The Police Union of German States may be one of the first formal initiatives in industrialized society to establish an organized police system across national borders. In 1851 the police forces of Austria, Baden, and the German principalities of Prussia, Hannover, Bavaria, and Wurttemberg formed the union in order to unite their efforts to suppress revolutionary political activities following the popular unrests of 1848. Between 1851 and 1866, the Police Union organized annual meetings; exchanged confiscated political materials; and distributed information on wanted revolutionaries, democratic liberal political parties, religious groups, and the press. This paper reviews the organizational structures and surveillance activities of the Union in the context of Europe's political history and the transformation of the police function. The evidence presented shows the value of a perspective of international policing as a political technology. This perspective can elucidate the relative autonomy of police operations in the political context and their functionally driven expansion beyond nation-state borders. What this analysis suggests is the value of a theoretical framework that takes into account a political technology of international policing. 58 references