The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State is a non-fiction book by American journalist Shane Harris, published in 2010. It details the rise of surveillance programs in the U.S. Author Harris had previously served as a writer for outfits such as Foreign Policy, National Journal, and The Washingtonian. The book has received critical praise from various reviews, with Booklist commenting that "Harris sifts through a confusing array of acronyms, fascinating characters, and chilling operations to offer an absorbing look at modern spying technology and how it impacts average Americans". As well, Publishers Weekly described the book as having a "informative and dramatic narrative". Alexandra Silver of Time remarked that the book "reads like a spy novel". Harris writes that mass surveillance in the U.S. accelerated due to the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, while the impetus behind it goes back decades to the Reagan Administration. Then, as Harris recounts, the National Security Agency's Director, Michael Hayden, spearheads a successful secret campaign to persuade the rest of the Bush administration to expand the efforts made previously under the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. The NSA organizes a massive undertaking to sort through the vast data cloud of e-mails, phone calls, and the like that it can collect; its work expands and expands over the years. Background and contents Harris has worked as a writer for the publications Foreign Policy, National Journal, and The Washingtonian, discussing issues such as government intelligence and cyber-security. Harris traces back modern counter-terrorist efforts through surveillance to the reaction to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, in which U.S. intelligence networks failed to piece together the numerous clues about militant activity against Americans inside the Lebanese Civil War. Facing the sudden challenge of suicide bombings and threats of more attacks, the administration of President Ronald Reagan adopted a war-centered posture against militant groups, trying to re-organize the U.S. federal government upon the task, such as by tracking down and then freezing terrorist assets. The terminology of a 'war on terrorism' becomes used for about for the first time. Shocked by the death of a full 241 Marines in the aforementioned attack, John Poindexter, then President Reagan's National Security Advisor, comes up with a grand vision of collecting real-time intelligence data in a massive federal government system. Despite his skill in both technical know-how as well as managing state funds, his reach exceeds his grasp. Still, even