Sounds like The Dead Past by Asimov, where there is a device like a television called the Chronoscope that can look at events that are further 120 years ago. The story goes on to reveal that the chronoscope can in fact:

View right up to the immediate past, anywhere on the planet,
making it a device that could destroy privacy.

As a result, in an attempt to keep this secret, or to prevent smaller and cheaper chronoscope's being invented, scientific freedom is rigidly controlled by the government.

Sounds like The Dead Past by Asimov, where there is a very rare device like a television called the Chronoscope that can look at events that in the very distant history. The story goes on to reveal that the chronoscope can in fact:

Only view up to a little over one hundred years in the past, but importantly it can
view up to the immediate past, essentially the 'living present', making it a device
that could destroy privacy for anyone on the planet.

As a result, in an attempt to keep this fact secret, and to prevent smaller and cheaper chronoscope's being invented, scientific freedom is rigidly controlled by the government, research outside your field being banned and with the techniques required to develop a Chronoscope being mysteriously unfunded.

You can see an adaptation of the story on YouTube.

Sounds like The Dead Past by Asimov, where there is a device like a television called the Chronoscope that can look at events that are further 120 years ago. The story goes on to reveal that the chronoscope can in fact:

view right up to the immediate past, anywhere on the planet

and

that this makes it a device that could destroy privacy.

As a result, in an attempt to keep this secret, or to prevent smaller and cheaper chronoscope's being invented, scientific freedom is rigidly controlled by the government.

Sounds like The Dead Past by Asimov, where there is a device like a television called the Chronoscope that can look at events that are further 120 years ago. The story goes on to reveal that the chronoscope can in fact:

View right up to the immediate past, anywhere on the planet,
making it a device that could destroy privacy.

As a result, in an attempt to keep this secret, or to prevent smaller and cheaper chronoscope's being invented, scientific freedom is rigidly controlled by the government.