BORDER PASS

All over the country at this instant airline travelers are taking off their shoes, putting them in gray plastic bins and sending them through TSA scanning machines. As far as anyone knows, no shoes have blown up airplanes since this exercise began. On the other foot, the public not only must pay for all that shoe checking but confront long airport lines, added hassle and a gen-eral sense of lockdown in pre-flight waiting areas.

A version of this level of security is anticipated for the nation’s borders, where the Department of Homeland Security’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative by 2008 would require passports of anyone crossing from Mexico or, more in Maine’s interest, from Canada into the United States. The large majority of Americans and Canadians do not have passports, but the initial inconvenience and cost of getting them is outweighed by the permanent hurdle of proving you are who you say you are.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heard Monday night in Ottawa, Canadians, including Ambassador Frank McKenna, estimate the potential economic loss, including from discouraged tourist traffic, at $2 billion a year. Certainly, the change would

be harmful to Maine.

Sen. Susan Collins, chairman of the Senate’s homeland security committee, has been pointing that out to the department since April, and fortunately the message has well received. An initial start date of Dec. 31, 2005 has been pushed back and the department has done more to emphasize the use of automated identification technology for land-based crossings, several of which already are available and in limited use. Those programs – with acronyms such as SENTRI, NEXUS and FAST, in place for commercial truckers – can be made to acceptably strike a balance between ease of travel and security.

What hasn’t been solved yet is a check for infrequent travelers, tourists who might cross the border a couple of times a year. Improved driving licenses are already part of the reforms to increase security, and these are being considered as adequate documentation for crossings. That could make sense, and just having the frequent travelers moving through quickly will help speed the infrequent travelers too.

The key for DHS is to base compliance for the initiative on the availability of technology. It makes sense that major crossings would expand this technology early and smaller crossings later. That causes challenges of its own, but it meets the directive of the travel initiative with a minimum of disruption for tourists and for those who cross the border frequently for work or family reasons.

If only something were available at airports to replace the shoe inspections.