The first episode of this six-part series, America's Surveillance State, touches briefly on themes each subsequent episode will focus on. Topics include the mechanics of the NSA surveillance program, how and why the Bush-Cheney administration loosened legal restrictions on domestic surveillance, and the industrial-surveillance complex. Also covered are the mainstream media's relationship with the NSA, and how the government is cracking down on investigative journalists who report leaks. Rather than undergo serious reform after whistleblower actions and public outrage, the NSA and other agencies seem to have a growing obsession with ferreting out potential internal threats to their way of doing things.