Protestors Tell Legislature: No Toll Roads, No Animal IDs — Don’t Tag Texas

AUSTIN Shouts were heard on the steps of the capitol in Austin last Friday to stop a proposal for a statewide network of roads, and protect small farmers from the government attempting to track farm animals.

The Don’t Tag Texas protest brought out hundreds of Texans from all over the state protesting the Trans-Texas Corridor and the National Animal Identification System.

Janice Schieberle of Gonzales, a retired school teacher and farmer, said of the TTC, “I think it’s a boondoggle. It’s a monstrosity of a globalist plan.”

The TTC is a proposal for a multi-use statewide network of roads that will include toll roads, separate lanes for cars and trucks, freight railways, high-speed commuter railways, and infrastructure for utilities and telecommunications.

The NAIS is a USDA program that asks for voluntary registration of animals, in order to track disease quickly.

Speakers who talked about the TTC were most concerned about toll roads.

Gina Parker, the National Issues Chairman of the Eagle Forum, begged the audience to “not just e-mail,” but make phone calls to their legislators against the Trans Texas Corridor.

“Stop the highway robbery,” she shouted.

The connection between animal tagging and toll roads was pointed out by Judith McGeary, the executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance.

“This project is about dollars. It’s about databases,” said McGeary.

She encouraged attendees to go inside and talk to their legislators about these two issues.

Two house bills, 461 and 637, will be considered. They would make the animal identification program voluntary and would provide safeguards to animal owners.

House bill 857 would kill the TTC and HB 719 would restrict TxDot from turning a state highway into a toll road, and would prevent the transference of a state highway to a private entity for the purpose of becoming a toll road.

Co-author of “Spychips: How major corporations and government plan to track your every purchase and watch your every move,” Liz McIntyre said, the government has a plan to tag and track everything on earth.

McIntyre said she worries that once the government starts tracking animals with radio frequency identification chips, or RFID, humans will be next.

“If they can track us, they can control us,” she said.

Freedom was a hot topic at the rally as well.

Hank Gilbert, the 2006 Democratic candidate for Texas Agriculture Commissioner and an organizer of the event, said this protest was about independence from government control.

“It’s Texas Independence Day, and it’s time the people stood up to the government,” he said. “Its (the TTC) a revenue generating proj