With the information revolution comes new questions about electronic records, surveillance, and the Internet. From using the telephone to seeking medical treatment to applying for a job or sending e-mail, Americans' right to information privacy is in peril.
The MCLU fights the trend toward a surveillance society and works to guarantee that individuals, not governments or corporations, determine how and when others gain access to their personal information.
What's Happening in Maine:
One of the key goals of the MCLU in the most recent session
of the state Legislature was the support of a bill, LD 1357, that would have
revised last year's legislation that forced the state government to comply with
the federal
The federal REAL ID program was regarded by many security experts as an expensive mandate forced on the states by the Bush Administration that would do nothing to enhance the country's safety. Many viewed it as a program that paved the way for a national ID card, or internal passport. Many state governors rejected the federal intrusion into their state driver's license system.
In 2009, the MCLU lobbied hard on behalf of a bill introduced by Sen. Dennis Damon that would have removed those requirements. The committee heard testimony from many American citizens and legal residents that they had difficulty obtaining driver's licenses, since the law had been enacted, and had been forced to retain lawyers to navigate the suddenly much more complex bureaucracy of the state Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
After a strong lobbying effort by MCLU and allies including
the NAACP, The Legislature passed Sen. Damon's bill, but it was vetoed on June
3 by Governor John E. Baldacci. LD 1357 strikes a requirement for
motorists to show legal presence in the
What's Happening Nationally:
The ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project fights to preserve the American tradition that the government not track individuals or violate privacy unless it has evidence of wrongdoing.