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. (en)