....Additionally, some Beyond the Border initiatives are stalled on legal questions not related to sequestration or lack of U.S. interest. In early February, Embassy Magazine reported that “Canadian and United States officials are facing continued delays in secretive talks to allow American law enforcement agents to cross the land border and pursue people onto Canadian soil… The program, officially known as the Next Generation of Integrated Cross-Border Law Enforcement, was supposed to be tested through two pilot projects by last summer, but as of Feb. 1 the pilot is still on hold.”

NextGen is the land-based version of Shiprider, a cross-border policing project on shared waterways that puts RCMP officers on U.S. coast guard ships and vice versa. Shiprider passed into law in 2012 without a thorough parliamentary study of the details. “The new version will allow American agents, such as front the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Drug Enforcement Administration, to cross the border into Canada, the RCMP has said,” wrote Embassy. “It is supposed to extend the same changes to Canadian agents who want to cross into the US.”

John Edward Deukmedjian, a criminology professor at the University of Windsor, told Embassy “I can give you a long list of legal hurdles that would have to be overcome, but are by their nature nearly insurmountable.” And the Canadian Civil Liberties Association warns that joint policing at the border could be used to dodge legal safeguards, or carry out surveillance on Canadian residents on behalf of U.S. agencies, when it would normally be prohibited.

“We want to make sure that any activity that occurs either by Canadian forces or in Canadian jurisdiction is compliant with the safeguards in the Charter and the highest international legal standards,” said Sukanya Pillay, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s national security program director,” in the Embassy article....