A Comprehensive Research Report

By Malcolm Lee Kitchen III | Margin Of The Law

Executive Summary

The United States has constructed, over decades and across administrations of both parties, a vast apparatus of state control that many legal scholars, civil libertarians, and international human rights organizations now describe as a police state. This report documents that apparatus across ten interconnected dimensions: mass surveillance, police militarization, mass incarceration, civil asset forfeiture, qualified immunity, federal surveillance law, the erosion of Fourth Amendment protections, the suppression of dissent, the weaponization of federal prosecutorial power, and the rapid acceleration of all these trends under the second Trump administration from 2025 onward.

The evidence is not ideological. It is statistical, legal, and documented in federal court records, peer-reviewed research, inspector general reports, and rulings from federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties. The picture that emerges is of a nation where the machinery of government power has grown far faster than the constitutional guardrails designed to restrain it.

“2025 was characterized by executive power expanding openly and unapologetically, surveillance becoming ambient, dissent becoming dangerous, and the machinery of militarized government embedding itself into daily life.” — Rutherford Institute

Key Statistics at a Glance

People incarcerated in the U.S. (2025)

1.9 million (largest prison population on Earth)

People killed by police in 2024

1,375 — highest ever recorded

People killed by police in 2025

1,202 (first decline since 2021; 11% unarmed)

NSA surveillance targets (2025)

349,823 authorized targets

Warrantless border searches (2024)

46,000+ (more than quadrupled since 2015)

Civil forfeiture seized since 2000

At least $82 billion nationwide

287(g) agreements with local police (2025)

737 agencies across 40 states

Anti-protest bills introduced (since Jan. 2024)

103 bills passed or introduced

1. The Surveillance State

1.1  NSA Mass Collection Programs

The National Security Agency operates the largest known intelligence surveillance apparatus in human history. Revealed in full by contractor Edward Snowden in 2013, and confirmed through years of subsequent litigation and declassification, the NSA intercepts the communications of over a billion people across dozens of countries. The legal foundation is Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed in 2008, which allows the NSA to collect the communications of foreign nationals abroad without individual court orders. But a built-in backdoor allows warrantless access to communications involving Americans.

In 2025, there were 349,823 authorized Section 702 surveillance targets. The FISA Court found in March 2026 that the FBI had been using filtering tools to query Americans’ communications across the intelligence community, a practice the court ruled was ongoing and systemic even after DOJ claimed the problem had been fixed. FISA operates in near-total secrecy through one-sided procedures that heavily favor the government. The public has no access, defendants often do not know they were surveilled, and there is no meaningful adversarial process.

For the full details read the attached report.

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