Beware the Kayaking Terrorists!

By BJ Bjornson

I read this story a couple of days ago, and I must say, I haven�t seen an �expert� on a region so clueless of the actual realities of said region since the Bush administration.

Airport security may be tightening up across Canada, but people flying within the northern territories do not face any screening, worrying a security expert who warns terrorists could use the North as an entry point.

Currently, airline passengers flying from Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Whitehorse to cities in southern Canada must go through full security screening, including metal detectors and carry-on luggage scans.

But passengers travelling within northern communities � for example, between Iqaluit and Yellowknife � walk directly to their departure gates without undergoing any security screening.

Terrorists could take advantage of those lax security measures to get into North America, said Robert Huebert, a political science professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in Arctic studies.

"If you can get to the [Arctic] shore by some form of maritime transport, then you can get onto one of these aircrafts without being checked," Huebert told CBC News.

"Then you can get yourself to Yellowknife or to Whitehorse, and then basically have someone meeting you and then get onto the highway system."

It�s really hard to know where to start with this. I mean, does this idiot have any idea just how hard it would be to acquire marine transport into the high Arctic? Even in these days of a warming globe, there is a fair amount of ice floating around in the summer, and the region remains impassable through much of the winter. It would be far, far easier to land your marine infiltration craft along some of the far more southern thousands of miles of practically unguarded coastline.

Even more importantly, these communities are incredibly small and isolated, to the point that a significant fraction of the population treks out to the airport to check and see who might be coming to visit the community. There is generally no other possible means of transport into the communities, excepting the odd cruise and/or transport ship, and yet we�re supposed to believe that some terrorist, having managed to brave the icy waters for thousands of miles past where he could have landed close to some multi-cultural melting pot with easy blending in possibilities, is going to wander in off the land and stroll into the airport to fly south without raising any eyebrows? This scenario makes the proverbial sore thumb seem like an expert in camouflage.

And after all of this, the guy still needs to meet an already in-country friend to drive him the rest of the way to where there are actual terror targets. (It is probably worth noting at this point that said highway system doesn�t start in Yellowknife, it goes pretty much all the way to the Arctic Ocean.) This really seems like a whole lot of work for relatively little benefit. Further to all this, what exactly is the point of this massive detour? Is there anything this guy is bringing with him that can�t be made in Canada or the U.S. that requires such a dangerous sea voyage to transport?

Listen, if these terrorists you�re all so worried about have the kind of money and expertise to carry off such an implausible infiltration through the Arctic, we should be very, very concerned, given they can get into North America far easier, with far less hassle and expense, and without arriving in an area where they are almost certain to be noticed immediately as out of place. The only plausible reason I can think of for this �expert� to bringing up this kind of idiocy is that he owns shares in one of the security companies selling the expensive devices used for screening and sees all those tiny hamlets without such devices as an excellent growth opportunity.

As an aside, given this is the day devoted to annoying the TSA in the U.S. by opting out of the scanners, I should note that I just finished traveling to the U.S. (where I attended Skepticon 3, about which I hope to have a post up soon) and though I went through security checkpoints several times, I was apparently lucky in not having either the scanner or the pat-down used. The only real difference from going through the checkpoints in Canada was the rather ridiculous need to remove my shoes each and every time. The only other thing of note was that during one of my trips, I completely forgot to remove the liquids from my carry-on and place them in the little plastic bag. Didn�t even slow me down. Whoever was screening the bag either didn�t notice or didn�t care, I only realized it later when I got to my hotel. In honour of that, I give you Adam Savage and his far more troubling TSA screw-up.




Don�t you feel safer?