Oracle Corporation acquired BlueKai, one of the world’s largest data brokerage and web tracking companies, on February 24, 2014, for approximately $400 million, significantly expanding Oracle’s commercial surveillance capabilities. The acquisition gave Oracle control of one of the …
Elliptic is founded in London by Adam Joyce, Tom Robinson, and James Smith, becoming the first company to develop cryptoasset anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance tools based on blockchain analytics. The company pioneers the application of blockchain forensics to track illicit …
The New Orleans Police Department launches a secretive predictive policing program in partnership with Palantir Technologies, a data-mining firm founded with seed money from the CIA’s venture capital arm In-Q-Tel. The program operates without public knowledge or oversight, escaping scrutiny …
PredPol, a predictive policing software company, is founded in Santa Cruz, California by UCLA Professor of Anthropology Jeff Brantingham and mathematician George Mohler. The company emerges from research begun in 2010 when Brantingham recruited UCLA mathematicians to develop algorithms for …
Beginning around 2012, Amazon deployed comprehensive automated surveillance systems in its warehouses that tracked worker productivity per second through handheld scanners, creating what labor advocates described as algorithmic …
FBI field offices around the country began surveilling Occupy Wall Street organizers as early as August 2011—a month before the first protesters arrived at Zuccotti Park—treating the nonviolent economic justice movement as a potential terrorist threat despite acknowledging internally that organizers …
FBI agents executed coordinated early-morning raids on the homes and offices of anti-war and international solidarity activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, and other cities, seizing computers, phones, documents, and political materials. The raids targeted activists organizing against the Iraq and …
Former NSA senior executive Thomas Drake was indicted on ten felony counts, including five under the Espionage Act of 1917, marking the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecution of national security whistleblowers. Drake faced up to 35 years in prison for allegedly retaining classified …
By 2008, the Bush administration had privatized 70% of the intelligence budget to private contractors, creating a ‘shadow intelligence community’ with unprecedented corporate access to classified information. Associate DNI Ronald Sanders confirmed that 37,000 ‘core’ …
Between September 2008 and October 2009, Sprint Nextel disclosed GPS location data for wireless subscribers over 8 million times via a specialized secure government portal, illustrating the extensive telecommunications surveillance capabilities during this period.
In 2007, Verizon was deeply involved in NSA surveillance programs, participating in classified intelligence collection efforts during the Bush Administration, demonstrating the close relationship between telecommunications companies and national security agencies.
The FBI ordered informant Craig Monteilh to infiltrate multiple large mosques in Orange County, California, in a dragnet surveillance operation that targeted entire Muslim communities rather than specific suspects. The operation exemplified the FBI’s post-9/11 practice of religious profiling …
James Risen and Eric Lichtblau published a groundbreaking front-page New York Times article revealing the NSA had been conducting warrantless surveillance of Americans since 2001 under President Bush’s secret authorization. The story exposed that the NSA, traditionally focused on foreign …
Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andy Card went to George Washington Hospital ICU to pressure hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft to reauthorize the NSA surveillance program that the Department of Justice had deemed illegal. Acting Attorney General James Comey raced to the hospital with …
Accenture, leading the Smart Border Alliance, was awarded a major Department of Homeland Security contract to develop a comprehensive border management technology system. The five-year contract, valued between $10 million and $10 billion, aimed to create a ‘virtual border’ system using …
Congress passes the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for 2004 (H.R. 2658), containing language that permanently terminates funding for the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program and orders the immediate closure of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office. The Senate had voted …
During the Bush administration, AT&T began extensive collaboration with the NSA, involving the installation of surveillance infrastructure across multiple internet hubs. While the precise $500 million contract could not be fully verified, documents confirm significant financial investments in …
The New York Times publishes an investigative piece by John Markoff exposing the full scope of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, a $240 million initiative that aims to create unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities by mining personal data from financial …
At the DARPATech 2002 Conference in Anaheim, California, Rear Admiral John Poindexter publicly unveils the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, describing it as a comprehensive surveillance system to detect terrorists by monitoring ’transaction spaces’ including financial records, …
President Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act just 45 days after 9/11, following an unprecedented rushed legislative process that bypassed normal democratic deliberation. The 342-page bill was introduced October 23, passed the House 357-66 on October 24, and the Senate 98-1 on October 25, with only …
President George W. Bush authorized the NSA’s Stellar Wind warrantless domestic surveillance program, completely bypassing FISA court oversight in a fundamental alteration of constitutional checks and balances. The program allowed the NSA to collect phone metadata and internet communications …
In September 2001, AT&T established a secret partnership with the NSA to provide direct access to its internet backbone infrastructure, creating unprecedented mass surveillance capabilities that bypass traditional legal protections. This infrastructure enabled the systematic collection and …
The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, led by Senator Frank Church, comprehensively investigated illegal activities by US intelligence agencies. The committee exposed widespread constitutional violations including NSA’s Project …
On July 13, 1973, Alexander Butterfield—who had served as deputy assistant to President Nixon from 1969 to 1973—was questioned in a background interview by Senate Watergate Committee staff members prior to his public testimony. Butterfield was brought before the committee because he was H.R. …
The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI burglarized an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole classified documents that exposed COINTELPRO—the FBI’s covert and illegal program to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt American civil rights organizations and political …
On August 25, 1967, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover authorized the expansion of the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to create a new initiative targeting “Black Nationalist–Hate Groups.” This program represented a systematic effort by the nation’s premier law enforcement …
College students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton found the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in West Oakland, California, in response to systemic police brutality against African Americans. The organization emerges from the racial tensions and policing practices that plague Oakland, influenced by …
On October 10, 1963, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy signed an authorization permitting the FBI to wiretap the telephones of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference offices in New York and Atlanta. The authorization, requested by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, …
On August 28, 1956, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover formally established COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), a covert and illegal program designed to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt domestic political organizations. Initially targeting the Communist Party USA, the program would …
President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9835 on March 21, 1947, nine days after announcing the Truman Doctrine, establishing the first general loyalty program in United States history designed to root out Communist influence in the federal government. The order mandates loyalty …
The Pinkerton National Detective Agency operates throughout the Gilded Age as a private corporate army deployed against labor organizing, providing armed guards, infiltration agents, and strikebreaking services to employers seeking to crush unions through surveillance, espionage, and violence. …