The Department of Transportation, acting through a Security and Prosperity Partnership "working group," is preparing in 2007 to issue North American biometric border passes to Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. "trusted travelers" according to documents released to WND columnist and author Jerome R. Corsi under a Freedom of Information Act request.

"The FOIA documents show the organizational chart and the composition of a 'shadow Department of Transportation' which includes formal membership from Mexico and Canada's Departments of Transportation," asserts Corsi.

"SPP has in effect created a fully-functioning trilateral Department of Transportation which will dictate policy to Mary Peters as soon as she is confirmed to replace Norm Mineta as U.S. secretary of Transportation."

As WND reported yesterday, the government documents reveal the Bush administration is running a "shadow government" with Mexico and Canada in which the U.S. is crafting a broad range of policy in conjunction with its neighbors to the north and south.

The FOIA documents list the following three administrators from the U.S., Mexico, and Canada as the official contacts for the SPP Transportation Working Group:

Jeffrey N. Shane
Under Secretary for Policy
U.S. Department of Transportation
Phone: 202-366-1815
Jeffrey.Shane@sdit.gov

Kristine Burr
Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy
Transport Canada
Phone 613-998-1880

Aaron Dychter
Deputy Secretary for Transportation
Secretaria de Communicaciones y Transportes
Phone: (52 55) 55595165
adychter@sct.gob.mx

An SPP document entitled "Traveler Security: Develop and Implement Consistent Outcomes with Compatible Processes for Screening Prior to Departure from a Foreign Port and at the First Port of Entry to North America" says a "single, integrated, global enrollment program for North American trusted travelers" will be implemented "within 36 months." No date is indicated on the SPP document.

"Evidently SPP has decided to erase our internal borders with Mexico and Canada," Corsi told WND. "We have no trilateral treaty voted by two-thirds of the Senate that has authorized North American trusted traveler biometric cards to be issued to the citizens of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Yet this is exactly what the shadow administrative branch created within the Bush administration under the auspices of an SPP working group is doing."

The documents released to Corsi under the FOIA request reveal a pattern of e-mails that are regularly sent from within the Bush administration executive branch to a wide range of U.S. administrative-branch personnel with e-mail copies sent equally to administrative branch officers in the governments of Mexico and Canada.

"This would be like President Bush putting partitions in the Oval Office," Corsi argued to WND, "so desks could be set up for Canada's Prime Minister Harper and for Mexico's new President Calderon as soon as he takes office."

The SPP.gov website in the Department of Commerce has added a new "Myth vs. Facts" section which documents that the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is neither a treaty nor a law.

"Where is the constitutional authorization?" Corsi asks WND. "The Bush administration has just decided to restructure the executive branch to include Mexico and Canada without bothering to notify the voting public or the U.S. Congress."

Corsi said the approximately 1,000 pages of SPP documentation received under his FOIA request will be posted "as soon as possible" to the website of the Minuteman Project, of which he is a member.

Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist "and I plan to publish extensively from these documents," Corsi said, "and we want the readers to be able to see for themselves the original documents that evidence the conclusions we are drawing."

Corsi said the FOIA request has only been partially fulfilled.

"There are hundreds of trilateral meetings and agreements referenced in the documents we have, but most of the substantive documents appear to have been intentionally withheld," Corsi said. "In the next few days, our lawyers will be pressing for an honest FOIA document disclosure by the Bush administration."