(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

You’re driving along a remote, dusty road, when suddenly you come upon a border patrol checkpoint. There, agents demand to see your identity papers, and search your car. You are taken by surprise, because you know you haven’t wandered across the Texas-Mexico border. In fact, you’re quite sure of that, because you’re driving through rural Wisconsin countryside west of Green Bay. Even the Canadian border is more than 90 miles away.

This scene is not as far-fetched as you might want to believe. The government is turning vast swaths of our country into a “Constitution-Free Zone” in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is allowed to exercise extraordinary authority that would not normally be permitted under the Constitution. The government says that “the border” — where there is a longstanding view that the Constitution does not fully apply — actually stretches 100 miles inland from the nation’s “external boundary.” And increasingly, we are seeing DHS vigorously utilize that authority.

Today we held a press conference at the National Press Club here in D.C. to try to draw attention to this problem — and the fact that, as we showed, nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population live within this "Constitution-Free Zone." That’s 197.4 million people.

We calculated this using the most recent, 2007 numbers from the U.S. Census, and released a map showing the cities and states that are enveloped by this zone. It includes some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country: New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. States that are completely within this Constitution-Free Zone include Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. When you say “border,” they think “all of New England.”

CBP has been setting up checkpoints far inland — on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. People are also reporting that even after they provide passports or state driver’s licenses, CBP continues to interrogate them and try to pressure them into permitting a search.

At our press conference today in the National Press Club here in DC, two U.S. citizens described their experiences with CBP.

Vince Peppard, a retired social worker, told of being stopped and harassed by the border authorities at least 15 miles from the Mexico border with his wife, Berlant.

Craig Johnson, a music professor at a San Diego college, told how he participated in a peaceful demonstration near the border to protest against the destruction of a state park so that a fence could be constructed along the U.S. border. CBP agents monitored the protest and collected the license plate information of those who participated. Since this protest, Mr. Johnson has twice crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and, each time, he has been pulled aside for additional screening. He was taken to another room, handcuffed and questioned. On his first crossing, he was also partially stripped and subjected to a body cavity search. A CBP agent also told Mr. Johnson that he was on an “armed and dangerous” list. Before the protest, Mr. Johnson crossed the U.S.-Mexico border numerous times without incident. It is difficult to believe that his subsequent harassment at the border is unrelated to his protest activity. If it is related, that would constitute a significant abuse.

Congress needs to hold hearings to investigate these egregious violations of Americans’ civil liberties, and then pass new laws protecting Americans’ rights.

I guarantee you that if these powers are not challenged, if the American people do not push back, sooner or later a factory worker in southern New Hampshire, a farmer in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, or yes, some guy driving across rural Wisconsin, will wake up to find that they have lost their right to go about their business, and travel around inside their own country, without interference from the authorities.

Jack Bauer’s worst nightmare? Not according to the U.S. Government.

Today we launched a new web feature - an “ACLU Watchlist Counter” to dramatize the absurd bloat in our nation’s terrorist watchlists. It wasn’t long after 9/11 that we began hearing from Americans who were having problems getting on airplanes because, they were told, their names were on terrorist watchlists. In typical Bush Administration style, these systems had been roughly thrown together with little thought for questions of guilt or innocence or fairness to those unfairly targeted.

In the years since, our out-of-control watchlists have received a lot of terrible publicity, such as when famous people like Sen. Ted Kennedy or Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) got trapped on them, or when 60 Minutes discovered that the list included the president of Bolivia, dead people, and dozens of common American names like Robert Johnson and John Williams. Despite all this publicity, and the problems faced by thousands or millions of frustrated innocent American citizens, the problem has not gotten better. In fact, it has gotten even worse.

Based on numbers contained in a report (PDF) issued by the Inspector General of the Department of Justice, the watchlist is growing by 20,000 records a month - and now exceeds 917,000 people. And it’s growing by the minute - a growth that you can view in real time on our new page, which displays a rolling, real-time counter showing how many names are on the list, according to that DOJ report.

“Can we all just go home now??” — that was the reaction of an exasperated Illinois DMV official contemplating the real details, difficulties and costs of implementing the Federal “Real ID” law. The law requires the states to issue a uniform national drivers license and join a unified national database containing the personal details of 200 million Americans by 2008.

His frustration was hardly unique. Last week an exclusive story from the Associated Press reported on the details of a remarkable survey of the 50 states by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators.

Cost and complexity may turn out to be the Achilles heel that ultimately dooms the Real ID, but it would be a real nightmare for Americans in much broader ways. The ACLU has created a new web site, www.realnightmare.org, which has the complete state by state survey results, so you can easily check out what’s happening in your state — but also covers the profound effects that Real ID will have on the rights
of all Americans.

Real ID will be a privacy nightmare creating a de facto National ID card and computer database. Among the most disturbing mandates will be the card’s standard “machine readable component” like an RFID chip that it will make
its data instantly available to not only every convenience store clerk, but to omnivorous data brokers like Choice Point.

It will be fundamentally unfair to both immigrants and native born Americans who will find themselves unable to jump through all the bureaucratic hurdles and overcome all the mistaken or lost records that will be required to get a driver’s license.

Imagine being a former resident of New Orleans or an asylee from Iran being asked to present one of the few official government documents recognized by Real ID ­ only to learn that have been lost to a hurricane or held by the government that persecuted you.

Real ID is not a done deal. The states are in near rebellion and millions of Americans oppose it. It’s too big and ungainly to mend it. Let’s tell Congress to end it.