Welcome to the new world of border security. Unsuspecting Americans are turning up at the Canadian border expecting clear sailing, only to find that their past -- sometimes their distant past -- is suddenly an issue.

Canadian attorney David Lesperance, an expert on customs and immigration, says he had a client who was involved in a fraternity prank 20 years ago. He was on a scavenger hunt, and the assignment was to steal something from a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. He got caught, paid a small fine and was ordered to sweep the police station parking lot.
He thought it was all forgotten. And it was, until he tried to cross the border.

The official word from the Canadian Border Services Agency is that this is nothing more than business as usual.

But what has changed is the way the information is gathered. In the wake of 9/11, Canada and the United States formed a partnership that has dramatically increased what Lesperance calls "the data mining'' system at the border.

The Smart Border Action Plan, as it is known, combines Canadian intelligence with extensive U.S. Homeland Security information. The partnership began in 2002, but it wasn't until recently that the system was refined.

"They can call up anything that your state trooper in Iowa can,'' Lesperance says. "As Canadians and Americans have begun cooperating, all those indiscretions from the '60s are going to come back and haunt us.''

This is an important development. One of the things that information systems can do is make law enforcement perfect in certain contexts. Many laws are written with the assumption of imperfect enforcement. I'm sure that the people who originally crafted rules baring "convicts" from crossing borders knew that the data usually wouldn't be available. Its a convenient excuse that they can use to bar people if they need a way to bar them and they happen to have looked into them.

With this sort of information now at their disposal, the regulation takes on an entirely different tone. Anyone convicted of any minor offense is now barred from International travel without engaging in an involved paperwork process. This was not the intent of these laws, but modern legislatures are unlikely to act to resolve the situation unless they are the subject of significant pressure. Unfortunately, that pressure needs to start in the United States, which has been ratcheting up the requirements and the information sharing. The xenophobia and 9/11 skittishness here probably makes that an uphill battle.

Eventually, the fact that this information is being shared with all sorts of countries may result in a U.S. Citizen facing a bigger hassle from a foreign government than visa denial because that government has access to this data, and different legal standards. Canada may bar you for a pot conviction, but most South East Asian countries execute people for pot possession. A xenophobic moral panic in such a country might result in a records check of all expats, who might be repunished there for crimes they had been convicted of elsewhere.

Going to Canada? Check your past / Visitors with minor criminal records turned back at border