It's now leaking out that there was more going on than met the eye at the Security and Prosperity Partnership Summit in Montebello, Canada, in August. The three amigos - President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon - finalized and released the "North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza."

The "Plan" - that's what they call it, with a capital P - is to use the excuse of a major flu epidemic to shift powers from U.S. legislatures to unelected, unaccountable "North American" bureaucrats.

This idea was launched on Sept. 14, 2005, when Bush announced the "International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza." He was then speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.

We might have thought that idea had some merit because the influenza partnership called for "transparency in reporting of influenza cases in humans and in animals" and the "sharing of epidemiological data and samples." That's very different from the Security and Prosperity Summit, where transparency has always been conspicuously avoided like the plague.

This year's Security and Prosperity Summit in Canada morphed the Influenza Partnership into the North American Plan. Now we discover that the Plan is not only about combating a flu epidemic but is far-reaching in seeking control over U.S. citizens and public policy during an epidemic.

The Plan repeatedly features the favorite Bush word "comprehensive" - it calls for a "comprehensive, coordinated North American approach." The Plan would give authority to international bureaucrats "beyond the health sector to include a coordinated approach to critical infrastructure protection," including "border and transportation issues."

The Plan is a wordy 44-page document, much of which sounds innocuous. It is helpful to exchange information about disease and take precautions against letting foreign diseases enter the United States.

However, self-government and sovereignty are at risk when control over these matters is turned over to a newly created North American body headed by the representative of another country. It's an additional problem when the entire Plan is a spin-off of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an arrangement created in secret solely by White House press releases, without Congressional approval or even oversight.

The 2007 Plan acknowledges that it is based not only on the Influenza Partnership, but also on the guidelines, standards and rules of the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Trade Organization, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Plan sets up a "senior level coordinating body to facilitate the effective planning and preparedness within North America for a possible outbreak of avian and/or human pandemic influenza under the Security and Prosperity Partnership." The Plan identifies this Security and Prosperity Partnership coordinating body as "decision-makers." Continued...