New surveillance web being created along border near Cornwall

New surveillance web being created along border near Cornwall

CORNWALL, Ontario – A massive new surveillance system is being planned along the international border near Cornwall that will ultimately include cameras, radar, ground sensors and even thermal radiation detectors.

The new $92-million RCMP intelligence-gathering apparatus will stretch from the Quebec-Maine border to Morrisburg, west of Cornwall, then along the St. Lawrence River to the Toronto area.

Formally known as the Border Integrity Technology Enhancement Project, the surveillance web will be concentrated in more than 100 “high-risk” cross-border crime zones spanning 700 kilometres of eastern Canada.

Cornwall is on the list.

“(The project) will significantly enhance law enforcement coverage of the border environment that is being exploited by organized crime to facilitate cross-border criminal activities,” said Sgt. Greg Cox, RCMP spokesperson.

The network will be linked to a state-of-the-art dispatch centre that will, among other things, integrate the surveillance data, issue alerts for high-probability targets, issue so-called “instant imagery” to officers on patrol and produce predictive analysis reports, the Ottawa Citizen reported last week.

Cox said the targets will be organized crime members.

“The RCMP will be implementing measures that will support and expand intelligence-led, innovative and integrated efforts by enhancing current border technology, focused on the goal of disrupting organized crime groups that are operating along the border,” he said.

The Citizen further reported the network is to be operational by 2017-18. The RCMP may opt to share intelligence gleaned from this web with U.S. officials.

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