Welcome!

Get ready to know the truth about your privacy–or lack thereof.

Inspired by the CBS television series Person of Interest, this blog focuses on the reality and evolution of digital surveillance during the last 50 or so years in the United States.

Spoiler: it’s more than you think.

You work at the behest of a system so broken that you didn’t even notice when it had been corrupted at its core. — Harold Finch, “The Day the World Went Away”

Pictured above is “The Machine,” a supercomputer that analyzes mass samples of digital surveillance footage and uses an algorithm to process potential terrorist attacks, sending the social security numbers to the government so these threats may be subdued before they begin. The main characters in the show use the “irrelevant” social security numbers to stop lower profile crimes in the city of Manhattan.

The moral code and process of “The Machine” seems futuristic, but is it? How close is our own society to this kind of elevated surveillance technology?

The pages in this blog explore the historical timeline of the legislation and some top-secret agency projects that reveal the true motives and actions of our very own democratic government. I hope you enjoy!