Surveillance

[CLOSED] NACLA is currently accepting proposals for our Winter 2026 issue on state violence, insecurity, and the political production of “criminality.”

This special issue of the NACLA Report traces the returning and disseminating violence that is shaping the Americas today, from border militarization to algorithmic surveillance and the criminalization of dissent.

Newly declassified CIA documents reveal the links between Mexico’s contemporary surveillance state and a uniquely close Cold War collaboration with U.S. intelligence agencies.

[CLOSED] NACLA is currently accepting proposals for our Winter 2025 issue on the Americas as both site and system of imperial experimentation and return. Send us your pitches by May 2, 2025.

Mexico's experience with the militarization of prohibition and migration is defined by violence and displacement.

Since the outbreak of the largest protests seen in nearly three decades, the Cuban government has tightened its grip on the economy, further reducing citizens' freedoms.

The NSA disclosures, Latin American backlash, and what it means for hemispheric relations.

The NSA disclosures, Latin American backlash, and what it means for hemispheric relations.

As the Border Security Expo 2012 shows, the Arizona-Mexico border region is Ground Zero for the development of an immigration enforcement apparatus which soon enough may travel from the U.S. southern border to a neighborhood near you.

As the presence of drone in the U.S. borderlands becomes more pronounced, important lessons are to be drawn—from abroad and within the United States—regarding potential dangers ahead. They highlight the need to vigorously contest the the Department of Homeland Security's use of remotely-piloted aircraft for purposes of policing the border region.

In February, I visited the American Border Patrol (ABP), the vigilante group that claims to be the first to have used an unmanned aerial vehicle for surveillance on the U.S.-Mexico border. Though labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, ABP has much in common with the U.S. border enforcement policy, especially as the United States renews its call for surveillance technology and a "virtual wall."

A recent visit to Nogales, Arizona, and to the U.S. Border Patrol station there—the country's largest—brings home the dramatic transformation of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands over the last couple of decades. It also illustrates how U.S. authorities are envisioning and laying the groundwork for a "war" without end against what they construct as an endless supply of threats emanating from the Mexican side of the international divide.