25 Years of Mass Surveillance in the United States Since 9/11

This essay examines 25 years of mass surveillance in the United States since September 11, 2001, when the government shifted from targeted surveillance to mass collection techniques. The NSA's telephone records collection program started under executive authority and later operated under Section 215 of the Patriot Act from 2006 until 2015, when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected this interpretation and Congress passed the USA Freedom Act. Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act authorized the NSA's Upstream program for mass interception of telecommunications data, which officially expired in 2026 though previously-approved surveillance continues until at least Spring 2027. The FBI confirmed in congressional testimony that it purchases information on Americans from data brokers. A Texas police officer misused license plate readers with 83,000 cameras to track a woman suspected of seeking an abortion, and the 2026 U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy states the government will use national security tools to map and identify membership of domestic activist groups it deems anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist.