Studies in Social Justice Volume 3, Issue 1, 67-78, 2009 Correspondence Address: Benjamin J. Muller, Department of Political Science, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario, 266 Epworth Avenue, London, ON N6A 2M3, Canada. Tel: +1 519 433-0041, Email: bmuller@uwo.ca ISSN: 1911-4788 Borders, Risks, Exclusions BENJAMIN J. MULLER Department of Political Science, King’s University College ABSTRACT This paper focuses both on the use of risk management and biometric technologies in the contemporary management of the Canada/US border. It argues that these measures contribute directly to a politics of exclusion. In particular, the increasing centralization of authority for border security and the transformation of the border into a more deterritorialized "virtual border," serves to exclude local stakeholders in the borderlands. In fact, the very efficacy of the borderlands itself is in question as the politics and experience of the border is moved further from the territorial border and thus out of the conventional borderlands. The paper considers the ramifications of relying on risk management, considering the (in) appropriateness of it as a strategy for the provision of public security, and specifically border security, but also reflects on three noted trends directly associated with "governing through risk" at the Canada/US border: the quantification of security and risk and the subsequent "zero risk" approach; the technologization of security; and finally, the centralization of authority. To contend that borders are sites of exclusion is far from novel. Integral to modernity and sovereignty, the porous character of borders has and continues to be concealed by the exercise and contemporary (re)articulation of sovereign power. Since the events of 9/11, even the most genteel of borders, such as the Canada/US border, have witnessed an increased preoccupation with exclusionary practices, virulent applications of risk management, and a general embrace of biometric and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies focused on identity management of varying forms. As a result, the border has been further securitized and in some regards, even militarized. Although strengthened borders and the intensified securitization of migration related to these changes in border security are relatively well documented, such accounts tend to argue that borders are “thickening.” Specifically in the Canada/US case, the notion of a thickened border post-9/11 is nearly prosaic. While not altogether rejecting the metaphor of the thickened border, there is something more complex afoot. Rather than simply making the border more difficult to cross, the invocation of specific technologies—namely biometrics and RFID—which are contextualized within a near obsessive application of risk management by the 68 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 agencies charged with the responsibility of border security have both had wider consequences, and can be placed within a wider context of contemporary rearticulations of security, danger, and identity. In particular, these practices have fostered a proliferation of borders and bordering practices. The reliance on various identity management schemes, such as trusted traveller programs, tends to extend the border outwards. Furthermore, these developments occur within a context where such bordering practices that are hinged on identity management techniques and risk management strategies are pervasive throughout society. Furthermore, the experience of borders and border crossings, both because of particular technological imperatives and the perceived need to push the assessment of risk further from the physical geographical border, is dramatically altered. The focus of this paper is both on the use of risk management and biometric technologies in the contemporary management of the Canada/US border, but more specifically, the politics of exclusion that results from a reliance on these identification and risk assessment schemes. In particular, the increasing centralization of authority for border security and the transformation of the border into a more deterritorialized “virtual border,” serves to exclude local stakeholders in the borderlands. In fact, the very efficacy of the borderlands itself is in question as the politics and experience of the border is moved further from the territorial border and thus out of the conventional borderlands. This analysis begins from the assertion that contemporary Canada/US border security—led by the initiative of the US and generally closely followed by Canadian counterparts—is advanced by the Risk Management (RM) model. Drawing on contemporary literature, notably Aradau and van Munster’s pivotal argument on “governing through risk,”(2007), I contend that more than simply adopting RM as the principal strategy for managing border security, officials have come to govern through risk at the Canada/US border. The paper considers the ramifications of this move, considering the (in)appropriateness of RM as a strategy for the provision of public security and specifically border security, but also reflects on three noted trends directly associated with governing through risk at the Canada/US border: one, the quantification of security and risk and the subsequent “zero risk” approach; second, and intimately related to the first trend, the technologization of security; and finally, the third trend is the centralization of authority. However, for this analysis, the disempowerment and exclusion of robust stakeholders in the borderlands, which is the correlating development of this centralization, is what is of specific focus. These three trends in contemporary border security raise critical considerations regarding a range of issues akin to Brunet-Jailly and Dupeyron’s fundamental two elements of security at/in borders and borderlands: “human activities (the agency and agent of power of individual ties and forces spanning the border); and second, the broader social processes that frame individual action, such as market forces, government activities, and regional culture and politics of a borderland” (2007, p. 1). Borders, Risks, Exclusions 69 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 Securitization and Governing through Risk at the Border: “All that is Fluid Solidifies” Since September 11, references to “securitization” have proliferated. In what appears to be a never ending move towards the “securitization of everything,” references to the insecurity of transportation, borders, financial institutions, a burgeoning “critical infrastructure,” and a host of other critical portions of our modern liberal information society are made in the news media and popular culture, by politicians and bureaucrats. As the potential, necessary, and/or long overdue, “securitization” of various sectors is raised, it is a discourse of insecurity and not security that is invoked. To claim, for example, that a border is porous is on the one hand to accept the general operation and function of a border for time immemorial; as a line crossed, regularly by those in borderlands, and far less so by those from distant lands, and a signification of some form of authority, in most modern instances, state sovereignty. The alternative, however, is to express the permeability of the border as not integral to transboundary communities, international commerce and trade, the integrity of a borderland’s cultural, political and socio-economic resiliency, but as something dangerous, threatening, and potentially risky. Drawing on the critical theory tradition, the first point to be gleaned is the absolute necessity of asking the “how possible?” question of securitization. In other words, how is it possible that particular issues are labelled as security issues, by whom, and in whose interests? In the case of border security, a critical question becomes that of out-sourcing of surveillance infrastructures, ID card systems, biometrics, and so on, and the extent to which the security professionals responsible for providing these systems—or what Bigo (2002) and others have termed “managers of unease”—construct the field of risk itself (Leander, 2005; Salter, 2008a, 2008b). In other words, once opened up, security professionals have the ability to not only provide “security solutions,” but also frame the necessity of certain solutions in such a way as to characterize and even define the risk itself. The reliance on forms of biometric identification, CCTV surveillance, and various ID card and trusted traveller schemes, in presenting themselves as solutions or mitigation strategies make powerful assumptions about risk: what/who the potential risks might be, and how these threats are likely to operate/behave. This brief comment picks up on a particular notion of “securitization” that has emerged among scholars in the field of critical security studies. The breadth of securitization approaches is too grand to fully engage here; however, it is worth noting that in many cases, and indeed in this article, references to securitization connote far more than what the early theorists of this approach referred to as “speech acts” (Waever, 1995). That is to say, when considering the securitization of the Canada/US border, for example, the analysis that follows is reflecting on deeper questions of constructing the issue and discourse of security, taking note of the actors involved, and the broader social processes that frame and are affected by this move, as opposed to simply noting how a particular issue area comes to be referred to as a security issue. This particular understanding of securitization, referred to by some as the Paris School (see CASE Collective 2006), fits well with the notion of “governing through risk.” In their article on “Governing terrorism through risk: Taking precautions, (un)knowing the future,” Aradau and van Munster (2007) develop a notion of 70 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 “precautionary risk.” Drawing from the work of Ulrich Beck and others, the notion that certain risks (such as “manufactured risks”) do not come from outside, as external risks do, but are “manufactured by the very impact of our developing knowledge about the world” (Ceyhan, 2008, p. 105). Unlike simple external risks, manufactured risks, such as environmental, health, nuclear, etc., are not tied to our ability to calculate them, since we cannot and do not know the real level of risk (p. 105). As François Ewald (1991) notes, nothing is a risk in and of itself, but rather, it depends on how the evaluation of danger and the context and circumstances is made. Similarly, Beck (2006) and others refer to such risks as incalculable risks; risks that are uncertain or even considered to be “intentional catastrophes,” like terrorism. Aradau and van Munster’s notion of “precautionary risk” is precisely at this limitation of risk thinking, and thus represents an attempt at prevention, taming the limit, monitoring, managing, and governing the ungovernable and the uncertain (2007, p. 107). Still others have connected this to a preemptory logic that is embedded in such attempts to “manage uncertainty” and “govern the ungovernable” (De Goede, 2008a, 2008b), which is precisely how the task of contemporary border security has been framed: mobility itself becomes potentially threatening (Packer, 2006) as the porosity of borders is assumed away in a reversal of the Marxian dictum, “all that is solid melts into air” and all that is fluid and porous solidifies. To simply note that “governing through risk” is an influential force behind the institutions charged with securing the border tells us very little. The prevalence of RM strategies in contemporary border security is ubiquitous. Just months after 9/11, the signing of the “Smart Border Declaration” in December 2001, and the subsequent Smart Border Accord, which is responsible for inspiring many of the current border security strategies such as NEXUS—the much touted trusted traveller program—and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) expressed a strong commitment to RM. Similarly, “Secure Flight” and “Passenger Protect,” the respective American and Canadian “no fly list” programs are heavily motivated by the logic of RM. Indeed, even the thinking behind the more substantial trilateral Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) between Mexico, Canada, and the US, is clearly not untouched from the logic of RM. Moving towards specifics, the Canadian government is itself not altogether satisfied with the performance of the relatively newly created Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), citing that it “lacks an integrated risk management framework” (Standing Committee on Public Accounts, 2008). Although the statement suggests the CBSA has not successfully integrated a risk management framework, it underscores the commitment to “governing through risk” by their political masters. The account forwarded here does not engage in the specific actuarial calculations and technicalities of RM in contemporary border security, nor is there an attempt in this analysis to provide a scale or continuum upon which one can judge more or less effective applications of RM on the basis of its own logic. In contrast, the general logic of governance that accompanies the employment of RM in a more general sense is of interest, as is the extent to which its efficacy can or cannot actually be measured. Rather than critique RM as a strategy in general, the focus here is to critically question its application in Canada/US border security. RM may indeed be sound as an approach to governance for a whole range of reasons, however, in dealing with so-called “incalculable risks” or uncertainties, or what Aradau and van Borders, Risks, Exclusions 71 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 Munster label “taming the limit,” its strategy, method, and utility are in question. If, as Beck contends, “risk is ambivalence,” one would never know it from the ubiquitous calculations, measurements, and numbers, that are literally haemorrhaging from contemporary security professionals to rationalize their tactics, justify their costs, and valorize their efforts. The “Risk” of Quantification The alleged necessity of enhancing border security verges on prosaic in the post-9/11 context. Although a number of issues were flagged by, among others, The 9/11 Commission Report, border security seemed to progress to the head of the class overnight. Bolstered by catastrophic thinking often forwarded in popular accounts such as Stephen Flynn’s America the Vulnerable, the securitization of the Canada/US border was quickly underway. Specifically, as part of the institutional restructuring under the newly formulated Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the institutional management of the border followed suit, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was created. As with many other post-9/11 developments particularly (and for some obvious reasons in the case of border security, being that the border itself is shared), Canada followed the US lead, creating the CBSA. In both cases, the management of the border shifted from one focused on customs collections to an obsessive preoccupation with security. Charged with securing the border, these new institutions quickly found themselves at odds with massive amounts of commercial, leisure and tourist traffic that crosses the Canada/US border on a daily basis. The Department of Transportation regularly finds itself in a difficult position, a department of the government and thus interested in state security by definition, and yet it is charged with enhancing the flow of goods, services, people, etc. even across borders and through airports. These contrasting ambitions are yet unresolved. The extent to which border agencies need likewise be concerned with more than simply securing the border is abundantly apparent on a daily basis across the length of the Canada/US border. How then can the security of the border be enhanced while maintaining the imperatives of relatively efficient and timely border crossing for goods and services? “Properly executed” RM techniques are believed to be the answer to this dilemma. 1 Since its origins are in the insurance industry, RM continues to be commonplace throughout that arena. Risks such as potential flooding, fires, and vandalism, to name a few, are quantified and measured in terms of low to high risk, primarily on the basis of the assessed potential frequency and impact of such risks. There are statistics on fires, it is clear that certain materials are more flammable than others, low lying areas are more prone to flooding, etc. When applied to so-called “acts of God” natural disasters, or in the case of this analysis, potential terrorism, there is clearly a deep problem associated with quantifying the risk. As Salter (2008b) has eloquently put it, we are in the space of “imaginary numbers” at this point. The importance of “imagination” cannot be over-emphasized, as preparation for the risks that fall into the category of the ungovernable or uncertain have little if any data upon which the quantification can be based, and thus are premised to a much greater degree on what Unfortunately, the nature of RM presents some problems when applied to border security, both in terms of the underlying logic and its method. 72 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 is often referred to as “catastrophic thinking.” The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), for example, conducts a program called “Blue Cascades,” in which a potential catastrophe is imagined, and scenarios and simulations are worked out as a mode of preparation. Once imagined, one then must engage in a risk assessment, wherein the frequency and impact of the risk is measured. Table 1: Security Screening Positive: presence of prohibited item, detection, “stop” decision False Positive: presence of prohibited item, no detection, “go decision” Negative: no presence of prohibited item, no detection, “go” decision False Negative: no presence of prohibited item, detection, “stop” decision (Salter 2008b: 256). The potential problems associated with the use of RM in border security can be divided into two categories: the first is associated with the use of RM itself in terms of its strategies and assessment techniques; the second is linked to creating resiliency through redundancy, and what is termed here as “The redundancy problematic” (Muller forthcoming). The analysis begins with a brief overview of RM, considering briefly its emergence as a central logic in contemporary border security. As a part of new public management techniques, RM has emerged as a ubiquitous strategy across much of the contemporary public and private sectors. As a method for rationalizing increased resource allocation to particular sectors under conditions of increased demands on government and resource scarcity is where much of the attraction lay for RM strategies. A significant problem with this is the reliance on quantification in RM, and the extent to which success and/or failure is quantified. In the case of border security, as Table 1 from Salter’s (2008b) analysis of RM and quantification indicates, measuring false positives is difficult if not impossible unless these errors result in a catastrophic failure, such as Richard Reid (“The Shoe Bomber”), or the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver airport (discussed later), which causes subsequent institutional changes and adaptations to the risk assessment. In other words, one has no way of knowing how many people are crossing the border with contraband, weapons, etc., unless they are used in such a way that it results in some sort of catastrophe. Similarly, no records are kept of how many false negatives occur, which in security terms may be of little relevance, yet in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of border security are of great import. In the case of the Canada/US border in the Cascade Gateway—a relatively populated corridor between Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia— for example, vehicles and passengers are regularly subject to more in-depth checks by both Canadian and American officials, often to no end. The argument can be made that such random interrogation acts as a deterrence, but the counter-argument that this is simply inconveniencing honest travellers who are without contraband and who do not pose any serious security threat is equally valid, as neither argument can be proven with any certainty or statistical measure. Providing meaningless Borders, Risks, Exclusions 73 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 measurements of such matters, or simply failing to compile such statistics, is precisely what Salter refers to as “imaginary numbers.” In order to underscore the problem with RM in terms of its reliance on quantification for rationalizing increased resource allocation and specifically measuring success or failure of the security approaches used, and the general exclusionary principles behind these strategies, the anecdote of Robert Dziekanski in Vancouver International Airport in October 2007 is particularly instructive. Not only does the Dziekanski case expose the extent to which measurement of the success or failure of RM is somewhat reliant on catastrophic failure, but it also exposes the emerging harsh, and exclusionary practices of border security. On October 13, 2007, a flight arrived at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) at approximately 3:15pm. A middle-aged construction worker from Poland, Robert Dziekanski, was aboard this flight, with the intent of immigrating to Canada from Poland to live with his mother in Kamloops, British Columbia. Upon completing initial customs clearance, Mr. Dziekanski was referred to secondary immigration processing. It was already clear that Mr. Dziekanski was unable to speak English, as he required assistance in the initial processing. It was also obvious that he was under some duress, noted by airport staff, as he was pale and sweating. Between 4:00pm and 10:45pm, Mr. Dziekanski’s precise whereabouts are unclear. However, he was in a secure area of the airport, which he could not leave without proper documentation, and interviews done after the fact indicate that he was milling around the luggage carousels during this period. It should be noted that this is a secure area of the airport. During this period, Mr. Dziekanski’s mother, who was waiting in the public arrivals area of the airport, asked about the whereabouts of her son, but without appropriate flight information, she received little information and was told he had not arrived. Assuming he missed the flight, Dziekanski’s mother left for Kamloops. At approximately 10:45pm, Mr. Dziekanski attempted to leave the secure customs hall area, and was again referred to secondary immigration for processing. After finding some missing bags that contained necessary immigration information and finally completing secondary processing, Mr. Dziekanski was free to go at 12:15am. After sitting for another 30 minutes in the customs hall, Mr. Dziekanski was asked by airport officials to leave the secure area and move to the international arrivals reception area at YVR. Mr. Dziekanski became increasingly agitated, propped the doors between the secure customs hall and the arrivals reception area open with a chair, and threw a small table and computer to the ground. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were called by airport officials at this point, and upon arriving asked an agitated Mr. Dziekanski to move up against a wall in the secure customs hall area where Mr. Dziekanski was waiting. Approximately 25 to 30 seconds after arrival, the RCMP officers decided to deploy the use of the Taser, an electroshock weapon,2 and after tackling Mr. Dziekanski to the ground officers chose to Taser Mr. Dziekanski once more. As a result of the Taser, Mr. Dziekanski tragically died at the scene. There is a reasonable amount of precision regarding the timeline and facts of this incident, in part because the event has been the subject of a public inquiry into the use of Tasers by law enforcement, and in part because a member of the public captured the final moments of Mr. Dziekanski’s life, including the Tasering by RCMP, on video which was subsequently shown on the internet and the national and international news media. 74 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 Aside from the obvious tragic death of Mr. Dziekanski, and some serious questions regarding the use of Tasers by law enforcement officers, there are a series of critically important issues regarding the use of RM in border security that expose emerging exclusionary and exceptional practices at ports of entry. Not least of which, complications associated with the management of virtual borders in the modern airport and to what extent highly exclusionary practices in border security are fostered over inclusionary ones, or at the very least, whether approaches to border security are sensitive to the diverse bodies crossing borders, and acknowledge the porous nature of those borders. As a point of entry, the airport is by definition a virtual (and biometric) border (Muller, 2008b). While this particular incident ended in tragedy, there is no real way of knowing how often people are able to loiter unaccounted for in the secure customs hall in the airport, since such figures are not kept and would indeed be incredibly difficult to obtain. This situation also underscores some of the problems associated with the strategy RM provides, when applied to areas of public security, or in this case, specifically border security. While RM provides four options when faced with risk—accept, mitigate, avoid, transfer—the reality is that one, and at best two of these strategies are not only the sole desirable options when confronted with risks in public security, but they are indeed the only possible options. The incident involving Mr. Dziekanski not only highlights the extent to which the complexity of overlapping and unclear lines of authority at the virtual border makes the transfer of risk possible—that is, let’s say from the CBSA in this instance to the RCMP—but also that accepting the risk and possibly mitigating it, are in fact the only genuine options. Avoiding it is simply not rational for the provision of public security, and even transferring the risk only contributes to institutional and inter-departmental power struggles, uncertainties, and incongruities, thus not providing increased public security. As this specific case indicates, those lines of authority and authorization are unclear. Furthermore, not only does the catastrophic failure of the Dziekanski case indicate a reliance on such cases for measuring the success or failure of RM, but it is also indicative of emerging logics of exception and exclusion as the “default” response in the contemporary management of borders. Although the management of the border has changed vis-à-vis institutional transformation from one of simply customs, excise, and to a lesser extent, an immigration and visa regime, towards a far greater emphasis on security (including, even, arming the CBSA at great cost to the Canadian taxpayer), the efficacy of this decision is unclear in light of this particular case. When confronted with what was assessed at the time as a security risk, or one might even say a security breach, the new and reinvigorated CBSA designed to manage and most importantly secure “the border” was shown to be rather impotent, and relied on traditional institutional arrangements to deal with the situation, and a general embrace of exclusionary methods associated with conventional sovereign power.3 Thus, the mismanagement and subsequent tragic death of Robert Dziekanski highlights not only the general impossibility of quantifying certain failures with border security—and subsequently indicates that claims of success are speculative—but also raises serious doubts about the efficacy of the RM approach itself when applied in the realm of public security, and specifically, border security. The close relationship and even correlative Borders, Risks, Exclusions 75 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 association between the reliance on RM and the subsequent technologization of contemporary border security is also worth noting. Technologization: The Emerging Biometric Border As RM emerges as the dominant model of security, the thirst for quantification that accompanies it contributes directly to the technologization of border security. Put simply, technology has itself become the centerpiece of contemporary security systems (Ceyhan, 2008). As Salter (2006) notes, by imposing biometric passports on foreigners who seek entry into the United States, the US administration contributed directly to the transformation of biometrics into a global security norm (also see Ceyhan, 2008). Both institutional changes to the border agencies in Canada and the US, as well as the increasing reliance on surveillance and technological means of prescreening—which is presented as an effective means for pre-assessing risk—have dramatically changed how the border functions and is experienced by those crossing it, and have likewise dramatically altered the landscape of influential stakeholders involved in the management of the border. The material design of the border itself is significant, insofar as it contributes to freer movement for those voluntarily enrolled in trusted or registered traveller schemes, such as NEXUS or the Enhanced Driver’s Licence.4 Together with the institutional transition from customs enforcement towards a security function, the border moves away from a visa/passport/ immigration regime towards a surveillance regime that is less tied to geography and more caught up in a politics of exclusion. Although these changes are considered to a far greater extent elsewhere,5 The transformation and/or securitization of the Canada/US border, in this case specifically in the Cascade Gateway, owe much to the increasing reliance on technology. The increasing use of surveillance techniques, biometric identification vis-à-vis both the US VISIT system and NEXUS, as well as the relatively less secure and more controversial RFID technology in the enhanced BC/Washington State driver’s licence pilot program (which is also present in NEXUS), has altered how the border functions, as well as how it is experienced by those crossing. some brief commentary is needed here, as it is a crucial part of the puzzle in terms of the transformation of the Canada/US Border, materially, institutionally, and “bodily.” 6 In much the same way as “no fly lists” function, NEXUS (and the commercial equivalent, FAST) and other such programs extend the border outwards, (i.e., cause a proliferation of borders, as opposed to a thickening of the sovereign border), enabling a pre- assessment of risk far before one physically crosses the border. In the case of virtual borders in airports, pre-assessment is far easier, due to the necessary reliance on travel agencies or online ticket booking services, and commercial airlines. In sharp contrast, aside from registered traveller programs, there is currently no method to pre-assess risk at the land border, as those wishing to cross it are by in large relying on personal modes of transportation, and thus not entering any existing transportation networks which might facilitate screening, other than bus or train travel. Unfortunately, as the experience with the commercial registered traveller program, FAST, has shown, due in large part to the desire to securitize the entire supply chain, registration and pre-assessing risk can force almost crippling administrative burdens on the users, making such measures relatively ineffective, 76 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 due to the complexity of the pre-assessment, and the ensuing cost and inconvenience. On the subject of cost, there is little if any public consultation regarding the use of certain technologies. Aside from such privacy concerns and the like, the monetary costs deserve debate. The lack of discussion over such matters raises serious concern over what Didier Bigo and others have referred to as “managers of unease” (Bigo, 2002; Leander, 2005). As with the use of private contractors in Iraq, or the decision to use particular ID card schemes in various national contexts (Bennett & Lyon, 2008), the relationship between the providers of the technology and related commercial interests and the decision makers themselves is often far too close for comfort, which raises serious concerns about what or whose “security” these schemes actually serve. As Leander has effectively noted in the case of private security contractors, these actors gain the capacity to construct specific articulations of security and insecurity to their own advantage. In the case of border security, similar issues of concern arise when security technology providers gain prominence. Certainly the lack of information surrounding specifics about the pilot program for a joint BC–Washington enhanced driver’s licence does not leave even the most casually curious observer void of suspicion.7 Together, these issues further underscore the extent to which the capacity, control, and effective authority/authorization over the contemporary management of the Canada/US border by the borderlands has been continuously eroded and driven towards a politics of exclusion. Liberty, Security, and the Disempowerment/Exclusion of the Borderlands The primary focus of the analysis presented here is on the employment of RM in the contemporary securitization of the Canada/US border, and the subsequent technologization of security that follows. However, one ought not underestimate the rich borderlands and the actors that comprise it in this specific context. The International Mobility and Trade Corridor Project (IMTC) hosted by the Whatcom Council of Governments (WCOG), or the work of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), not to mention the close collaboration and support the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University receives from and provides to these coalitions of actors, underscores the effectiveness, capacity, and increasing frustration of these key stakeholders in the borderlands. Victim of a rather narrow set of political objectives, contemporary US homeland security, and border security specifically, has succumbed to the securitizing and centralizing post-9/11 trends that have effectively not only excluded those defined as “risky,” but also those in the borderlands. The interests of cultural, political and market factors with long standing histories of cross border collaboration and cooperation in borderlands have been neglected, ignored, or in the most nefarious reading of the situation, intentionally disempowered and excluded. The reliance on RM strategies in border security, which leads almost inevitably to a “zero risk” approach to border security, when combined with centralized political authority and a securitization of identity vis-à-vis biometric technologies leaves both the local and the global out of the picture. While the ramifications of such an approach are widespread, it acts most acutely to the Borders, Risks, Exclusions 77 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 detriment of the long-standing trans-border cultural, political, and market relations that make the borderland so robust, and able to foster a politics of inclusion rather than exclusion. Notes 1 The paradoxical relationship between security and the imperatives of mobility is most obvious in the case of the virtual border(s) at the airport. Although airport security has been dramatically heightened in the post-9/11 environment, and as a point of entry it acts as a “virtual border,” with regards to passenger prescreening in airports, one of the primary measures of success for both the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Canadian Transport Security Authority (CATSA) is how quickly passengers are processed through security checks. 2 The use of the Taser is premised on the argument that it is considered to be a non-lethal form of restraint that is to be used by special trained police officers in place of lethal force. The Taser is an electroshock weapon that is intended to incapacitate the neuromuscular system through involuntary contractions and stimulations. Tasers use approximately 50,000 to 100,000 volts to incapacitate the victim. While marketed as non-lethal, the number of lethal incidents and proliferation of inquiries into its use and moratoriums suggest its lethality remains open to debate. 3 Not only was the creation of the CBSA scrutinized, but the decision to arm CBSA staff was highly contentious, both in terms of objections rooted in Canadian political culture and identity and the perspective on firearms, but arguably more importantly from the RCMP itself, which is most clearly evident in the Canadian Customs and Excise Union (CEUDA) Submission to the Standing Committee on National Security and Defence discussion of Bill C-26: An Act to Establish the Canadian Border Services Agency. 4 It should be noted that the Enhanced Driver’s Licence (EDL) is not a trusted traveller program, but simply a registered system. For example, being convicted of a felony will not in and of itself prevent one from obtaining an EDL. 5 See Muller 2008b; Epstein 2007; Amoore 2006. 6 On problems with the enhanced driver’s licence scheme and the reliance on RFID technology, see Testimony of Sophia Cope, Staff Attorney/Ron Plesser Fellow, Center for Democracy and Technology, Before Senate Committee On Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, on The Impact of Implementation: A Review of the REAL ID Act and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, Tuesday April 29, 2008. 7 The pilot program for the joint BC-Washington enhanced driver’s licence is one among a few similar programs across Canada/US borderlands. Increased background checks and so- called “breeder documentation” (birth certificate, proof of residency, etc.) is required in order to apply for this program. However, criminal background checks are not a requirement, and as this program is not a “trusted traveller” card as such—like NEXUS— one could be guilty of a felony and hold an enhanced DL. Furthermore, there has been relatively strong government support and enrolment in the program in Washington state, whereas the British Columbia trial is capped at 500. References Amoore, L. (2006). Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror. Political Geography, 25(3), 336–351. Aradau, C. & van Munster, R. (2007). Governing terrorism through risk: Taking precautions, (un)knowing the future. European Journal of International Relations, 13(1), 89–115. 78 Benjamin J. Muller Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 21-36, 2009 Studies in Social Justice, Volume 3, Issue 1, 2009 Beck, U. (2006). Living in the world risk society. Hobhouse Memorial Lecture, London School of Economics, 15 February 2006. Retrieved from . http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/sociology/pdf/BeckLivingintheWorldRiskSociety-Feb2006.pdf Bennett, C. & Lyon D. (Eds.). (2008). Playing the identity card: Surveillance, security, and identification in global perspective. New York: Routledge. Bigo, D. (2002). Security and immigration: Toward a critique of the governmentality of unease. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 27, 63–92. Brunet-Jailly, E. (Ed.). (2007). Borderlands: Comparing border security in North America and Europe. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Brunet-Jailly, E. (2007). Borders, borderlands, and security: European and North American lessons and public policy suggestions. In E. Brunet-Jailly, (Ed.), Borderlands: Comparing border security in North America and Europe (pp. 351–358).Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Brunet-Jailly, E. & Dupeyron B. (2007). Borders, borderlands, and porosity. In E. Brunet-Jailly, (Ed.), Borderlands: Comparing border security in North America and Europe (pp. 1–18). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. CASE Collective (2006). Critical approaches to security in Europe: A networked manifesto. Security Dialogue, 37(4), 443–487. Canadian Customs and Excise Union (CEUDA). (2005). Submission to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence on Bill C-26: An Act to establish the Canadian Border Services Agency. Standing Senate Committee on National Security. Ottawa, ON. . http://www.ceuda.psac.com/english/publications/briefs/briefs.html Ceyhan, A. (2008). Technologization of security: Management of uncertainty and risk in the age of biometrics. Surveillance & Society, 5(2), 102–123. De Goede, M. (2008a). The politics of preemption in the war on terror. European Journal of International Relations, 14(1), 161–185. De Goede, M. (2008b). Beyond risk: Premediation and the post-9/11 security imagination. Security Dialogue, 39(2–3), 155–176. Epstein, C. (2007). Guilty bodies, productive bodies, destructive bodies: Crossing the biometric borders. International Political Sociology, 1(2), 149–164. Ewald, F. (1991) Insurance and Risk. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller, (Eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (pp. 197–210). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Leander, A. (2005). The power to construct international security. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 33(3), 803–826. Muller, B. J. (2008a). Securing the political imagination: Popular culture, the security dispositif, and the biometric state. Security Dialogue, 39(2–3), 199–220. Muller, B. J. (2008b). Travellers, borders, dangers: Locating the political at the biometric border. In M. B. Salter, (Ed.), The politics at the airport (pp. 127–143). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Muller, B. J. (forthcoming). Security, risk, and the biometric state: Governing borders and bodies. London: Routledge. Packer, J. (2006). Becoming bombs: Mobilizing mobility in the war on terror. Cultural Studies, 20(4–5), 378–399. Salter, M. B. (2006). The global visa regime and political technologies of the international self: Borders, bodies, biopolitics. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31(2), 167–189. Salter, M. B. (2008a). Political science perspectives of transportation security. Journal of Transportation Security, 1, 29–35. Salter, M. B. (2008b). Imagining numbers: Risk, quantification, and aviation security. Security Dialogue, 39(2–3), 243–266. Standing Committee on Public Accounts. (2008, March 26). Canada Border Services Agency Must Improve its Risk Management. House of Commons, Ottawa, ON. Retrieved from . http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=3512859&Language=E&Mode=1 &Parl=39&Ses=2 Waever, O. (1995). Securitization and desecuritization. In R. D. Lipschutz, (Ed.), On Security (pp. 46–86). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.