A broad variety of organizations and individuals are joining together to fight Real ID. We think that that the proposed regulations for implementation of the Real ID are extremely vulnerable, and that we will be able to organize substantial opposition to these through the comment period ending April 30. In parallel with this, efforts are also going on to fight Real ID at the state level; and to gain momentum for repealing Real ID at the federal level.

The "activism via social networks" campaign complements other more traditional efforts going on by other groups: working to frame the issue and getting coverage in mainstream media appeal, lobbying, etc. One specific goal is to get people to send in comments on the draft regulations -- adding another 10,000 people beyond "the usual suspects" could make a huge difference. Another is to catalyze broader involvement and get more publicity for the issue as a whole.

We expect to use a mixture of online and in-person techniques, and be collaborating extensively with other organizations. The rough timeline looks something like this (note that things are happening in parallel in some cases).

March 1-March 31: Begin planning media and outreach campaigns, event planning, collateral design and development

Through March 15: Get infrastructure and initial core volunteers in place, flesh out plan

March 10: bullet points of key issues for comments to be put up on the sites

March 15: initial fundraising plan for any events we use to get the word out

March 20: draft sample comment letter done

April 1:
* final revised sample comment letter, submission instructions
* collateral ready to go for a couple of kinds of events
* initial coverage

April 1-30: go, go, go!