Pulitzer Prize for Global Surveillance Tech Investigation

The Pulitzer Prize board awarded its international reporting prize on Monday to journalists Dake Kang, Garance Burke, Byron Tau and Aniruddha Ghosal, along with independent journalist Yael Grauer, for a global investigation into advanced tools of mass surveillance.

The series examined how U.S. technology companies contributed to the expansion of China's government surveillance systems over recent decades. Through three years of reporting, including analysis of thousands of documents and numerous interviews, the journalists found that American firms helped build the infrastructure used to monitor and police Chinese citizens. Some companies marketed their surveillance capabilities directly as a selling point.

The investigation also revealed that, across multiple U.S. presidential administrations, government policies allowed technology companies and China to bypass regulations restricting access to sensitive materials, such as advanced computer chips.

In the United States, one report detailed the U.S. Border Patrol's use of an intelligence program that tracks drivers' travel patterns via license plate data, extending beyond border crossings. An algorithm identified patterns as...