The Scholar: Olin Rose-Bardawil 

The Project: Privacy in Peril: The History of U.S. Government Surveillance and Its Challenge to Civil Liberties 

The Essential Question: “My project is about the history of surveillance of American citizens by the American government and the impact this activity has on the government-citizen relationship, various social movements, and Americans’ ability to live with a certain degree of privacy. My essential question was: “does government surveillance activity pose a threat to Americans’ civil liberties?” My study of surveillance spanned all the way from the American Revolution, when both British and colonist officials used rudimentary spying tactics to gain intelligence on their enemies, to the post-9/11 era of surveillance that we are currently in. After learning about how the FBI used surveillance to undermine the Civil Rights Movement, and how the agencies like the NSA have begun collecting citizens’ private online data since 9/11, I determined that modern surveillance tactics used by the American government in the name of national security do in fact pose a threat to Americans’ rights to freedom and privacy outlined in the Constitution.”

Surprising Discovery: “One of the things I learned during my research was how J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI worked very hard to undermine the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by surveilling the private phone calls and letters between Martin Luther King and other leaders of the movement. Prior to this project, I had no idea that the government had gone to such great lengths to disrupt peaceful organizing, and I was pretty amazed by the fact that King was still able to be successful in fighting for the rights of African Americans in spite of the many governmental forces trying to take him down.”

Biggest Challenge: “One major challenge I faced was trying to decide which angle of my topic I should focus on. In the U.S., the history of surveillance is long and complicated, and there are many types of surveillance and spying that have taken place, often with very different motivations behind the surveillance. It was simply not possible to cover all angles of the history of government surveillance in the U.S., so I decided to primarily focus on the effects of surveillance that has taken place in the 21st century, more specifically after 9/11. Although I did cover the history of surveillance in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in my paper, these periods were more introduced as background and not necessarily what I focused on in my analysis. 

Tips for future scholars: “For history future scholars, my main piece of advice would be to use the resources of the Five College area to your advantage. There are so many great professors and experts at the five colleges and elsewhere who would be happy to assist in your research, and they can be good resources if you’re unsure of what direction to go in with your project. Also, try to narrow down your topic to one specific era or event–there is so much amazing information you can encounter when studying history, but it’s just not possible to cover it all. By taking a specific angle/lens in your research, you can develop a much more complex understanding of your topic.“