USA/EUROPE

Guardian: Fortress continents by Naomi Klein

Well, it could have been true. That's what Senator Hillary Clinton had to say after finding out that five Pakistani men did not actually sneak into the US through Canada so they could blow up New York on New Year's Eve. Because they were never in the US at all, and they weren't terrorists, and the whole thing was dreamt up by a man who forges passports for a living.
At the height of the search for the professional liar's imaginary non-terrorists, Clinton had blamed Canada and its "unpatrolled, unsupervised" border. But even when the hoax came to light, Clinton didn't rescind the accusation. Because the Canadian border is so porous, she reasoned, "this hoax seemed all too believable".

It was, in other words, a useful hoax, helping US citizens to see how unsafe they really are. And that is useful, especially if you are among the growing number of free-market economists, politicians and military strategists pushing for the creation of "Fortress Nafta", a continental security perimeter stretching from Mexico's southern border to Canada's northern one