deal with barriers to deeper integration. Claims of implementation In 2005, claims emerged from critics of North American integration that a "North American Union" was not only being planned, but was being implemented by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. These critics cited the formation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and claimed it was an attempt to dramatically alter the economic and political status quo between the countries outside of the scrutiny of the respective national legislatures, a critique heightened by the subsequent publication of the Independent Task Force on North America report which praised the SPP initiative and called for greater economic integration by 2010. While a broad spectrum of observers criticized the secrecy of the SPP and its dominance by business groups, the specific claim that its true aim was to expand NAFTA into a North American Union analogous to the European Union (EU), with open borders and a common currency, among other features, was being made by the fall of 2006, when conservative commentators Phyllis Schlafly, Jerome Corsi, and Howard Phillips started a website dedicated to quashing what they perceived as the coming North American "Socialist mega-state". The belief that a North American Union was being planned and implemented in secret became widespread, so much so that the NAU was a topic of debate during the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaigns and the subject of various U.S. Congress resolutions designed to thwart its implementation. Prominent critics such as Lou Dobbs, then an employee of CNN, and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul denounced the concept, joined by left-wing nationalist groups in Canada, Internet blogs, and widely viewed videos and films such as "Zeitgeist" (2007). Corsi's book The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada (2007) also helped bring the NAU discussion into the mainstream. These beliefs are the latest example of a long line of erroneous conspiracy theories which suggest that the United States' sovereignty is being eroded by a cabal of foreign and domestic players. Phyllis Schlafly claimed the actual goals of the SPP were confirmed by the Task Force, and by the Task Force's co-chair American University professor Robert Pastor. Critics often cite Pastor as being the "father" of the NAU. His book Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New (2001) has been called a blueprint for the plan, and