Surveillance CamerasTen Years Later:
Surveillance in the "Homeland"

A joint project between Truthout.org and ACLU

Ten years after the devastating attacks on New York and Washington, the fundamental promises of American democracy are hanging by a thin thread. Promoted by a culture of war and fear, the US government has steadily chipped away at those legal protections that enabled 'we the people' to rule ourselves. "Ten Years Later: Surveillance in the Homeland" charts the course of this shift, exposing the rapid advent of a technologically advanced surveillance state in the shadows of the Twin Towers.  Read the blog.



Surveillance

From fusion centers to license plate sharing technology, the expansion of surveillance methods has been a hallmark of the past ten years. Investigative journalists and privacy advocates consider just how far the surveillance state has expanded and what it's actually done for our security

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Immigration

Border security and 'homeland' security are integrally linked, both in the language used to justify their continuing growth and in the companies that profit off this growth. In this section, we look at private prison companies and their role in legislation, the introduction of biometric ID cards and how Islamophobia is used to fuel the war effort.

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FOIA

Freedom of Information Act requests are the bread and butter of investigative reporting, and here we compile what years of tireless requests by the ACLU have shed light on - including warrantless wiretapping, database sharing and the targeting of dissidents

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Targeting Immigrants

Immigration

"Let the terrorists among us be warned," then-attorney general John Ashcroft intoned before the US Conference of Mayors on October 25, 2001: "If you overstay your visa - even by one day - we will arrest you." 

Ashcroft's vow to "use all weapons within the law" against noncitizens to "enhance security for America" initially targeted Muslims.

They have been singled out for discriminatory enforcement of immigration regulations, from the post-9/11 "special interest" arrests to the present.  But the search for the "terrorists among us" has had a broad reach. In March 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer found, among cases classified as "terrorism" by the Justice Department, one involving 28 Latinos charged with working illegally at the airport in Austin, Texas. 

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