jamesgangnc wrote:
It's a bit futile in my opinion. Both of our land borders with Mexico
and Canada are just too large to really stop a determined person from
crossing them unobserved. We need another way to deal with the
terrorism problem. I noticed this summer while I was in Europe that I
still was able to travel quite freely between different countries. I
passed through a lot of border points but never had to produce a
passport. At one point I was renting an apt about 5 klicks from the
swiss italy border and went back and forth between the two countries
several times a day.


Customs regulations are primarily designed to stop smugglers and
illegal immigrants, (ha!), not deter terrorism. In fact, the primary
mission of customs is to make sure that all goods coming into the
country are taxed.

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
ups.com...

jamesgangnc wrote:
It's a bit futile in my opinion. Both of our land borders with Mexico
and Canada are just too large to really stop a determined person from
crossing them unobserved. We need another way to deal with the
terrorism problem. I noticed this summer while I was in Europe that I
still was able to travel quite freely between different countries. I
passed through a lot of border points but never had to produce a
passport. At one point I was renting an apt about 5 klicks from the
swiss italy border and went back and forth between the two countries
several times a day.


Customs regulations are primarily designed to stop smugglers and
illegal immigrants, (ha!), not deter terrorism. In fact, the primary
mission of customs is to make sure that all goods coming into the
country are taxed.

Not according to their website. http://www.customs.gov/

JimH wrote:


Not according to their website. http://www.customs.gov/

According to tradition. We have had the Customs service since the
1700's.
It has only been the last few years when we have felt that it was
suddenly important to wrap up all sorts of agencies into a
super-organization called Homeland Security.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised to discover the mission statement of US
Customs has been tweaked a bit in order to keep the "code orange"
factor up as high as possible.

As a matter of fact, even the USCG started off as an agency to collect
taxes and tarrifs.
(Revenue cutters).

"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
oups.com...

Customs regulations are primarily designed to stop smugglers and
mission of customs is to make sure that all goods coming into the
country are taxed.


Not according to their website. http://www.customs.gov/



According to tradition. We have had the Customs service since the
1700's.

As a matter of fact, even the USCG started off as an agency to collect
taxes and tarrifs.
(Revenue cutters).


We are talking about today Chuck, not the 1700's.