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The Pinkertons Still Never Sleep

The notorious union-busting agency has resurfaced in a telecommunications labor dispute, showing how it's adapted to the 21st century.
by Sarah Jones via The New Republic on March 23, 2018
National Security Agency headquarters.

A Brief History of Surveillance in America

With wiretapping in the headlines and smart speakers in millions of homes, a look back to the early days of eavesdropping.
by Brian Hochman, April White via Smithsonian on March 22, 2018
Catalog, in red and black, for Drum & Spear Bookstore, depicting silhouettes of three people with afro hairstyles.

The FBI's War on Black-Owned Bookstores

At the height of the Black Power movement, the Bureau focused on the unlikeliest of public enemies: black independent booksellers.
by Joshua Clark Davis via The Atlantic on February 19, 2018
Telephone from 1896

Want to Guess When the First Telephone Appeared in Literature?

It's probably further back than you think.
by Mark Lasswell via Weekly Standard on December 21, 2017

Commercial Surveillance State

Blame the marketers.
by Matthew Crain, Anthony Nadler via n+1 on September 27, 2017

My Journey to the Heart of the FOIA Request

How a simple request became a bureaucratic nightmare.
by Spenser Mestel via Longreads on September 20, 2017
Cartoon panel of a man with a typewriter and a Department of Justice logo on the wall

They’ve Always Been Watching Us

From COINTELPRO to the NSA’s surveillance program, the US Government has been keeping a close watch on the American Left for a long time.
by Andy Warner, Jess Parker via The Nib on July 10, 2017

Law Enforcement is Still Used as a Colonial Tool In Indian Country

Leaked documents reveal coordination between big business and law enforcement to break up last year’s protests at Standing Rock.
by Julian Brave NoiseCat via The Marshall Project on June 28, 2017

Eavesdropping on Roy Cohn and Donald Trump

Remembering the switchboard operator who listened in on Cohn’s calls with Nancy Reagan, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carlo Gambino, and Trump.
by Marcus Baram via The New Yorker on April 14, 2017
The logout screen for "The Cave," the author's 1990s-era bulletin board system.

The Lost Civilization of Dial-Up Bulletin Board Systems

A former systems operator logs back in to the original computer-based social network.
by Benj Edwards via The Atlantic on November 4, 2016
Blackfoot Chief, Mountain Chief making phonographic record at Smithsonian, February 9, 1916.

Eavesdropping on History

By all accounts, young Bill Owens was a natural song-catcher, trawling across Texas in the 1930s, the golden era of American field recording.
by Cynthia Shearer via Oxford American on April 5, 2016
Graphic illustration of people standing in a line with text boxes over their heads

Internet Privacy, Funded By Spies

Spies, counterinsurgency campaigns, hippie entrepreneurs, privacy apps funded by the CIA.
by Yasha Levine via Surveillance Valley on March 3, 2016
Bill Clinton giving a speech.

How a Democrat Killed Welfare

Bill Clinton gutted welfare and criminalized the poor, all while funneling more money into the carceral state.
by Premilla Nadasen via Jacobin on February 9, 2016
Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth the First's spymaster.

Open to Inspection

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the age of surveillance.
by Lewis H. Lapham via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 1, 2016
Crowd with hands up at World Youth Festival

When the C.I.A. Duped College Students

Inside a famous Cold War deception.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on March 16, 2015
Visa as the Mark of the Beast, as imagined by a 1960s Christian tract.

Technology and Apocalypse in America

Some sects of Christian belief have long held that various forms of technology were signs of an approaching apocalypse.
by Daniel Salas via The Appendix on August 27, 2014
National Security Agency headquarters.

They Know Much More Than You Think

US intelligence agencies seem to have adopted Orwell’s idea of doublethink—“to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.”
by James Bamford via New York Review of Books on August 15, 2013
A picture of a woman at a protest against Islamophobia.

The Most Patriotic Act

A warning from September 2001 about government overreach in the name of national security.
by Eric Foner via The Nation on September 20, 2001
Stokely Carmichael talking to members of the press at the House Rules Committee (1966).

Watching the Watchers

Confessions of an FBI special agent.
by Robert Wall via New York Review of Books on January 27, 1972
Photograph of a soldier using a telephone in the field.

A History of Wire-Tapping

Meyer Berger’s 1938 look at the technology, history, and culture of eavesdropping, from the wiretapping of Dutch Schulz to the invention of the Speak-O-Phone.
by Meyer Berger via The New Yorker on June 11, 1938
Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff/Getty Images

The Rise of the US Military’s Clandestine Foreign War Apparatus

In the darkest days of the Iraq War, the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command emerged as one of the most influential institutions in government.
by Seth Harp via Wired on August 12, 2025
World Trade Center towers burning on 9/11.

The Righteous Community: Legacies of the War on Terror

A new book traces how "the wet dream of an ageing militarist has become a fundamental force driving American foreign policy."
by Jackson Lears via London Review of Books on July 24, 2025
Pages from Eve Adams' Polish passport.

Deported From the U.S. for Publishing 'Lesbian Love,' She Was Later Killed by Nazis

Eve Adams was imprisoned for disorderly conduct and obscenity, then sent back to Europe, where she became a target of the Holocaust.
by Kellie B. Gormly via Smithsonian Magazine on June 26, 2025
Color lithograph advertisement showing the interior of a Pullman dining-car, with the Pullman factory out the window, 1894.
partner

Walking the Race Line on the Train Line

Investigators never reached a conclusion about the death of Pullman porter J. H. Wilkins, but his killing revealed much about the dangers of his profession.
by Matthew Wills, Rosemary Pearce via JSTOR Daily on June 21, 2025
Protestors confronting Army military police.

When the Military Comes to American Soil

Domestic deployments have generally been quite restrained. Can they still be?
by Joshua Braver via The Atlantic on June 17, 2025
A guard watching prisoners at CECOT prison in El Salvador in 2025.

The Roots of Bukele’s Gulag

Understanding why Trump is using El Salvador to test the limits of illegal deportation requires returning to the US’s long history of outsourcing violence.
by John B. Washington via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2025
A racially diverse group of children saying the Pledge of Allegiance while one holds an American flag.

Who Gets to Be an American?

Since the earliest days of the Republic, American citizenship has been contested, subject to the anti-democratic impulses of racism, suspicion, and paranoia.
by Michael Luo via The New Yorker on May 20, 2025
Picture of Yalta revealed behind torn paper

The Post-World War II System Was Always Fragile

Franklin Roosevelt warned that even in peacetime, America’s obligations to the world would continue.
by Julian E. Zelizer via Foreign Policy on May 12, 2025
LAPD building dedicated to William H. Parker.

The World Darryl Gates Made: Race, Policing, and the Birth of SWAT

The very features that made the LAPD appear more professional also expanded its reach and capacity for violence.
by Aaron Stagoff-Belfort via The Metropole on May 7, 2025
Waves crashing onto the sidewalk during a King Tide in San Diego.

Property and Permanence on the California Coastline

California has long allowed an ambiguous boundary between public and private land along its coast. Climate change is testing the limits of this compromise.
by Andrew Malmuth via Places Journal on May 1, 2025
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