Before It Watched Everyone, It Watched Black America
How surveillance of Black Americans became the blueprint for modern state monitoring
“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [...] and the like.”
— William O. Douglas, Points of Rebellion
Surveillance and the Seeds of Power
When a government begins surveilling its citizens, it is often only a matter of time before civil liberties erode. Surveillance has long been a defining feature of authoritarian systems. Historically, such governments tend to fear dissent and rely on monitoring populations to maintain control.
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has intensified immigration enforcement, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has invested heavily in surveillance technology.
Civil-liberties advocates warn that such systems can capture data on U.S. citizens, including activists and critics. Officials maintain these tools are designed to identify dangerous individuals. Yet history shows surveillance infrastructures, once built, rarely remain confined to their original purpose.
When Surveillance Becomes Personal
In a reported encounter in Maine, an ICE agent allegedly photographed a legal observer’s vehicle and said it was being entered into a database, referring to the individual as a “domestic terrorist.” Public confirmation of that statement has not been issued, but the allegation has circulated widely and raised concerns among civil-liberties observers about how surveillance labels may be applied.
Separate court filings in an ongoing case state that Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, was shot multiple times by federal agents during an enforcement operation in Chicago after reportedly being flagged through monitoring tied to social-media activity. Martinez is suing the federal government. Authorities dispute aspects of the claims, and the litigation is ongoing.
During a congressional hearing, acting ICE director Todd Lyons testified that the agency does not maintain a database of citizens protesting ICE. Still, cases like Martinez’s raise broader questions about how individuals come to be flagged, categorized, and tracked.
Nothing New Under the American Sun
These developments are not historically unprecedented. Many of today’s surveillance practices echo earlier systems used within the United States. Numerous tactics now debated publicly today—monitoring movement, gathering personal data, and tracking associations have precedents stretching back centuries.
Black Americans, for example, were subjected to extensive monitoring from slavery through the Jim Crow era. Enslaved people were watched by overseers and informants tasked with preventing revolts. After emancipation, surveillance persisted through laws and policies that regulated Black movement, labor, and political organizing.
Prominent Black leaders were frequently targeted. The government closely monitored Marcus Garvey, an early precursor to the monitoring of Black activists, who was eventually deported following years of investigation tied to his Black activism and political messaging.
COINTELPRO and the Criminalization of Dissent
During the 1960s, the FBI conducted COINTELPRO, a covert counterintelligence program aimed at infiltrating and disrupting Black political movements. Nearly every Black leader, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and organization was being surveilled by the FBI. One of its most prominent targets was Fred Hampton, chairman of the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party.
Hampton built a multiracial coalition of working-class activists to challenge poverty, racism, and police brutality. To FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, that organizing made him dangerous. Hoover’s FBI labeled him a potential “Black Messiah” and authorized extensive surveillance.
An informant inside Hampton’s organization provided authorities with a detailed floor plan of his apartment and allegedly drugged him before a police raid. On December 4, 1969, officers fired nearly 100 shots, killing Hampton and fellow Panther Mark Clark. According to Akua Njeri, who was beside him that night, she heard an officer say after the shooting that “he’s probably gonna make it,” which was followed by one gunshot to the head. “He’s good and dead now.” Hampton was 21 years old.
Surveillance in this case did not merely observe events. It helped set them in motion. This is not new. This is not rare. This is not accidental.
From Then to Now
After the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014 following the police killing of Michael Brown, federal authorities again increased monitoring of activists. Subsequent reporting revealed intelligence assessments using categories such as “Black Identity Extremists,” which civil-rights organizations argued risked conflating protest activity with terrorism.
Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, watchdog groups documented expanded digital tracking of demonstrations and online speech. The technologies were new. The logic — monitor first, justify later — was not.
The Pattern History Reveals
The surveillance apparatus built to monitor Black Americans did not disappear; it became a blueprint later applied to other groups the state considered disruptive or disposable.
Surveillance rarely remains limited to its initial targets. Systems justified for one purpose often expand into others. Tools built for immigration enforcement can be used for protest monitoring. Technologies developed for national security can be repurposed for domestic intelligence.
When abuses directed at one group go unchallenged, those same mechanisms often broaden to include others.
All Eyes, Everywhere
The real danger of surveillance is not simply that someone may be watching. It is that power, once given the ability to watch, seldom chooses to look away.
What begins as a tool of control against the few often becomes a mechanism of control over the many. And history suggests that when the state keeps its eyes on the people, freedom is usually the first thing it loses sight of.
Publisher’s Note
Professor Brandon J. Sutton teaches U.S. History at the Community College of Baltimore County. Professor Sutton graduated from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in political science and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Liberty University.
This essay reflects the author’s analysis, historical interpretation, and moral judgment based on publicly available reporting, historical scholarship, and patterns of state violence in the United States. Descriptions of institutions, policies, and events are offered in the context of political critique and protected opinion.