ChuckSberg
Member
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2002
- RO Number
- 10689
- Messages
- 41
Just a heads up if you haven't already heard....
By Jeffrey Sheban and Dave Golowenski
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Click here to enlargeHundreds of Lake Erie charter boats are making room for a new passenger this season -- Big Brother.
Americans who cross into Canadian waters to fish or scuba dive will face a boatload of new security requirements when charter season begins in several weeks. Among them: interviews with unseen customs officers on videophones operated by the government.
Passengers will need two forms of identification so that ship captains can forward the information to the Department of Homeland Security. Passports will be mandatory next year as one form of ID.
It's all part of an effort by the department's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to tighten borders nationwide and nab would-be terrorists and other criminals, officials said.
"All I can say is, it's for the security of our country," said customs spokeswoman Cherise Miles, whose office is in Chicago. She said officers, patrol boats and surveillance cameras are being added to enforce the rules.
Tighter security is a different story for those involved in Ohio's billion-dollar sports-fishing and boating industries. Some worry the rules will sink their business, and they've enlisted the help of an Ohio congresswoman.
"It's absolutely unworkable," said Rick Unger, president of the Lake Erie Charter Boat Association and operator of a six-person fishing boat based in Marblehead.
"Our biggest fear is that people will say, 'This is too much trouble to go fishing.' "
Unger, a retired police chief who owns Chief's Charters, said 20 percent of his customers are from central Ohio.
While the rules apply to all bodies of water shared by the U.S. and Canada, they're expected to come into play most often on Lake Erie because some of the best fishing can be found in the deeper and cooler Canadian waters.
Unger said more than 200 ship captains nearly mutinied when a customs official explained the rules at the group's annual conference earlier this month.
Scuba divers, who also charter boats, risk being caught in the dragnet, too. Rich Lauer, a master scuba instructor with Sub-Aquatics on the Far West Side, estimated that half of Ohio divers on Lake Erie venture into Canadian waters.
"It's not going to be good for business," he said.
Previously, divers and fishermen could cross the international line without customs scrutiny as long as their boat didn't dock or drop anchor in Canadian waters. Captains only had to provide customs with passengers' names at the end of the day.
Under the new rules, captains must:
• Ask for two forms of ID and fax passengers' personal information -- name, date of birth, driver's license and phone numbers -- to customs an hour before departure.
• One hour before returning to port, they must call customs to see whether anyone on board is wanted for questioning. If so, captains might have to deliver those passengers to authorities. In addition, captains must tell all passengers to report to a videophone station or a designated customs office.
"Hey, they aren't paying me to do any of this," said Mike Matta, a charter captain from Powell, who expects to lose about 10 percent of his customers because of the rules.
Jim Marshall, assistant chief of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, said the rules are cumbersome but shouldn't keep Ohio anglers off the lake.
"If guys want to go up and fish, they're going to get the appropriate paperwork or fish in Ohio waters," he said.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur disagreed. The Toledo Democrat, whose district includes the western Lake Erie shore, wants to meet as early as next week with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to try to get the rules modified.
"People who are coming here for recreation are going to be treated as suspects," she said yesterday. "There has to be a better way to do this."
Kaptur called Homeland Security "one of the most mixed-up agencies in the federal government."
By Jeffrey Sheban and Dave Golowenski
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Click here to enlargeHundreds of Lake Erie charter boats are making room for a new passenger this season -- Big Brother.
Americans who cross into Canadian waters to fish or scuba dive will face a boatload of new security requirements when charter season begins in several weeks. Among them: interviews with unseen customs officers on videophones operated by the government.
Passengers will need two forms of identification so that ship captains can forward the information to the Department of Homeland Security. Passports will be mandatory next year as one form of ID.
It's all part of an effort by the department's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to tighten borders nationwide and nab would-be terrorists and other criminals, officials said.
"All I can say is, it's for the security of our country," said customs spokeswoman Cherise Miles, whose office is in Chicago. She said officers, patrol boats and surveillance cameras are being added to enforce the rules.
Tighter security is a different story for those involved in Ohio's billion-dollar sports-fishing and boating industries. Some worry the rules will sink their business, and they've enlisted the help of an Ohio congresswoman.
"It's absolutely unworkable," said Rick Unger, president of the Lake Erie Charter Boat Association and operator of a six-person fishing boat based in Marblehead.
"Our biggest fear is that people will say, 'This is too much trouble to go fishing.' "
Unger, a retired police chief who owns Chief's Charters, said 20 percent of his customers are from central Ohio.
While the rules apply to all bodies of water shared by the U.S. and Canada, they're expected to come into play most often on Lake Erie because some of the best fishing can be found in the deeper and cooler Canadian waters.
Unger said more than 200 ship captains nearly mutinied when a customs official explained the rules at the group's annual conference earlier this month.
Scuba divers, who also charter boats, risk being caught in the dragnet, too. Rich Lauer, a master scuba instructor with Sub-Aquatics on the Far West Side, estimated that half of Ohio divers on Lake Erie venture into Canadian waters.
"It's not going to be good for business," he said.
Previously, divers and fishermen could cross the international line without customs scrutiny as long as their boat didn't dock or drop anchor in Canadian waters. Captains only had to provide customs with passengers' names at the end of the day.
Under the new rules, captains must:
• Ask for two forms of ID and fax passengers' personal information -- name, date of birth, driver's license and phone numbers -- to customs an hour before departure.
• One hour before returning to port, they must call customs to see whether anyone on board is wanted for questioning. If so, captains might have to deliver those passengers to authorities. In addition, captains must tell all passengers to report to a videophone station or a designated customs office.
"Hey, they aren't paying me to do any of this," said Mike Matta, a charter captain from Powell, who expects to lose about 10 percent of his customers because of the rules.
Jim Marshall, assistant chief of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, said the rules are cumbersome but shouldn't keep Ohio anglers off the lake.
"If guys want to go up and fish, they're going to get the appropriate paperwork or fish in Ohio waters," he said.
U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur disagreed. The Toledo Democrat, whose district includes the western Lake Erie shore, wants to meet as early as next week with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to try to get the rules modified.
"People who are coming here for recreation are going to be treated as suspects," she said yesterday. "There has to be a better way to do this."
Kaptur called Homeland Security "one of the most mixed-up agencies in the federal government."
