Английский язык. Конова М.А. - 72 стр.

      11.3 Read the text about corruption in the U.S. Customs Service.
Suggest your considerations about combating with corruption in the Customs
Service

                                        Text B
     From the very beginning of the U.S.Customs Service existence there have
been a lot of problems, corruption being the major one. No one likes to pay taxes
and a good number of citizens try to take the law into their own hands, bending
the system in the pursuit of increased profits. The reality is that with a small
number of inspectors, thousands of miles of hard-to-protect borders, and
unscrupulous entrepreneurs willing to fill almost any demand, the Customs Service
has always been something of an underdog.
     Two years after the War of 1812 had begun, for example, the Governor
General of Canada wrote the British foreign office in London that "two thirds of
the army in Canada are at this moment eating beef provided by American
contractors, drawn principally from the states of New York and Vermont."
     Although Customs seized some of the contraband, its task was obviously
impossible. "Like herds of buffaloes they [the smugglers] pressed through the
forest, making paths for themselves," a general wrote the American Secretary of
War. "Were it not for the supplies, the British force in Canada soon would be
suffering from famine, or their government would be subjected to enormous
expenses for their maintenance."
    These inherent conflicts, and the vast profits to be realized from contraband,
have meant that the Customs Service has been required to wage an almost
continuous battle against corruption. A report from the solicitor of the Treasury
Department in the middle of the Civil War concluded that Customs Service clerks
in New York with annual salaries of $1,000 began an eight-year tour of duty with
nothing and left government with what at the time was "a fortune of $30,000" or
more.
    While the adoption of the income tax in World War One would lessen some of
these pressures, the national ban on the sale of liquor during most of the 1920s
Prohibition created an economic dynamic in which businessmen and gangsters
serving a thirsty nation were all too willing to set aside some of their vast profits to
assure that those guarding the borders looked the other way.
      When the nation's war on drugs picked up steam during the Nixon, Reagan,
Bush and Clinton administrations, drug organizations from every corner of the
world presented a new challenge to the integrity of enforcement officials at all
levels of government. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
estimates that federal agents in 1998 seized 120 metric tons of cocaine and 1,580
kilograms of heroin. But this is known to be only a small fraction of these two
drugs that were smuggled in the country that year. While corruption is only one of
many factors explaining the continuing success of the smugglers, historical record
is clear: bribery is a continuing concern.