PITTSBURG — It's been a good three months now since law enforcement agents on the border between the United States and Canada began working in what could be called the modern era of their profession.

When the old border crossing station in Pittsburg opened its doors in 1960, the idea of spending $7.4 million for a building — a “customs house” used to inspect the passengers and contents of vehicles entering New Hampshire from Quebec — well, there was no such idea.

There was also no common use of the word “terrorism.” Certainly not along the 58 miles of state-province frontier where Pittsburg-Chartierville is the main crossing. Nor was there anything called a Department of Homeland Security.

Even within 24 hours of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, it was possible for a reporter to arrive unannounced at the border, pass back and forth between the two nations and find out from the men in charge of the crossing station under each country's flag what their thoughts were on the attack.

Now, however, new terms and conditions apply at the border. Even a customs station is now an “LPOE;” a land port of entry.

The one in Pittsburg is alongside Route 3, not far from the point where New Hampshire, Vermont and Quebec intersect.

An estimated 7,400 passenger cars and 1,150 commercial vehicles per year are stopped at Pittsburg on their way into the United States.

The summer vacation months of July and August produced the highest daily traffic counts at the station in 2011; 1,267 and 1,028 vehicles, respectively.

The people in charge on the American side are now prevented from answering questions, even to say how many people work in the gleaming, new two-story building that offers them 6,460 square feet of space. These days, the questions go to Michelle Benson-Fuller of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Public Affairs in Houlton, Maine. The answers come back a few days later, and they don't sound anything like the replies the officers at the border used to give.

“While we cannot discuss specific staffing levels, CBP continuously works to apply existing resources in the most effective manner possible using current risk assessments, to include both existing and potential threats and vulnerabilities, and will adapt and shift resources to mitigate the threat,” she writes.

A Colorado firm was awarded the two-year construction project that was completed in May. Among the old building's deficiencies that the millions in 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money were intended to fix was the lack of an adequate area for federal officers to interrogate detainees.

While that may seem more necessary now, in the age of terrorism, the fact is that most cases that develop at the border remain, according to Benson-Fuller, relatively routine. They usually involve such immigration/visa issues as CBP refusing U.S. admittance, either to individuals with criminal records, or those who have improper employment authorization.

“There have also been some cases and arrests which have involved personal-use amounts of narcotics,” in recent years, she wrote.

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Bob Hookway may be reached at bhookway@newstote.com.