Police 'fusion' centers tracked presidential candiates Paul, Barr and Mckinney

I really hate ending the week with one of these dark and ominous Orwellian stories, but alas, nothing else out there is as interesting...or likely important.

Nearly a year ago to this day I posted about what are called "Fusion Centers". I wrote,

"If we didn't have enough reasons to lie awake at night worrying about the future of privacy in this country and this administration's wholesale assault on the Constitution! Now we learn - thanks to the Washington Post's efforts - that there are "intelligence centers" (why do these operations always have to sound so Orwellian!?) being run by states across the country that have access to the personal information of millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports.

But not to worry they tell us, its all for our own protection! Why does none of this make me feel any safer? This sounds like yet another constitution crushing idea that had been in the works for years before 9/11...which just happened to be the kind of "event" that gave the cover needed to implement such a scheme. The possible abuses are incalculable..."

And now, a year later, a story breaks that these same fusion centers were used in the 2008 Presidential Campaign to track and surveil supporters of third-party candidates and "an ambiguous mission directive that has lead to power overreaching."

The good news is the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment (how's that for a mouthful?) held hearings on Wednesday that included the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on Islamic-American Relations speaking against these "centers".

Raw Story has the scoop:

Fusion centers are intelligence databases spread out across the country that collect data on ordinary citizens and synchronize national intelligence collection with local police. There are currently more than 40 fusion centers in the country.

...

“Fusion centers have experienced a mission creep in the last several years, becoming more of a threat than a security device," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office in a statement. "With no overarching guidelines to restrict or direct them, these centers put Americans’ privacy at huge risk. We need our government to take a long, hard look at what’s going into these centers and, frankly, what’s coming out.”

...

The ACLU has followed possible fusion center improper invasions of privacy, including the surveillance of third-party presidential candidate supporters, religious groups and of anti-war activists. The group is asking the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to launch independent investigations into the following incidents:

* Inappropriate references "social, religious and political ideologies including support of third party presidential candidates such as Congressman Ron Paul and former Congressman Bob Barr" in a February 2009 report on the "modern militia movement" authored by the Missouri Information Anaysis Center. Report available here.

* A May 2008 report entitled “Universal Adversary Dynamic Threat Assessment” written by a private contractor that labeled environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the Humane Society and the Audubon Society as "organizations with known or possible links to eco-terrorism.” The report, which also criticized the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front, among others, is available here.

...

CAIR released the following statement regarding its naming in the Texas Fusion System report."CAIR is deeply troubled that the North Central Texas Fusion System bulletin labels monitoring the legal activities of American Muslims exercising their constitutional privileges as ‘imperative,’" their statement said. The group "believes it is time for Congress to conduct a deeper evaluation of our nation’s new domestic surveillance infrastructure.

Do I have to even make the case how totally unacceptable these violations are, and what a threat they pose to individual liberty? As someone who has personally been very active on environmental and human rights issues, its more than just a little disturbing to know these same groups and interests were targeted by the government.

It goes without saying that we can breathe a certain sigh of relief on such targeting in an Obama Administration, but in no way does that mean we should "look forward and not back". If I hear that term again I swear I'm going to scream! We can't move forward if we don't fix what has happened in the past. How else do you ensure it doesn't happen looking forward?!!

That's my Friday tirade...have a good weekend everyone :)

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Centers Tap Into Personal Databases

If we didn't have enough reasons to lie awake at night worrying about the future of privacy in this country and this administration's wholesale assault on the Constitution! Now we learn - thanks to the Washington Post's efforts - that there are "intelligence centers" (why do these operations always have to sound so Orwellian!?) being run by states across the country that have access to the personal information of millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports.

But not to worry they tell us, its all for our own protection! Why does none of this make me feel any safer? This sounds like yet another constitution crushing idea that had been in the works for years before 9/11...which just happened to be the kind of "event" that gave the cover needed to implement such a scheme. The possible abuses are incalculable...

The Washington Post Reports:

Dozens of the organizations known as fusion centers were created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to identify potential threats and improve the way information is shared. The centers use law enforcement analysts and sophisticated computer systems to compile, or fuse, disparate tips and clues and pass along the refined information to other agencies. They are expected to play important roles in national information-sharing networks that link local, state and federal authorities and enable them to automatically sift their storehouses of records for patterns and clues.

Though officials have publicly discussed the fusion centers' importance to national security, they have generally declined to elaborate on the centers' activities. But a document that lists resources used by the fusion centers shows how a dozen of the organizations in the northeastern United States rely far more on access to commercial and government databases than had previously been disclosed.

Those details have come to light at a time of debate about domestic intelligence efforts, including eavesdropping and data-aggregation programs at the National Security Agency, and whether the government has enough protections in place to prevent abuses.

...

Government watchdogs, along with some police and intelligence officials, said they worry that the fusion centers do not have enough oversight and are not open enough with the public, in part because they operate under various state rules.

"Fusion centers have grown, really, off the radar screen of public accountability," said Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonpartisan watchdog group in the District. "Congress and the state legislatures need to get a handle over what is going on at all these fusion centers."

...

The centers have been criticized for being secretive, but authorities said that this is largely for security reasons. Activists want to know more about their activities, the kinds of information they collect and how the information is being used.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a lawsuit in Virginia last month seeking the release of records about communication among state fusion center officials and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice. Marc Rotenberg, the privacy center's executive director, said his group was responding to a proposed state law that would sharply limit access to records about the fusion centers' activity.

I'll be watching this story as it develops...hopefully I'm just being paranoid and there's nothing to worry about...but I'm not holding my breath.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

EPIC Grades Obama on Privacy

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) released their Privacy Report Card for President Obama last week, and as one would expect, his scores are less than stellar. Granted, he out performs the Bush Administration, but then, if that's the bar we're going to use we're all in deep, deep trouble.

Unfortunately, the Administration was given an incomplete grade on the issue of Consumer Privacy, an area that is especially of interest to the Consumer Federation of California.

As I have written about on this blog, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has gone through some enormous positive changes under President Obama, and appears committed to better protecting Internet users from behavioral targeting and ads as well as other invasive industry practices. What remains to be seen is who will be the two final appointments to the FTC board (the new head of the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the FTC and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz both excellent first steps) and how hard will the President push for reform?

As EPIC's report states:

The Obama Administration can protect consumer privacy by supporting new laws, by safeguarding the personal information held by the federal government, and by strengthening the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the chief agency responsible for protecting U.S. consumers. The FTC assures that free annual credit reports are available to consumers, manages the Do Not Call telephone registry, investigates monopolies, combats identity theft, prevents deceptive practices by businesses, and protects consumer privacy rights. At this time, the Obama Administration has introduced no new consumer privacy legislation and has left two of the five FTC Commissioner slots unfilled. Proposals are also moving forward that would make government information available to the private sector for advertising and marketing.

Other highlights from the report include:

On Cybersecurity: B "The President's commitment to safeguard privacy and network communications in the difficult area of cybersecurity is commendable. But a battle looms over efforts by Congress to extend the government's control of the Internet. The President should have named a point person on cybersecurity to represent his views in that coming debate."

On Civil liberties: C+ "The Obama Administration inherited many troubling programs from the Bush Administration: the Patriot Act, Fusion Centers, No Fly Lists, E_Verify, and REAL ID. So far, there appears to be little change with the new Administration. There is a modified version of REAL ID called "PASS ID." The Patriot Act is still law. No Fly Lists and Fusion Centers are being expanded." The organization did note progress in some areas, "as well as open government and judicial appointments."

On Medical Privacy: A- "EPIC gives the Administration full credit for creating important privacy safeguards as part of the network for electronic health records. The privacy language in the HI‐TECH Act makes the bill one of the best privacy laws in years. Still, implementation of privacy safeguards remains a key challenge."

I would add one more disappointment to the list given under "civil liberties": wiretapping. Not only did the President flip flop on the issue before being elected, he has refused to hold anyone accountable for the crimes committed by the Bush Administration or the telecommunication companies that abetted those crimes. In addition, every expert I have read or spoken with has argued that the current law remains completely inadequate in terms of protecting the privacy of American citizens and restraining the growing authority of the Executive Branch.

All in all, its a rather dismal record all things considered. While again, an improvement over Bush, I think its safe to say that the President's record falls short of his promises as a candidate.

EPIC Grades Obama on Privacy and Civil Liberties

Now, I've written in excruciating detail on this blog about what a total and complete disappointment President Obama has been on issues related to privacy and civil liberties. I never expected his actions as President to fully match his words as a candidate (and constitutional scholar!) - this is rarely EVER the case, particularly when it comes to issues related to national security - but the two seem to be diametrically opposed on nearly every issue.

Sadly, what has become an ironclad, and increasingly dangerous "rule of thumb" in this country, is that once a power is taken by the government (i.e. Patriot Act), or a civil liberty/constitutional protection erased, its gone...NO President, anymore anyway, once elected offers to "give" up power achieved by the President (s) before him. And boy oh boy has this remained true between the privacy eviscerating Administration of George W. Bush and that of President Barack Obama.

Before I get to some of what I believe are his greatest failings, let's get to the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Privacy Report Card for President Obama released last week.

EPIC gave the Administration a grade of C in Consumer Privacy, B in Medical Privacy, D in Civil Liberties, and B in Cybersecurity. This year's grades are a drop from the grades given in EPIC's 2009 Privacy Report Card and reflect important privacy developments during the past year.

For me personally, the list of disappointments is getting, literally, too long for me to address these days. So forgive me for reaching back into my archives and getting some help...from myself.

We all know by now the Administration's whole-hearted embrace of Whole-Body-Imaging in airports. As we also now know, both Obama and Holder have completely reversed themselves on the issue of wiretapping, by not only refusing to prosecute or investigate the program and/or those that carried it out, but have even expanded their defense of the program in some important key respects. Telecom immunity? You bet. Justice for those spied on? Hell no.

We also now KNOW, that it was President Obama himself that worked behind the scenes to ensure that absolutely no meaningful reforms to the Patriot Act were adopted...essentially a complete reversal of his positions as a Senator and Presidential candidate. Strange, he doesn't lift a finger for things like the public option or the Consumer Protection Agency, but man, he's one tough customer when it comes to protecting the Patriot Act.

Its as if we're watching a debate between the eloquent, pro-civil liberties "Candidate Obama" and the just as eloquent, anti-constitutional authoritarian, President Obama.

Senator Obama branded the Patriot Act "shoddy and dangerous" and pledged to end it in 2003. In 2005, he pledged to filibuster a Bush-sponsored bill that included several of these exact components recently extended, calling them "just plain wrong" in a Senate speech. He argued:

"Government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document -- through library books they've read and phone calls they've made...We don't have to settle for a Patriot Act that sacrifices our liberties or our safety -- we can have one that secures both."

But now let's hear from President Obama, who wrote in a letter that he was advocating IN FAVOR of the most abusive provisions in the Act to stand...the same ones he claimed were "shoddy and dangerous" as a Senator.

For instance, business and citizens groups can still have their records examined by the government with minimal checks on how the information can be used and more particularly used against. Individuals often based on flimsiest of evidence can still be targeted for monitoring and surveillance if suspected of being a potential terrorist.

Organizations and individuals can still be slapped with so-called roving wiretaps (taps that can be placed on an individual or group anywhere, anytime) again based on weak evidence or unfounded suspicion....

Now President Obama justifies keeping nearly all of Bush's terror war provisions in place with the standard rationale that the government must have all the weapons needed to deal with the threat of terrorism. If you think I'm confusing Bush and Cheney with Obama, sadly, you're wrong.

Then there was the Administration's radical interpretation and use of the "state secrets" privilege to block courts from hearing a host of information, from torture allegations to wiretapping claims. In other words, for the sole purpose of protecting those that committed crimes that the President vehemently criticized as a Senator and promised to address as a candidate.

We now know that the Administration is going along - in most respects - with the Bush policies of indefinite detention and military tribunals.

And as most are probably aware (I've posted on it recently), Obama is backing a bill that would require all Internet companies to be able to tap into any online communications that they enable.

Trust me, that's just a quick list I've put together...there are many more examples I could give. But for today's purposes, let's see some of what EPIC cites (surely much the same), and a few articles, namely from Computerworld, Networkworld, and Daily Tech.

But, in case you think I'm being too hard on the man, watch the Daily Show's fantastic run down of the Obama "constitutional scholar" candidate vs. Obama "constitution eviscerating" President:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Computerworld reports:

On the civil liberties front, for instance, there were high expectations that changes would be made to many programs, including the Patriot Act, the Fusion Centers that were created for sharing intelligence information between local and federal agencies, no-fly lists and the Real-ID national identification program. All of those were programs inherited from the Bush administration, and a year ago it was too early to assess what impact the new administration would have on them, he said.

The fact that little has changed a year later is surprising given the early expectations, Rotenberg said. The Obama administration's failure so far to set up an advisory board for monitoring key issues such as the airport full-body scanner program is troubling, he noted. So too is its relative inaction around controversial programs such as the Patriot Act and the Fusion Center initiative, he said.

Rotenberg also criticized what he claimed has been the Federal Trade Commission's less than aggressive approach in dealing with serious consumer privacy issues stemming from the use of technologies such as Facebook and Google's Buzz and Street View.

Read more here.

Daily Tech also honed in on the numerous outright reversals by the President:

More controversial, however, is the domestic spying efforts closely tied to the terrorism. Namely the National Security Agency (NSA), under the Patriot Act of 2001, was given the right warrantless wiretaps of calls between U.S. and foreign citizens. That alone was controversial enough, but an expose in The New York Times showed that domestic calls between two U.S. citizens were also being intercepted, in what the NSA dubbed an "accident".

A special Obama administration task force consisting of U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Commerce, NSA, Federal Bureau of Investigations, local law enforcement, and more is looking to reinforce warrantless wiretap. The move is perhaps unsurprising, considering that the council shares many of the same experts that mastermind President George W. Bush's original Patriot Act.

...

Under the proposed changes, telecoms would be mandated to not only prepare for such instances, but also for warrantless wiretapping as spelled out under the Patriot Act. Those telecoms who complied fully would be rewarded with undisclosed incentives, while those who resist or were slow to comply would face fines or other penalties.

...

Previously detailed nuances of the plan call for the government also to gain new warrantless surveillance powers over other communications resources such as email (e.g. Gmail), text messages (including encrypted services, like RIM's), social networks (e.g. Facebook), and internet forums.

Read more here.

Now to perhaps the most comprehensive article on the subject, NetworkWorld reports:

It's grade card time and President Obama earned a big fat D as is doomed civil liberties, as in does have unchecked authority to kill you, and as in dangerous and overreaching state secrets arguments. It's sad how our right to privacy seems to be decreasing while the government's right to keep secrets seems to be growing. EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) released the 2010 Privacy Report Card (PDF) for the Obama Administration, giving Obama a "D" grade in Civil Liberties. Why? For the same reasons that the ACLU argues that the president does not have the unchecked authority to kill you, and EFF warns that the government is singing the same old state secrecy tune about wiretapping.

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The ACLU is fighting against targeted killing and death without due process. Due to state secrets privilege, if you even found out that you were targeted by the CIA to be killed, you couldn't even fight it in court because to mention state secrets jeopardizes national security. You see, the government keeps secret "kill lists," but the Obama administration says that it's a state secret who they plan to assassinate. Former Director of National Intelligence agreed that the government has a license to kill Americans that are secretly labeled terrorists. Since the Obama administration has asserted its authority to carry out "targeted killings" of U.S. citizens outside armed conflict zones, the ACLU is arguing that President Obama does not have unchecked authority to kill you.

...

The state-secrets doctrine seems as out of control as does what is happening to privacy, civil liberties and human rights during the War on Terror. Just look at how many people in peace groups or activists that have wrongfully been put on watchlists or been labeled as a terrorist. Spying on free speech is at Cold War levels! How soon before speaking out for civil liberties, privacy, freedom is also considered low level terrorism? At the rate things are going, could people who are activists, who are considered "low level terrorist" start to be targeted? In 2009, research showed that 10 or more civilians die for every terrorist killed by drone missiles. If the "CIA's Predator drones targeting software was pirated" and faulty, so that it might "possibly miss its target by as much as 40 feet," could the government then say oops, the software steered it wrong and take out even more alleged enemies of the United States? Would that too be considered a "state secret?"

...

EFF wrote that the state secrets privilege amounts to an immunity for government law-breaking. The "government has made the same dangerous and overreaching state secrets arguments in the domestic warrantless wiretapping cases." The court had dismissed the legality of the NSA's warrantless dragnet surveillance program "because so many Americans have had their communications and communications records illegally obtained by the government, no single person has legal 'standing' to challenge the ongoing program of government surveillance. In other words: if everyone is being spied on, no one can sue." EFF argued (PDF),"that ruling risks creating a perverse incentive for the government to violate the privacy rights of as many citizens as possible in order to avoid judicial review of its actions." The government says "the same thing it has been arguing for the past five years in every other warrantless wiretapping case: that any attempt by the courts to judge the legality of the alleged surveillance would violate the state secrets privilege and harm national security."

And now the government wants to wiretap the web.

Click here to read more.

To repeat one of my past "conclusions" on this blog: Look, fear as an argument, no matter how ludicrous or exaggerated, trumps privacy these days, as least when it comes to coverage in the corporate media, or positions taken by the entire Republican Party and probably a majority of the Democrats - and now clearly this President.

I find it particularly dismaying that the tables have been so turned that the onus (and derision) has been placed on those that simply believe the government, or corporate America for that matter, should not have access to everything we do, particularly when we have committed no crime. Now we must prove that whatever the latest power the government seeks to enshrine as law won't stop an attack (and if we can't prove this negative, we are endangering Americans!) or how it could specifically harm us...rather than the onus being on those seeking to circumvent our privacy and rights in the name of "national security."

If we can all go back in time for a minute, and remember those dark days of the Bush Administration (i.e. all of them), we should also remember the consistent, vehement, and vocal opposition from the left of Bush assaults on privacy and the constitution, from eavesdropping, to indefinite detention, to state secrets, to the Patriot Act abuses, and so, and so forth.

This vehement opposition was of course warranted, and important. But now that Obama is President, and CONTINUING THESE POLICIES, the same outcry that once existed has become a whimper. No, I'm not talking about groups like the ACLU or EFF, but certainly Democrats in Congress, left wing talk radio, and even newspaper editorial boards.

And why is this silence so damaging? Because a so called "liberal" President, a constitutional scholar no less, has now codified what just a few years ago were rightly considered radical attacks on the Constitution and Rule of Law. Now those very same policies have not only been embraced by the new President, but has been accepted by the Democrats in Congress!! In other words, the ball has just moved WAY towards the neoconservative worldview, and their interpretation of an all powerful Executive Branch.

The idea that because Obama is more intelligent, measured, and schooled in constitutional law than Bush (all of which is true), that this somehow means we should entrust him with near unchecked powers, be it wiretapping, assassination of American citizens, or indefinite detention, is patently absurd. Even if it were true that he would use these powers wisely (which is impossible), what's to say the next President will too?

Glenn Greenwald articulated my point (one I've been making here for quite some time) perfectly in a post of his today, stating: Here again, we see one of the principal and longest-lasting effects of the Obama presidency: to put a pretty, eloquent, progressive face on what (until quite recently) was ostensibly considered by a large segment of the citizenry to be tyrannical right-wing extremism (e.g., indefinite detention, military commissions, "state secrets" used to block judicial review, an endless and always-expanding "War on Terror," immunity for war criminals, rampant corporatism -- and now unchecked presidential assassinations of American citizens), and thus to transform what were once bitter, partisan controversies into harmonious, bipartisan consensus...

Let's all try to ensure that this is NOT one of Obama's lasting legacies.

ACLU Study Highlights US Surveillance Society, Launches "Spyfiles"

Do we live in a surveillance society? According to the ACLU's recent report the answer is yes. And, after making its case, the organization has also launched a new website to track incidents of domestic political surveillance by the government.

According to the report there have been 111 incidents of illegal domestic political surveillance since 9/11 in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

The report shows that law enforcement and federal officials work closely to monitor the political activity of individuals deemed suspicious, an activity that was previously common during the Cold War. That includes protests, religious activities and other rights protected by the first amendment, German said.

The spying could take the form of listening to phone calls, intercepting wireless communications, harassing photographers or infiltrating protest groups. Also discovered was the way in which agencies' are increasingly connected through various information sharing measures, making it more likely that information collected on an individual by a small police department could end up in an FBI or CIA database.

The report also noted how the FBI monitors peaceful protest groups and in some cases attempts to prevent protest activities. Its not hard to make the obvious connection between the increase in domestic political surveillance to an erosion of the standards of privacy and civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. The Patriot Act of course serves as exhibit A, as it authorized law enforcement to use tools domestically that were formerly restricted to hostile groups in foreign nations.

Let's go through some of the studies findings, as described by David Kravetz of Wired magazine:

The report, Policing Free Speech: Police Surveillance and Obstruction of First Amendment-Protected Activity, surveys news accounts and studies of questionable snooping and arrests in 33 states and the District of Columbia over the past decade.

The survey provides an outline of, and links to, dozens of examples of Cold War-era snooping in the modern age.

"Our review of these practices has found that Americans have been put under surveillance or harassed by the police just for deciding to organize, march, protest, espouse unusual viewpoints and engage in normal, innocuous behaviors such as writing notes or taking photographs in public," Michael German, an ACLU attorney and former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, said in a statement.

Here are a few examples:

At a California State University, Fresno lecture on veganism, six of the 60 in attendance were undercover officers from the local and campus police. The Oakland Police Department in California had infiltrated a police-brutality demonstration, and its undercover officers selected "the route of the march."

A vegetarian activist in Georgia was arrested for jotting down the license plate of a Department of Homeland Security agent who was snapping photos of a protest outside a Honey Baked Ham store. A Joint Terrorism Task Force in Illinois went on a three-day manhunt in Chicago searching for a Muslim man for his suspicious activity of using a hand counter on a bus. As it turned out, the man was counting his daily prayers.

A Kentucky minister was detained at Canadian border trying to enter the United States because he had purchased copies of the Koran on the internet following the 2001 terror attacks. A New York, Muslim-American student journalist was detained for taking pictures of Old Glory outside a Veterans Affairs building as part of a class project. The authorities deleted the pictures before releasing her an hour later.

In a kind of response to their own study, the ACLU launched "Spyfiles" in order to track domestic surveillance.

On the home page of the site it states, "Today the government is spying on Americans in ways the founders of our country never could have imagined. Intelligence agencies, the military, state and local police, private companies, and even emergency services are gathering detailed information and sharing it through new institutions like joint terrorism task forces, fusion centers, and public-private partnerships, allowing any one of them to instantly produce electronic dossiers on ordinary Americans with a simple mouse-click. More

Michael German, ACLU Policy Counsel and a former FBI Special Agent sums up the issue nicely:

"In our country, under our Constitution, the authorities aren't allowed to spy on you unless they have specific and individual suspicion that you are doing something illegal. Unfortunately, law enforcement in our country seems to be reverting to certain old, bad behaviors when it comes to political surveillance."

Maine Gets Real ID Extension + Senators Grill Chertoff

Tomorrow I'm going to get to the story breaking today about state run "fusion centers" that have access to personal information on millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports.

But before I get to that post-9/11 big brother invention I wanted to finish the Real ID "extension debate" story, as Maine, the last state in the union to get one, finally can breath a sigh of relief, as the Department of Homeland Security gave in yesterday. The other half of today's post is the "hopeful assault" on Michael Chertoff by a number of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This kind of talk by Senators can only be a good sign...

Wired Magazine reports on Maine's extension:

Citizens of all 50 states are now free to board airplanes using their driver's licenses -- at least unitl 2010, after the final renegade anti-Real ID state -- Maine -- won a time extension Wednesday from deadlines attached to new federal identification rules.

That means that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff can now say more secure identification is on the way, while independence-minded states can honestly say they stuck a thumb in the eye of the federal bureaucracy.

On Wednesday, Maine's governor agreed to seek legislation to tighten licensing restrictions, including restricting licenses to residents and those who can prove their legal status in the United States. He did not, however, have to promise the changes would happen.

...

The ACLU claimed victory, saying that DHS capitulated to state's that reject the de facto national ID.

"The Department of Homeland Security, so desperate for a victory around Real ID, has agreed to give Maine an extension based on nothing more than Governor Baldacci’s assurance that he will introduce legislation to bring Maine into compliance," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program. "All 50 states, including those that have said they cannot commit to implement the law, have now received extensions, signaling DHS’s continued determination never actually to enforce Real ID. It has nearly perfected the practice of kicking the can down the road."

The Washington Post reports on Chertoff's visit to the Juciary Committee:

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the Department of Homeland Security yesterday for pressuring reluctant states to adopt new federally approved driver's licenses, with one accusing Secretary Michael Chertoff of "bullying" the states into compliance under a threat of blocking citizens' travel.

"We ought to engage in a fairer, more productive negotiated rule-making with the states," the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), told Chertoff. "Maybe people want to have a national ID card in their state. In my state, they don't..."Bullying the states is not the answer, nor is threatening their citizens' rights to travel. From Maine to Montana, states have said no."

...

Chertoff told the committee that some federal grants may be available to offset costs and that DHS is trying to be flexible, granting extensions until June 2009. He also listened as several senators complained about a waiting list for naturalizations that stretches beyond a year and will probably mean hundreds of thousands of citizens-to-be will not be able to vote in the November elections.

The first stage of the Real ID abomination is over...I'd say its States 1, Feds 0.