25 years after 9/11, a surveillance state few could have imagined

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the government built sweeping intelligence-sharing networks, including FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces and fusion centers now operating in every state, to close the gaps that had let the plot go undetected. Those networks, designed originally to prevent another attack, have since expanded to support investigations of lower-level crimes, according to NYU's Katie Kinsey.

Police departments have acquired license plate readers, camera networks and cellphone location tools once confined to national security work, and artificial intelligence can now connect these databases and generate analyses in seconds, a scale unimaginable in 2001. Gregory Nojeim of the Center for Democracy & Technology calls it a 'perfect storm' of expanded legal authority meeting advancing technology.

Civil liberties advocates warn these capabilities could be turned toward monitoring protests, tracking immigrants and identifying people seeking reproductive healthcare, while American Muslims and immigrant communities have borne a disproportionate share of post-9/11 scrutiny from the start.

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