Pubdate: Wed, 18 May 2011 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 CANADIAN DATA MAY HELP U.S. NAB SMUGGLERS The Canadian government has agreed to supply the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with surveillance data collected from 22 radar feeds as American officials struggle to combat the use of lowflying aircraft to smuggle drugs across the Canada-U.S. border. In testimony before a Senate panel, Customs and Border Protection commissioner Alan Bersin said the Canadian data will be sent to the U.S. Air and Marine Operations Centre in Riverside, Calif., starting in November. The Canadian data will be used to detect "unlawful entry into the United States, unannounced entry," Bersin told reporters following a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee on border security. "The ability of small aircraft to enter the United States undetected presents a multi-faceted threat." U.S. senators have, for months, been pressing Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to boost surveillance along the Canada-U.S. border to combat trafficking of marijuana, methamphetamines and other drugs in planes that frequently go undetected and land at small American airstrips. In February, New York Senator Chuck Schumer and a group of other northern border lawmakers asked Napolitano to use military-grade radar technology to track the low-flying aircraft. The Canadian radar feeds will be used to help fill the gaps in existing U.S. surveillance, Bersin said. For decades, the U.S. and Canada have shared radar surveillance data through the North American Aerospace Defence Command -Norad. But Canada has agreed to provide information to the U.S. from "more feeds than currently exist," Bersin said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom