A key cause of concern relates to the procedure being pursued. For example, it is unclear under what legal authority the Bush administration is taking actions through SPP to harmonize U.S. regulations, policies, and standards with those of Canada and Mexico. No legislation has been enacted authorizing the SPP. No congressional hearings, bills, amendments, or normal legislative process has occurred to grant legal authority specifically approving SPP’s goals, in any public forum or fashion.
Congressional offices that have inquired say the administration claims it is acting under authority granted by NAFTA. But administrative divisions acting through SPP “working groups” have signed memoranda of understanding and entered other agreements with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts to implement SPP initiatives — with no congressional oversight, public notice or comment, or accountability through constitutionally ordained checks and balances.
And to the extent the public and private sector arms of SPP are intertwined, reasonable skepticism leads many to question SPP’s goals and the process for achieving them. The SPP-related documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act shed light on this secretive project and give further reason for skepticism toward and scrutiny of SPP.
When publicizing its FOIA documents from the Banff conference, Judicial Watch questioned the goals and procedural machinations being taken to advance SPP: The notes for the presentations document the need to overcome popular opposition to North American integration: “To what degree does a concept of North
America help/hinder solving problems between the three countries? . . . While a vision is appealing, working on the infrastructure might yield more benefit and bring more people on board (‘evolution by stealth’).”
“It is not encouraging to see the phrase ‘evolution by stealth’ in reference to important policy debates such as North American integration and cooperation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents provide more information to Americans concerned about the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The more transparency, the better.”
The use of a phrase like “evolution by stealth” to describe the modus operandi for achieving any public policy change — particularly something as fundamental and sweeping as the SPP or a North American Union — is disturbing in the extreme. To close observers, that troubling approach is all too familiar.
In the 1970s, globalist thinker Richard N. Gardner laid out an approach to eroding national sovereignty, one pursued by elites ever since. Advocating the creation of “institutions of limited jurisdiction and selected membership,” he thought entities like the Security and Prosperity Partnership “will have a better chance of doing what must be done to make a ‘rule of law’ possible among nations — providing methods for changing the law and enforcing it as it changes and developing the perception of common interests that is the prerequisite for successful cooperation.” Gardner characterized this, interestingly, as “an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece” to “accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault” of constructing U.N.- style, omnibus mechanisms. (emphasis added) Trying to integrate three distinct nations, sets of laws, cultures, and historical contexts by “stealth” or “end run” clearly does not serve the public interest or any member of any national government or official who may be party to this illicit undertaking. Such a strategy tacitly admits that the goals would fail to prevail in the marketplace of ideas and a fair political fight. At a minimum, the secretive process like that of the Bush administration and its SPP collaborators gives the appearance of trying to pull something over on the American people.

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http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back607.pdf