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This story originally appeared in the Jackson Free Press. It was added to the Mississippi Free Press website in 2025.
Note that any opinions expressed in legacy Jackson Free Press stories do not reflect a position of the Mississippi Free Press or necessarily of its staff and board members.

• Year that Congress voted to de-fund the “Total Information Awareness” surveillance program due to civil liberties concerns: 2003
• Year that the Pentagon admitted it planned to continue “TIA-like activities … outside public view”: 2004
• Number of Florida residents a test-run of the “MATRIX” database program flagged as “having a statistical likelihood of being terrorists”: 120,000
• Estimated value of contracts that will be given to companies for “anti-terror” projects each year until 2010, in billions: $150
Number of lobbyists hired by corporations to secure homeland security contracts: 569
• Number of communities that have passed resolutions opposing the Patriot Act and other “unconstitutional” surveillance programs: 344
Source: Institute for Southern Studies, southernstudies.org

Mississippi native Donna Ladd and partner Todd Stauffer founded the Jackson Free Press in 2002 in the capital city. The heavily awarded local newspaper did many investigations heralded across the state and nation and served as a paper of record due to its diversity, inclusion, in-depth reporting and deep connection to readers and dedication to narrative change in and about Mississippi. In 2022, the nonprofit Mississippi Free Press, founded by Ladd and JFP Associate Publisher Kimberly Griffin in 2020, purchased the journalism assets and archives of the Jackson Free Press. A Google grant through AAN Publishers enabled Newspack's integration of the JFP archives into the Mississippi Free Press website to become part of a more searchable archive of recent Mississippi history and essential journalism.