The Coast Guard has numerous ships patrolling the Detroit River and Great Lakes. They even have hovercraft for rescuing stupid ice fishermen who get stranded every year on ice floes.