Nafta Superhighway Returns From The Dead

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, July 3, 2009

Nafta Superhighway Returns From The Dead 030709top

The Trans-Texas Corridor, part of the NAFTA Superhighway projected to link the United States with Canada and Mexico as an integral cog of the North American Union, is back on the agenda after Texas Governor Rick Perry lied in claiming that the proposal was dead earlier this year.

The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan-American Union networked by a NAFTA Superhighway has long been a Globalist brainchild, but fierce opposition to the plan from activists across the country has stalled the plan at least temporarily.

A key component of the NAU transport system was the proposed Trans Texas Corridor, a massive 4,000 mile network of highways that were to be sold to the Spanish company Cintra and operated as toll roads – creating a huge new tax on the American people which would be paid directly to a foreign-owned private company.

Texas Governor and Bilderberg invitee Rick Perry launched a PR stunt in January when he claimed that the Trans Texas Corridor was dead, when in reality as Jerome Corsi and others pointed out, the project was merely to have its name changed and its design slightly altered.

“Close examination shows Perry’s declaration from Iraq involves yet more public relations efforts by the governor and TxDOT to defuse criticism from voters and reposition a hugely unpopular initiative by dropping the designation ‘Trans-Texas Corridor,’ or ‘TTC,’ while still allowing TxDOT to proceed with the components of the original TTC plan that had been scheduled for implementation now,” wrote Corsi.

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Corsi’s warning that the TTC was still very much in the pipeline has proven accurate with the news that the authority of the Texas Department of Transportation, TxDOT, will run for at least 2 more years with a fresh injection of $2 billion in state funds that will be allocated to new transport projects.

Using the cover of a special session of the legislature, Perry will push “a measure that allows private companies to build more toll roads across the state,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

“Gov. Perry wants to get the legislature to reauthorize through 2013 the ability of Texas to enter into Comprehensive Development Agreements, or CDAs, with foreign developers to develop Texas highways under public-private partnerships,” Hank Gilbert, a board member with TexasTurf.org, or Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom, told World Net Daily.

“We are fighting to defeat any attempt by Gov. Perry to extend CDAs,” he said. “Without CDAs, TxDOT will have a difficult time getting foreign development companies to come into Texas to convert our freeways to toll roads.”

Perry’s attempt to force through toll roads owned and operated by foreign companies as part of the wider agenda for a NAFTA Superhighway and a North American Union is a perfect example of how those in power try to neutralize dissent by pulling dirty tricks – claiming a project is dead and then simply renaming it and continuing with the same agenda.

However, the many activist groups opposed to the Trans Texas Corridor were well prepared for this bait and switch. The resistance to the agenda for a NAFTA Superhighway will now rally to fight Perry’s move to sell off key infrastructure to foreign corporations, and in turn create a huge new tax for already financially battered Americans.

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/nafta-superhighway-returns-from-the-dead/

Texas Senate Endorses Freeway Spy Cameras

theNewspaper
May 29, 2009

The Texas state Senate voted Monday to give federal, state and local authorities the ability to track and identify every passing vehicle on state highways. The provision calling for “automatic license plate identification cameras” was slipped into the Senate version of the must-pass Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) reauthorization bill. The provision was not part of the bill introduced in the state House of Representatives, whose less sympathetic members will have to accept or reject the entire 1274-page compromise hammered out by a conference committee. The House voted yesterday to instruct its conferees to insist that the House-passed ban on red light cameras remain in the final text.

The Senate’s surveillance camera proposal promises taxpayer funds to the same private companies that operate photo radar and red light camera systems threatened by the House bill. License plate readers use the same basic technology as automated ticketing machines. Instead of tracking, for example, only those who exceed a certain speed threshold, the plate readers will store a video image of the front passenger compartment and rear license plate of every single passing vehicle. Optical character recognition software identifies the registered vehicle owner and allows for easy indexing of the time and location of travel for each person identified using the highway.

The Senate-passed bill gives police broad authority for the first time to use this information to prosecute any state or federal crime, as long as it is not a traffic violation “punishable by fine only.” The bill also specifies that the cameras may be used to find suspects in amber alert cases, missing senior citizens and those accused of killing a police officer. The capability to search for suspects is exactly what troubles one civil rights group.

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“Proponents will argue the readers are looking for bad guys — drug smugglers and other criminals — but the cameras cannot distinguish between your SUV and a drug smuggler’s SUV,” the Texas branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. “The readers are technology and as with any technology, they have a tendency to make errors. In this case, the implications are traffic stops of drivers misidentified as suspects wanted for serious crimes.”

In some cases, those errors can turn deadly. On May 19, 2008 a Northumbria, UK police officer received an Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) alert about a passing Renault Megane automobile. Believing the vehicle could be driven by a dangerous criminal, the officer began following the Renault and hit speeds of 94 MPH in a residential neighborhood without using his siren. After cresting a hill, the police Volvo slammed into and killed sixteen-year-old pedestrian Hayley Adamson who did not see the police car coming. It turns out the database was wrong and the driver being chased was completely innocent. ( View video of the incident up to the moment of the crash).

British authorities have been using ANPR for several years, working to centralize ANPR data to allow police to keep tabs on criminals and political opponents. A data center in North London offers real-time, nationwide tracking capability. Australian and American red light camera companies hope to offer the same centralized tracking services in the US.

The license plate provision attached to the TxDOT sunset bill passed the full Senate last month without debate as Senate Bill 1426. The language was drafted by state Senator Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands). View the full text of the surveillance camera provision in a 90k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: House Bill 300 excerpt – Senate engrossed (Texas State Legislature, 5/28/2009)

URL to article: http://www.infowars.com/texas-senate-endorses-freeway-spy-cameras/

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