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Martin Luther King Jr. with other activists and children.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Perilous Power of Respectability

We revere the man and revile the strategy, but King knew what he was doing.
by Kelefa Sanneh via The New Yorker on May 8, 2023
Handheld video camera.

Smile, You're on Jury Duty!

First came 'Candid Camera.' Then 'The Truman Show.' Now, a new swath of TV speaks to 21st-century voyeurism.
by Jackie Mansky via Zócalo Public Square on April 28, 2023
Matthew Kacsmaryk in 2017 answers questions during a Senate hearing on his nomination to be a U.S. district judge.
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The Original Comstock Act Doesn’t Support the New Antiabortion Decision

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rationalized his medication abortion opinion through a distorted reading of the long-dormant 1873 law.
by Lauren MacIvor Thompson via Made By History on April 12, 2023
Collage of Putin, Khruschev, a missile, and a fighter jet.

Blundering on the Brink

The secret history and unlearned lessons of the Cuban missile crisis.
by Vladislav Zubok, Sergey Radchenko via Foreign Affairs on April 3, 2023
19th century mug shots in a book

A Brief History of the Mug Shot

Police have been using the snapshots in criminal investigations since the advent of commercial photography
by Ellen Wexler via Smithsonian on April 3, 2023
German observation balloon launched near the Somme, September 1916.
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Why a Spy Balloon Inspires Such Fear and Fascination

When it comes to protecting our personal privacy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
by Alison Byerly via HNN on February 19, 2023
Sailors recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Feb. 5.

Spy Balloons Evoke Bad Cold War Memories for China

Covert U.S. intrusions into Chinese airspace were common for decades.
by John Delury via Foreign Policy on February 13, 2023
A balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina on Feb. 4, shortly before it was shot down.
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Panic Over Spy Balloon Echoes Misguided Alarm Over Sputnik

In this case, freaking out makes even less sense because spy balloons are historically a sign of weakness.
by Kenneth Osgood via Made By History on February 13, 2023
Photos of UFO and the Chinese Spy Balloon.

Why Americans Are So Unsettled by the Chinese Spy Balloon

China’s balloon, whatever its purpose, became a physical and observable reminder of the often-invisible work nations do to keep tabs on one another.
by Kelsey D. Atherton via Slate on February 10, 2023
Eugene Debs mug shots at the US Penitentiary in Atlanta.

War Fever

The crusade against civil liberties during World War I.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on February 7, 2023
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), left, and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).
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The Church Committee Was Nothing Like Republicans’ New Investigation

In practice, aggressive congressional investigations of the intelligence community require consistent levels of public support.
by KC Johnson via Made By History on January 18, 2023
Banksy's Spy Booth depicting 3 spies listening in to a phone booth.

How the Drug War Convinced America to Wiretap the Digital Revolution

How the FBI's doomed attempt to stop criminal activity conducted via mobile phones shaped the regime of ubiquitous backdoor surveillance under which we live today.
by Brian Hochman via Humanities on January 6, 2023
A child in the backyard of the Avenel Cooperative.

The Most Dangerous Architect in America

Gregory Ain wanted to create social housing in Los Angeles. Dogged by the FBI, his hope for more egalitarian architecture never came to be.
by Kate Wolf via The Nation on December 21, 2022
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
by Beverly Gage, Michael Brenes via Jacobin on November 28, 2022
KKK march overlaid on J. Edgar Hoover

How Hoover Took Down the Klan

The FBI’s successful campaign against white supremacists is also a cautionary tale.
by Beverly Gage via The Atlantic on November 20, 2022
Black and white photo of J. Edgar Hoover sitting at his desk.

J. Edgar Hoover, Public Enemy No. 1

The F.B.I. director promised to save American democracy from those who would subvert it—while his secret programs subverted it from within.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on November 14, 2022
The Police Beat Algorithm, along with its computational key. Illustrated by Kelly Chudler.

The 1960s Experiment That Created Today’s Biased Police Surveillance

The Police Beat Algorithm’s outputs were not so much predictive of future crime as they were self-fulfilling prophesies.
by Charlton D. McIlwain via Slate on November 11, 2022
Black-and-white photo of Aretha Franklin's face.

Aretha Franklin’s Unsealed FBI File Shows Bureau Tracked Her Civil Rights Activism

The huge, declassified document includes death threats, red scare performances, and extensive investigation into her Yahoo! Groups fan site.
by Nina Corcoran, Jazz Monroe via Pitchfork on September 8, 2022
A protest sign raised in front of the Supreme Court, reading, "Keep abortion safe, legal, & accessible!"

The History of Abortion Law in the United States

The right to abortion has been both supported and contested throughout history.  When banned, abortions still occur, but legal restrictions make them less safe.
by Carrie N. Baker via Our Bodies Ourselves Today on August 12, 2022
Collage of photos of musicians.

How a Saxophonist Tricked the KGB by Encrypting Secrets in Music

Using a custom encryption scheme based on musical notation, US musicians smuggled information into and out of the USSR.
by Lily Hay Newman via Wired on June 8, 2022
Richard Nixon, Pat Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Betty Ford walking away from White House

Regime Change, American Style

A new book about Watergate is the first to stress how much we still do not know many of the basic facts about the burglary at its center.
by Christopher Caldwell via First Things on May 20, 2022
Person making call in telephone booth.

The Making of the Surveillance State

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on April 21, 2022
Drawing of aerial view of vast room of cubicles.

The 20-Year Boondoggle

The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to rally nearly two dozen agencies together in a streamlined approach to protecting the country. So what the hell happened?
by Amanda Chicago Lewis via The Verge on April 21, 2022
Chalk drawing of parent holding hands with child thinking about two-parent family

The “Benevolent Terror” of the Child Welfare System

The system's roots aren't in rescuing children, but in the policing of Black, Indigenous, and poor families.
by Dorothy E. Roberts, Nia T. Evans via Boston Review on March 31, 2022
Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan and Paul Newman in the 1973 movie ‘The Sting,’ in which con artists use wiretapping to gamble on a horse race.

The Wiretappers Who Invented a High-Tech Crime

Before Americans worried about government or corporate surveillance, 19th-century criminals took advantage of a new technology to steal valuable information.
by Brian Hochman via The Wall Street Journal on March 31, 2022
A still from the 1955 film 'Wiretapper.' The still depicts a man wearing headphones and touching a wire.

When New York City was a Wiretapper’s Dream

Eavesdropping flourished after WWII, aided by legal loopholes, clever hacks, and “private ears”.
by Brian Hochman via IEEE Spectrum on March 25, 2022
From left, Vincent Hallinan, Charlotta Bass and Paul Robeson in California in August 1952
partner

Black Internationalism Is the Antidote to America’s Love of War

How Charlotta Bass, a Black woman and peace activist, anticipated America’s path to militarism.
by Denise Lynn via Made By History on February 15, 2022
A class in Public School No. 8 on King Street, in New York City, discusses a book titled “We Love America,” brought to school by one of the pupils.

How Picking On Teachers Became an American Tradition

And why spying on the “bums” has been terrible for schools.
by Adam Laats via Slate on January 28, 2022
birds eye view of an intersecting highway with a speeding car

How America Broke the Speed Limit

How we wound up with the worst of both worlds: thousands of speed-related deaths, and a system of enforcement that is both ineffective and inescapable.
by Henry Grabar via Slate on December 15, 2021
Cover of Moyne's book, with the subtitle "How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War," in front of a desert landscape.

Not Humane, Just Invisible

A counter-narrative to Samuel Moyn’s "Humane": drone warfare and the long history of liberal empire blurring the line between policing and endless war.
by Priya Satia via Los Angeles Review of Books on December 3, 2021
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