How the Surveillance State is Becoming PermanentALFRED McCOY, awmccoy at wisc.edu McCoy is professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He wrote a piece for TomDispatch yesterday titled ” Surveillance Blowback: The Making of the U.S. Surveillance State, 1898-2020.” The piece is based on his new book Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State.