- Accelerated during wartime eras, surveillance by the government and large corporations has now become a staple of American life.
- Many websites utilize third-party cookies that cater ads toward specific consumer interests.
- Recently, the Trump Administration has used AI-driven social media monitoring tools for immigration enforcement.
It’s nearly impossible to move through a modern city without encountering surveillance technology. Security cameras line storefronts, while traffic systems log vehicle movements. Perhaps you open your phone with face ID, then scroll past ads that are eerily similar to your interests. While it was once exclusively associated with national emergencies, government and corporate surveillance is now a quiet part of our everyday lives.
Today, surveillance can be observed in both physical and digital environments. The average American is recorded by security cameras 34 times a day. Automated license plate readers can scan up to 1,800 plates per minute, and about 50% of American adults are in a facial recognition network. This data is permanently stored in a database, detailing one’s daily habits. This reality has contributed to discussion around a “surveillance state,” or a society where governments and infrastructure routinely monitor civilian activities.
Government surveillance in the United States has existed since before the internet era. In the late 19th century, police departments adopted fingerprinting to track suspects. Later, large-scale surveillance expanded after World War I.
“Since the World Wars, we’ve always been kind of a surveillance state,” freshman and debate team member Yuelin Xiong said. “We’ve just shifted our focus to more ambient and digital kinds of surveillance instead of group-level surveillance.”
The FBI was founded in 1908 to track criminal activity across state lines. During the Cold War, it began conducting extensive surveillance of civil rights leaders and antiwar activists through wiretaps, mail interception and investigative programs alongside the CIA. Public exposure of these practices in the 1970s sparked controversy and legislation, such as the 1966 Freedom of Information Act and 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act, which gives citizens access to records to monitor government and corporate data handling, such as contracts and consumer reports.
Nowadays, mass surveillance is widespread in social media and online data tracking. For example, most browser cookies — small text files that store data in your internet browser — are completely safe and enhance user experience, but third-party advertising cookies raise questions of data privacy: they cater ads to user interests by collecting information about browsing habits. Every Google search or Instagram like prompts tracking cookies to show related advertisements on different websites without user permission.
“People who are careful about being private and not using social media could still have a fingerprint on the internet,” junior Rhea Susarla said. “It’s concerning that the sites you visit and things you click on are just stored by websites.”
Cookies do not equate to direct identification of the user, as they simply create an anonymous ID associated with specific browsers. However, with how much personal information is publicly available on the internet, cookies have the potential to indirectly contribute to identification.
Social media profiling is another form of internet surveillance. By tracking social media behavior and account information, such as interests, date of birth and education, companies create targeted algorithms that tailor content in user feeds to maximize engagement.
“Those suggested stories or websites get really specific,” computer science teacher Mark Kwong said. “Your whole experience is the way they make revenue — by giving you things that will keep you on the site.”
Federal law agencies have invested $2.8 billion in surveillance technology such as facial recognition systems, mobile location-tracking and automated license plate readers. Supporters argue these tools are necessary for security, while critics argue that they expand monitoring beyond targeted investigations, raising concerns about oversight.
For example, President Donald Trump’s administration has implemented artificial intelligence-supported surveillance over social media posts of visa applicants and holders, foreign visitors and permanent residents. Agencies like the Department of Homeland Security also have extensive contracts with private tech companies, such as Palintir, to monitor digital activity and collect data for immigration enforcement, further building perceptions of America as a surveillance state.
“Intelligence agencies get that semblance of control over the population using surveillance,” Xiong said. “When people know they’re under surveillance, they tend to act more in line with what the government wants.”
Surveillance today operates through systems embedded in our daily routines and mobile devices. Where people go, what they search, who they interact with and how they behave now live down in detailed tech records.
