Republican Police State quietly continues construction.

While the press struggles with the Plame investigation, the Bush administration continues to quietly set up the foundations for the Police State of their fantasies.

Not breaking news, but the States are now looking at what complying with the Real ID act is actually going to do and cost.
From the Center for American Progress:

With little public scrutiny, Congress recently enacted the "REAL ID" bill, provisions of which require sweeping changes to the process by which states issues driver's licenses. Promoted as a measure to curb the ability of terrorists to obtain identification documents, REAL ID has spurred a firestorm of controversy from many quarters, including immigrant rights groups, state governments, and privacy advocates who fear the creation of a de facto national ID card. While reducing identity theft remains an imminent threat to consumers as well as a pressing national security concern, serious questions remain whether REAL ID is the right approach

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/apps/nl/content3.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=593305&ct=875065


In what civil rights and antiwar groups say is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration; the FBI's counterterrorism unit has collected at least 3,500 internal documents from the ACLU, Greenpeace, and similar organizations.

NY Times. 7/18

WASHINGTON, July 17 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected at least 3,500 pages of internal documents in the last several years on a handful of civil rights and antiwar protest groups in what the groups charge is an attempt to stifle political opposition to the Bush administration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/politics/18protest.html

Targets Including the ACLU and Greenpeace among others, this internal spying is being conducted by anti-terrorism units of the FBI.

For now they are treating the left-leaning groups as potential terrorists, so the wingnuts will be happy, but any group in America or any citizen can be next. Can we stop it? Who has some more good info on this topic?

There are lots of other examples. This encroaching Police State infrastructure should scare every American and it should be a hot campaign issue in 2006 and 2008. Let’s not let it be buried under the Repug disinformation/distraction tornado.