Ok. So let me get this straight. One the one hand, some US officials are really quite pleased with the manner in which Canadian intelligence and police agencies detected and foiled what seems to have been a criminal enterprise to manufacture large amounts of explosives by whom might very well be terrorists. Thousands of investigative person-hours by the RCMP, CSIS, the Toronto, Peel Reional, and Durham Regional police, and INSET went into these arrests. On the other hand, other US officials claim we have
lax immigration rules [...] a leaky border and a populace that simply doesn’t take the threat of terrorism seriously (CBC News: Canada gathers praise, criticism after arrests).
It would seem to me that in a free society, we allow people to come and go until we have enough evidence to detain them. When we detain them, we allow them access to counsel, and cause them to appear before a magistrate in a reasonable amount of time for judicial review. We find arbitrary detention to be anathema to a free society. Our border is open to those that have legitimate business and closed to those whom we have reason to deny access. Being brown doesn’t count as one. Finally, we take the threat of terrorism seriously enough. Seriously enough, it would seem, to detect and do something about it before anything happens. We don’t tend to run around telling everyone to panic.
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