As a result the program hasn’t been without its legal challenges. This month the House unanimously approved a measure to exempt health care, legal and accounting firms employing fewer than 20 people from Red Flags. That bill is now in committee.

Also this month a US District court ruled that lawyers are exempt from the red flags rule requirements. The ruling gave a victory to an industry that objected to the FTC's definition of what constitutes a "creditor." The FTC said it may fight that ruling.

Meanwhile the identity theft problem appears to grow unabated. The FTC in February released the list of top consumer fraud complaints for 2009 and showed that for the ninth year in a row, identity theft is the number one problem and it is showing no signs of letting up. For the ninth year in a row identity theft - particularly in Arizona and California -- was the number one consumer complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission in 2008. Of 1,223,370 complaints received in 2008, 313,982 - or 26%- were related to identity theft.

The FTC 's list shows that credit card fraud was the most common form of reported identity theft at 20%, followed by government documents/benefits fraud at 15%, employment fraud at 15%, phone or utilities fraud at 13%, bank fraud at 11 %and loan fraud at 4%. The CSN received over 1.2 million complaints during calendar year 2008.