Charlotte, which welcomes the Democratic National Convention next week, has linked up 500 cameras to keep watch on the city and built a special new surveillance command center to do the watching.

FORBES: RNC and DNC Prove Once Again That Big Events Come With Big (Lasting) Surveillance

New modules are planned for anti-submarine warfare, minehunting, surface warfare, surveillance and special operations.

ECONOMIST: Military technology

"We asked that they take special measures to increase security and surveillance, " he wrote.

CNN: Rice forcefully rebuts Clarke testimony

That special court reviews requests on government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases.

NPR: Ex-Pentagon Chief Gates OK With Drone Oversight

They will ask why it was necessary in these 30 cases to bypass the special court set up to issue surveillance warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

NPR: Justifications More Troubling Than Spying Itself

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment, which specialises in surveillance and intelligence gathering, has also been deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

BBC: Forces are a threat - McGuinness

This operation was several weeks in the making, and the small village of Zargaran, in the southeastern province of Zabul, has been under surveillance much longer, says a Special Forces captain who is the commander of the joint operation.

NPR: U.S.-Afghan Force Raids Suspected Taliban Hideout

In 1978, after Congressional investigations of the CIA, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which set up a secret, special court inside the Justice Department to issue warrants for this kind of spying.

CNN: Limits to power

It's called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. It established a special secret court to approve national security warrants, and in the years since that court has approved 19, 000 of them and rejected just five.

NPR: Gonzalez: U.S. Surveillance Legal