I am posting this admittedly long saga of my adventure with Homeland Security in the hope that you might find it interesting as background to our current American life.

I am a 62 year old retired police officer (I retired 12 years ago as a Precinct Commander)living with my wife in New York. Last month, on the way to a family wedding in Toronto, we chose to cross the border just east of Buffalo and Niagara Falls. There were extended lines of cars waiting to cross back into United States and I decided that on the return trip to use the Alexandria Bay route hoping for a shorter wait. Returning to the United States on Monday, July 30, at about 1:30 p.m. we approached the crossing and I was gratified to see only a few cars ahead of us. After a couple of minutes we proceeded to the border guard in the booth and I gave him our Passports. He asked us where we had been, what we had bought, and what we had done in Canada. I told him we'd been to Toronto for a wedding and that I had purchased a hat while we were there. At this point I was smiling and happy in anticipation of a nice lunch somewhere south of the border.

The border guard then told me that they’d like to check the car and asked me to step out of the vehicle with the keys. I of course complied. As I exited my car I looked to the rear and was surprised to see four other border guards spread out in a semicircle and they did not seem in a particularly welcome home state of mind. I was then told to back towards them, sidestep to the rear of the car, and place my hands behind me. I was not particularly upset as I asked "Are you going to handcuff me?" They replied "Yes" and I now asked “What is the problem?" One of the guards replied: "You have a common name".

They then marched me handcuffed past the people in the other cars now waiting in line (and also past my wife). I informed them that I was retired after 29 years in the police department and had never been handcuffed before. There was no response from the guards. I again asked them what was the problem and again I got no response.

I have to say that at this stage my overwhelming emotion was not anger or embarrassment but curiosity. This certainly was a new process for me and since I know I hadn't done anything (I lead a dull but honest life) I knew that this process was going to end with us driving away. Anyway, I was led into the building through an open office and placed in a holding cell. Once again I informed them that I was a retired police officer and asked them what the problem was.

Again I was told that I have a common name. After a couple of minutes one of the guards asked for my Social Security number. About 10 minutes later the handcuffs were taken off and I was told to wait in an outer waiting room where my wife was sitting on a bench and various people (mostly family groups) were waiting or filling out forms at a counter staffed by other guards. Knowing now that the exciting part of my adventure was over I reassured Judy and awaited further developments. I asked politely if I can leave the room to go to the bathroom and I am informed politely that I may.

Again, my feeling was that a mistake had been made, I felt glad that it had been cleared up, and I was glad that these stalwart guards were ever vigilant. I was not angry, merely curious as to what had happened. A guard summoned me to the counter and told me that I was free to go. I asked what the problem was. He replied "I can’t tell you that". I now asked is this going to happen to me every time I cross the border. He smilingly replied "I can’t tell you that".

I then said "Do you mean to tell me that you just took me out of my car in handcuffs in front of my wife, placed me in a cell, and generally treated me as you would a criminal and you're not going to give me an explanation for your actions?. He replies "No you're not getting an explanation". He then, smilingly, asked me if I would like a comment card and I replied "No I do not want a comment card". At this point I am very upset but felt that getting argumentative was not going to be very productive and that fleeing these people as quickly and discreetly as possible was the best course of action.

Having been a police officer and police executive for 29 years I have handcuffed and observed other people being handcuffed numerous times. On some occasions the subject is subsequently released from custody. This usually occurred in a situation where the police had "probable cause" to arrest someone and when that probable cause proved unfounded the person was released. One definition of probable cause is: ""a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed and that the person is linked to the crime with the same degree of certainty”. Another is: “Probable cause is where known facts and circumstances, of a reasonably trustworthy nature, are sufficient to justify a man of reasonable caution or prudence in the belief that a crime has been or is being committed. (Draper v. U.S. 1959).

To my knowledge, in every instance the released person was given an explanation as to why he was detained in the first place and why he was being released. It was tacitly understood that the released subject, in a free country, was entitled to an explanation as to why his liberty was temporarily removed by agents of his government. Even though nobody likes being handcuffed, in most cases the police explanation was accepted and served to mollify the subject.

I repeat that nothing in this confrontation troubled me other than the arrogance shown by the border guards in not explaining their actions to me, a citizen of the United States. With my experience in law enforcement I am fairly certain that my “common name” triggered an alarm (I pity the poor guys named John Smith), which resulted in my detention. No problem. Computer errors happen every day. All someone had to say was "Sorry, computer error" and I would've been happy to fill out the comment card saying keep up the good work. But the arrogance of deciding that I did not deserve even a perfunctory explanation galls me.

I have been trying to come up with an explanation of the incident and as a result what I now feel is not anger but fear for the safety of our country in the hands of Homeland Security. Follow this hypothetical logic: I am either an honest, retired police officer Social Security recipient or I am a member of a terrorist cell (attention any agent who is searching my e-mail without a warrant that this is hypothetical!).

If I am the honest old guy then soothing me with an explanation is the right thing to do.

If however, I truly am that hypothetical terrorist person then Homeland Security has screwed up big-time. I have seen blown criminal cases and trust me, taking me away from my car in handcuffs and detaining me totally blew any investigation into any terrorist activities that Homeland Security felt I was involved with. Their actions insured that I was going to sound the alarm alerting all my nefarious co-conspirators that the game was up, the government is on to us, and to run for the hills.

As a matter of fact, even if they still suspected me of being a terrorist but did not have enough evidence to hold onto me the smart thing to do would have been to mollify me with the computer error explanation hoping for the slim chance that I was dumb enough not to sound the alarm to my fellow conspirators.

Another thought that has plagued me is why we are spending so much of our resources assuming that the terrorists were going to attempt to cross at legitimate pre-designated border checkpoints. Between the border crossings in Buffalo, the crossing at the Thousand Islands, and the next closest eastern crossing there are hundreds of miles of virtually unguarded waterways and forestlands that offer ideal cover for crossing into the country illegally. Since 9/11 they have literally been millions of illegal aliens crossing our borders. Are many of them disguising themselves as Social Security recipients and using forged passports sneaking in through one of the few sites teeming with border guards? I guess I should be reassured that these elite guards are not blindly using any profiling on the people they select to handcuff.

This incident reinforced my belief that Homeland Security has had success mostly in the area where the terrorists were really dumb. Such cases as the nitwit who tried to light his sneaker on fire on an airplane or the case where a couple of street stumble-bums were overheard making mumbling rants on how nice it would be to get training and funding from Al Qaeda. Homeland Security drops a paid informant into the group who subsequently gets them organized enough to justify a conspiracy. Their arrests are then publicized as another victory in the war against terrorism. Many veteran police officers share the opinion that the most criminals that were arrested were either the stupid or the unlucky ones. Why should a Homeland Security be any different?

Several weeks after this incident a thought occurred to me that only reinforced my belief in the tenet "Never Attribute to Malice Something That Can Be More Easily Explained by Incompetence". Assuming that I am (remember we're "assuming" this only for the sake of argument) a wanted terrorists, the reality is that I am not exactly hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan. I receive a pension check from the state, a Social Security check from the US government, numerous credit card and utility bills, and tons of junk mail all sent to my legal address. Not to mention the fact that the American Express’s computer knows more about me than I care to think about. I have to wonder that if Homeland Security wanted me badly enough to take me away in handcuffs why didn't they just come and get me? Is it possible that Homeland Security’s state-of-the-art intelligence system is not interfaced with any of the many other government computers that contain up-to-date information on me?

This all leaves me wondering more and more about my adventure at the Canadian border. At the time my wife expressed the opinion that the only reason I was picked out was to prove that they weren't using any racial profiling. Back then I thought that that reason was silly but now I wonder. Another possibility is that every once in a while they run a training exercise using real subjects. As you can, see since nobody explained to me what exactly happened I am just left to guess as to the possible causes of the incident.

The longer that I think about this the angrier I become. I'm also becoming more aware of how many rights we have given up to this Administration. President Bush and his Department of Justice have argued that anyone, including a US citizen, can be arrested, placed in prison indefinitely, tortured and denied the right to know exactly with what he was being charged. I wonder what stood between me and an all expense paid trip Abu Ghraib. I know this sounds melodramatic but this is only because we have put blinders on regarding what this Bush administration is doing to this country under the guise of the war on terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of our young people have died in previous wars to preserve the freedoms we have given away under the threat of terrorism.

Since the Department of Homeland Security has brought me into the game I will tell you what my personal fears are in regards to the next terrorist attack on the United States. I believe the attack will again be against a major city, probably New York, and thanks to the current Administration’s shortchanging urban areas in order to provide funds to safeguard petting zoos in the Midwest we will basically be as unprepared for the new attack as we were in 2001. My current leading paranoid nightmare scenario is that due to the Administrations’ inability to safeguard out ports six years after 9/11 we are vulnerable to the possibility of an explosive laden ship sailing up the river to detonate near one or more of our urban centers. After World War ll a 441-foot-long Liberty ship laden with 9000 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded near Texas City destroying the port and killing hundreds. Timothy McVeigh utilized a small truck loaded with the same commercially available fertilizer mixed with oil to wreak havoc in Oklahoma City.

Today there are thousands of much larger freighters, capable of carrying upwards of 30,000 tons of cargo, that are available for purchase or susceptible to hijacking by motivated groups. We were unprepared in 2001 when terrorists launched suicide missions using groups of men to overwhelm airliner crews. That was not brilliant planning on the part of the terrorists; it was just a paradigm shift in that we were not prepared, at the practical, real world level, to deal with the threat of 4 or 5 men violently taking over a plane. This scenario was not on the radar screens of most people at that time. Today's terrorists can still rely on the same source of funds (mostly our friends in Saudi Arabia) as they could prior to 9/11. This Administration has done little to stem the flow of monies to the terrorists. Additionally, the Coast Guard is not anymore prepared now than they were six years ago to face a threat of a lightly armed freighter, loaded with explosives and manned by determined terrorists who are rude enough and inconsiderate enough not to check in at an authorized border crossing.

In response to the Bush administration's misguided, mishandled and wrongheaded war on terrorism we've given up precious freedoms that previous generations of American men and women died to protect. The citing of real or concocted security threats have always been used by repressive regimes (the Nazis used the Reichstag fire in the 30s and Stalin used just about every available excuse) to eliminate basic citizen rights. I doubt if anyone has used this method as effectively as the Bush team has in justification for secret arrests, detentions and torture. I am awed by the enormity of this. I could have been taken away from the Canadian border, flown in secret to an overseas location, and tortured without any recourse to a lawyer or judge. No explanations needed. The British in World War II lost 40,000 civilians to the German Blitz of London. To my knowledge this did not cause the English to suspend all their personal freedoms or violate the Geneva Convention by torturing captured Luftwaffe pilots.

It is also worrying that there doesn't seem to be a bigger hue and cry" from anyone in politics about these issues. It seems that the Democratic Party would just as soon watch the Bush administration drag down Republican candidates in upcoming elections as they would take a stand for liberty. Where are the patriots now that we really need them?



Richard Rubin