Canadian islanders angry over US mail searches | Hacker News Reader

Canadian islanders angry over US mail searches

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31 pointstartoran17 comments

Meanwhile, Canadian incumbent telecoms pretty much refuse to peer locally outside their little club.

The result is that a lot of local IP traffic round-trips through the USA.

E.g. half of the Toronto Voip.ms servers have a route that take go from Toronto to WashingtonDC to NYC to Montreal and then back to Toronto.

Fuck you Rogers.

Gee, I wonder why it is set up that way.

Our regulators consider incumbents' strength to be more important than national security.

From a pragmatic and cost effective basis, this is a terrible policy the US is following here. This is a tiny rural island with a few people living there which just happens to need mail routed through the US very briefly even mail from Canada to Canada. There is no history of mail abuse or criminal operations taking advantage of this system. So while the US may technically claim the right to search every letter under this unique situation, it's a massive waste of time, money and US taxpayer resources to to this, money that should instead be spent on legitimate issues where there is a real threat. In short, these searches subvert US security by diverting resources away from where they are needed.

Probably some petty tyrant on a power trip started this whole debacle. Whoever that is needs to be stomped on by their supervisory agency for wasting resources in the personal pursuit of puerile ego trips.

I would be angry as well, but ultimately this is Canada Post's shortfall and not the fault of US border patrol agents who are just doing their jobs.

However thoroughly they choose to perform their jobs in their country should be of no concern to Canadian Citizens.

The only reason that mail is driven through the USA is due to cost, presumably.

We fly mail up north.

We should probably fly mail to that island as well if it's a matter of national sovereignty.

It's insanity that Canada Post has been allowing packages potentially containing Cannabis to travel through the US border en route to Canadian Citizens with their name and address right on the package.

I foresee a class action between the residents of the island and Canada Post brewing if it is not already in the works.

Ultimately Canada should just make a treaty with the US to allow shipping of packages over this route via land without having them subject to US jurisdiction. On the flip side we should give the US rights to ship things to the northwest angle via land and have it not subject to Canadian jurisdiction.

Unfortunately this might require too much sanity and trust for it to happen in the modern world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Angle

Yes unfortunately for the past 3 odd years "sitting down to amicably discuss" virtually anything with the United States has been an impossibility for Canada.

> We fly mail up north.

Does USPS go around Canadian airspace? Do they avoid trucking through Canada to go to Alaska or Point Roberts WA?

Sorry... by we I meant we Canadians fly postal mail to other Canadian residents who live way far up in Northern Canada. Mainly because there are hardly any roads connecting communities up as far north as I was talking.

As for USPS driving mail through Canada... we probably don't care as much about securing that "threat" and choose not to spend resources on that.

Whereas the Americans do, and that's entirely within their right as a sovereign nation.

They're allowed to waste resources and piss off and police their neighbors to the north if we allow them to do by placing our packages directly into their hands.

We could retaliate and do the same thing, but it's not really in our best interests to do so.

I agree. Canada needs to start ripping open ever package we can get our hands on in retaliation.

The bad part is once they have your name you can't leave the island except for the months when the ferry runs. Ever.

> Campobello residents cross into the US regularly for everything from filling up their car with petrol - Campobello has no bank, gas station, or hospital - to driving an hour through Maine to New Brunswick for access to government and medical services.

To be blunt... it sounds like an outdated artifact of history that this is even Canadian territory. If it's not able to effectively operate as a Canadian town in a Canadian province, why not just make it part of Maine? (Or, don't complain that you are crossing borders to obtain basic services).

(And yes, I feel the same way about US exclaves in Canada)

> it sounds like an outdated artifact of history that this is even Canadian territory ... why not just make it part of Maine

Likewise it's a historical artifact that Guam, Hawaii and Alaska are part of the US. Should that be ended?

Or hundreds of comparable other situations globally involving many nations...

Good point. Give Alaska to Canada.

Nobody in Alaska drives to Canada for services, because the part of Canada bordering Alaska is almost uninhabited.

Point Roberts in Washington is in the same boat, but on the American side. The Canadian government would be well within their rights to reciprocate.

... Except that most of the mail going in/out of Point Roberts is probably Canadians shipping their stuff in and out of there because Canada Post is expensive, or US retailers ignore Canada.

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