The modern surveillance state in America traces back at least to the U.S. occupation of the Philippines, during which new inventions like photography and telegraphy were used to amass data on Filipino leaders and civilians—including information about their properties, personal networks, and finances—to scan for signs of dissent. And we could perhaps date it even earlier: Simone Browne, author of Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness, relates eighteenth-century “lantern” laws in New York City, which demanded black persons carry lanterns if they walked unaccompanied by white persons after dark