Venezia by PVII

Theme

The conference hopes to address the following questions:-

What are the social, political , economic and geographic factors that complicate protecting the borders? How do trade agreements like NAFTA affect enforcement and protection? How is trade evolving? What similar things are on the horizon? How are they getting in?

Legitimate border crossings; unguarded and remote borders; on foot, by car, by truck, by air, through tunnels, over fences. Where are the border hot spots and why?

What are the dangerous commodities that may cross the borders and need to be excluded? What are the likely means of transport, the likely origin, the likely destination?

What are the techniques, technologies and ruses they use to avoid detection and interdiction? Fake papers, tunnels, hidden compartments, mixed shipments, walking through the desert or deep northern forests at night, human smugglers, flying under the radar, etc. What are the technologies and methods now existing to combat the above techniques, technologies and ruses? How effective are they? Where are the holes? Do unguarded physical barriers work? How can they be made to work?

How do you efficiently separate the thousands that legitimately cross the borders each day from the bad guys without clogging the entry points? What technologies are available to assist the customs/immigration officer at the border crossing who has only seconds to size up a potential entrant? Similarly, how do you quickly distinguish dangerous items from legitimate commodities without crushing trade?

What technologies are coming on line for the near term? How effective will they be? Against what threats? What technologies need to be developed? What are the priorities? Who should develop them? How well integrated is the intelligence among the three countries? Can more be done in this area?

Case studies- both for legitimate border crossings and for remote borders. What do we do now? What works? What doesn't work? What more needs to be done through technology? What are the experiences of other countries that have similar problems?