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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DELIVERS DEATH BLOW TO FALLS TOURISM

By Frank Thomas Croisdale

Well, so much for the mini-run the tourism industry was on here in Niagara Falls.

For a week or two, it actually looked like things might be turning our way. The Seneca high-rise hotel seemed to grow almost daily before our eyes. Construction began on the reinvention of Third Street. Niagara Falls Redevelopment broke ground on a Falls Street site. Frank Parlato announced that things were moving forward in the goal of transforming the flashcube into a state-of-the-art visitor center and shopping and dining complex. Heck, even Mother Nature got into the act by warming the air some 30 degrees -- enough so that the ice boom could be pulled, hastening the return of the Maid of the Mist to the Lower Niagara.

Just when it looked like we were going to roll nothing but sevens and 11s, along came an announcement by the federal government that was nothing but snake-eyes for border towns like Niagara Falls. Beginning in 2008, all U.S. citizens will need a passport to re-enter the country from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America and, most importantly to us here, Canada.

If this change actually takes effect, the economy in both cities named Niagara Falls will be terrifically, and quite possibly irreparably, harmed. This law is ill-conceived and a shameful use of government power. A mandate so embedded in the philosophy of controlling Americans by feeding on their fears and paranoia could only be devised in the Bush leagues.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the United States needs to take every precaution to protect itself against "people who want to come in to hurt us." The State Department announcement took many Democratic lawmakers by surprise.

"They just sprung it on us," Sen. Charles E. Schumer told the Buffalo News.

What they just "sprung" on the people of Niagara Falls was a bunch of grade-A manure.

Currently some 13.2 million people enter the country each year by car at one of the area bridges. Add to that figure another 1.3 million on buses and 37,000 on passenger trains and you're talking about 14.5 million folks that will need a passport to do what's been done terrorism-free for decades with photo ID.

That rumbling that just flickered the needle on your seismograph was George Orwell rolling over in his grave. Big Brother is alive and well, and the one industry keeping this old burg live will soon be its next victim.

The question that is just begging to be asked is, how will any of this nonsense help Americans sleep better at night? The simple and true answer is that it won't.

The Bush administration has taken a flamethrower to civil liberties in calculated and increasingly ingenious measures beginning while the dust had yet to settle from the attacks on Sept. 11. First, they devised the terror-alert codes and advised people to stock up on emergency supplies like duct tape and bottled water. Then, once many of us were swimming in pools of our own paranoia and hysteria, laws were hastily passed giving the government unprecedented search-and-seizure power and the right to hold indefinitely anyone suspected of terrorism. Now, free passage between the world's longest unguarded international border will die in the hands of those prone to the art of spontaneity and will only be available to those able to afford $97 for a passport.

Now might be a good time to examine something of little interest to the State Department -- the facts.

Roughly 300 million people call America home. Of that number, just 60 million, or 20 percent, currently have passports. The overwhelming majority would be landlocked inside our borders until procuring a passport under the new law. While most Americans have never had a passport, I can tell you of 19 people who did, the hijackers responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. In fact, 13 of them obtained passports less than three weeks before that day of infamy.

In fact, there has been just one instance of anyone intending to engage in terrorist activities being caught at the U.S./Canadian border. In that 1999 incident, an alert customs official noticed the man, who planned to blow up LAX, acting nervous and took him into custody. Like the Sept. 11 thugs, he had a passport.

Something as simple as obtaining a passport will not thwart anyone with ties to international terrorism. But it probably will stop a lot of current border-hoppers who fuel the economy in both Western New York and Southern Ontario. Among the casualties might be the gambler who likes to hop among the area's three casinos, the Bills fan in Toronto who drives to the Ralph to watch a game or two each season, the little old lady who likes the higher jackpots offered at the Canadian bingo halls and the theater-lover who enjoys a day-trip to the Shaw Festival. Add to their numbers the millions of tourists drawn here by the mighty roar of our cataracts and the thrill of visiting two countries for the price of one, and you've got a real economic heart attack just waiting to explode.

The late Eddy Cogan's dream of "one city, two countries" might soon need the add-on, "no passport, do not pass go." While the $97 passport fee, $82 for children, would create billions of dollars in revenue for the federal government, it would harm the economy of border cities like Niagara Falls. The current eight-week wait for a passport would be greatly lengthened with an increase in applications.

Many politicians -- including Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, and Reps. Louise M. Slaughter and Brian M. Higgins -- have already lined up in opposition to the law. Many more voices are needed if the chorus is to be heard above the jingoistic din emanating from Washington, D.C.

Business owners in the tourism, retail and gaming industries in both the United States and Canada need to form an alliance now to repeal this law before it goes into effect. The time for action against this assault on civil liberties and cross-border economics is now. We also need to continue the roll we've been on locally by continuing to embrace the heartfelt sentiments of Eddy Cogan's dream.

To do less would be a reckless roll of the bones.


Frank Thomas Croisdale is a Contributing Editor at the Niagara Falls Reporter. You can write him at NFReporter@aol.com.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com April 19 2005