Watching the Watchers
Half a century of domestic surveillance, and the oversight documents that exposed it.
12 documents · 1956–2026 · 6 issuers
Every era of American domestic intelligence has produced its own exposé: a burglary, a leak, an inspector general, a court case. Together they form a continuous record of the same tension between security and liberty, mostly written by the government about itself.
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1956–71: the FBI's campaign against domestic political groups.
- 1956 QA-0013FBI · Case file
COINTELPRO: FBI counterintelligence program files
Files from the FBI's 1956–1971 program to disrupt, discredit and divide domestic political groups, from the Communist Party to civil-rights, Black nationalist and New Left organizations.
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1970: a plan to legalize the illegal, rescinded in five days.
- 1975 QA-0063Senate · Hearing
Huston Plan: Church Committee Hearings, Volume 2
Hearings on the 1970 'Huston Plan', a White House proposal to lift limits on domestic burglary, mail opening and electronic surveillance of anti-war activists.
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1973: the CIA lists its own transgressions.
- 1973 QA-0001CIA · Report
The “Family Jewels”: CIA internal compilation of questionable activities
A roughly 700-page dossier assembled in 1973 at the order of Director James Schlesinger, listing CIA activities that may have broken the agency's charter: domestic wiretaps and surveillance of journalists, mail opening, and assassination plotting.
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1976: the Church Committee's verdict.
- 1976 QA-0058Senate · Report
Church Committee Final Report, Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans
The Church Committee's central finding: decades of FBI, CIA, NSA and IRS spying on Americans for political beliefs, including COINTELPRO, mail opening and watch lists.
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1977: the mind-control records that survived the shredder.
- 1977 QA-0059Senate · Hearing
Project MKULTRA, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification (1977 hearing)
The joint Senate hearing held after financial records of MKULTRA, the CIA's mind-control research program, turned up despite the agency's 1973 order to destroy them.
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The 1963 interrogation manual, still being declassified in 2026.
- 1963 QA-0134CIA · Manual
KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation manual (1963), most complete release
The CIA's 1963 interrogation manual, which described coercive techniques that later appeared in Cold War training materials, re-reviewed under a Mandatory Declassification Review (case EOM-2021-00117).
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2007: the Patriot Act's letters, audited.
- 2007 QA-0068DOJ OIG · Report
A Review of the FBI's Use of National Security Letters (2007)
The first audit of the Patriot Act's expanded National Security Letters, which let the FBI demand phone, financial and internet records without a judge.
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2009: five inspectors general on Stellar Wind.
- 2009 QA-0069DOJ OIG · Report
Unclassified Report on the President's Surveillance Program (2009)
A joint report by the Inspectors General of DOJ, DoD, CIA, NSA and ODNI on the warrantless surveillance program authorized after 9/11, including the 2004 hospital-room confrontation over its legality.
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2014: the Senate on CIA detention and interrogation.
- 2014 QA-0060SSCI · Report
Committee Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program (S. Rept. 113-288)
The declassified executive summary and findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee's study of CIA 'enhanced interrogation' after 9/11, drawn from millions of CIA cables.
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2019: how secret-court warrants actually get written.
- 2019 QA-0070DOJ OIG · Report
Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation
The Inspector General found the investigation properly opened, but identified 17 significant errors or omissions in the FISA surveillance applications targeting Carter Page.
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2024: the bank-records front.
- 2024 QA-0145House · Report
House report: how federal law enforcement commandeered financial institutions to spy on Americans (2024)
A 2024 House Judiciary subcommittee staff report alleging that federal agencies used banks' suspicious-activity tools to search customer transactions after January 6 using broad keywords.
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2026: the legally required description of what the CIA keeps on you.
- 2026 QA-0081CIA · Regulation
Privacy Act of 1974; System of Records (Central Intelligence Agency, July 2026)
A CIA Privacy Act notice.
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