Well, NO SHIT, Sherlock: 'The NSA Didn’t Like The Movie "Enemy Of The State" ' - BuzzFeed

[WillyT]

And remember... this was ALL before 9/11...

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The NSA Didn’t Like The Movie "Enemy Of The State"
The NSA appears to be image aware.
Andrew Kaczynski - BuzzFeed Staff
February 19, 2014 at 2:05pm EST


Smith in “Enemy of the State.” Enemy of the State Screenshot

<snip>

The National Security Agency was worried about their image when the 1999 blockbuster Will Smith film Enemy of the State was released. In an interview with CNN in 2001, then-NSA chief Michael Hayden invited the cable news network to profile the agency in part because of the movie.

The film revolves around attempts by Congress, pressed by the National Security Agency, to pass a bill which would expand the agency’s surveillance powers. Rogue NSA agents kill a U.S. congressman who opposes the bill in a park, only to realize they were recorded by a bird watcher. The bird watcher, chased by the NSA, passes the information along to Will Smith’s character — and Smith’s character then finds his phones tapped, clothing bugged, house burglarized, among other attempts by the agency to get Smith.

“I made the judgment that we couldn’t survive with the popular impression of this agency being formed by the last Will Smith movie,” Hayden said in the interview, which aired in March 2001.

“When Gen. Michael Hayden saw the movie, he saw a problem — an image problem. That is in part why the NSA decided to let CNN inside the NSA to see where code breakers gather, and code makers protect the nation’s secrets,” CNN’s David Ensor narrated in the segment. “Above all, Hayden knows NSA cannot afford to be seen as trampling on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens.”

“It has to be somewhat a secretive agency, and right in the middle of a political culture that just trusts two things most of all: power and secrecy,” Hayden continued. “That’s a challenge for us, and that’s why, frankly, we’re trying to explain what it is we do for America, how it is we follow the law. Could there be abuses? Of course. Would there be? I am looking you and the American people in the eye and saying: There are not.”

<snip>

More: http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-nsa-didnt-like-the-movie-enemy-of-the-state

[blkmusclmachine]

1. The Truth Is Out There.

[valerief]

2. I'll bet Congress doesn't like House of Cards either. nt

[Th1onein]

3. Please, General Hayden, don't look us in the eye anymore.

Your lips are moving, so you must be lying.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. I'm guessing that before 9/11, the scope and scale of the NSA's mission was

much more reasonable.

In the immediate aftermath, I picture it something like the comic book villain Bane, with his venom steroid injector stuff bolted onto him.

The reins were cut loose. The budgets boosted. Etc.

[Th1onein]

6. if I recall correctly, Bush started this before 9/11

It was supposed to have been scaled back under Obama, but it wasn't. It got much more pervasive.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. QWest CEO Joseph Nacchio certainly claimed it did.

Some 7 months before 9/11.

I don't know that he is credible though, at the time the claim was made, given he was cooling his heels in prison for insider trading.

(If there are other sources for that claim, I am not personally aware of them at the moment. I am certainly open to additional evidence.)

[Th1onein]

10. I think you need to look more closely at Joseph Nacchio's case.

I believe he was put in prison because he would not play ball with them. He was the only one who fought them, in fact.

[AtheistCrusader]

13. I have.

I'll admit, it's possible he was railroaded. But his entire company went down too. The company itself was so destitute, it couldn't pay its SEC fine (250 million) when investigated for insider trading.

That doesn't speak to quality leadership. I view Qwest as a less-successful Enron, and the management as worthless/cheap knockoffs of Skilling, etc.


If the company had been fiscally healthy, that would, in my eyes, lend credence to the possibility that Nacchio was possibly railroaded. But it turns out Qwest's financials were an illusion. I can think of only one possible reason for that happenstance.

[Th1onein]

15. In the end, the victors write the history.

And I don't trust them at all. I think that they did, indeed, railroad the man.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. You would be completely wrong in that guess.

What 9/11 did change was that it allowed the evil we were already doing to come out, as it were.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Well, domestic surveilance has existed in telecom form since at least WWII.

But a lot of the 'evil', at least in that I read into your meaning, is actually other alphabet-soup agencies, like the CIA. Sure, we've done plenty of that, well documented.

From my understanding of the NSA's work, domestically, and only in regards to historical context, there was a sea change in rules of engagement after 9/11.

Claims of the illegal wiretapping prior to 9/11 hinge on, from what I recall, mostly your personal estimate of credibility in a convicted QWest executive's claims. (Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading) He claims he was approached about deploying such components 7 months before 9/11.

Personally, I don't rate his credibility very high, but I won't say it couldn't have happened, either. Hard to tell which thief in a pack of thieves is not lying at any given moment.

[Egalitarian Thug]

11. If that's the extent of your knowledge of the pre-9/11 surveillance state,

you just weren't paying attention.

There is no separating the various alphabet soup of these agencies as each and every one was founded by the same people and staffed by the same approved screening universities. They are the tool of the parasites to be used against anyone that might cause real trouble for them. Any information they might uncover regarding the plots and plans of other governments or groups is purely incidental to their purpose.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Disagree.

But perhaps we aren't using the same language, or referring to the same precise things, and that is leading to disagreement.

When you specified 'evils', that suggested to me, things like kicking over the Iranian government in 1952. Granted, happenstance that is the year of the NSA's founding, but that little bit of fuckery was perpetrated by the CIA. If the NSA was involved, it was in the form of surveillance, and communication encryption the CIA may have used. The NSA didn't kick over the Iranian government. (An evil act, no doubt) The CIA did it, but may have used NSA materials in the performance of its evil. (or materials of its predecessor: the Armed Forces Security Agency)


I will agree insofar as this: The CIA and the NSA DO work together. The NSA does develop intelligence, and counter-intel that the CIA does use. And its original name (Armed Forces Security Agency) is probably more accurate than 'National Security Agency' in describing the scope and scale, or nature of the NSA.

My previous objection was more along the lines of FISA type warrantless wiretapping and mass collection of domestic data without warrant. Something that, in my estimate, went gangbusters in the aftermath of 9/11 not because they were given a green light, but because they were actively encouraged to DO it ASAP, by the very legislative entities and oversight committees that should have considered our rights FIRST, not last.

[dougolat]

12. If he was sincere, it still leaves the private contractors with a free-for-all!

Voyeurism for the grunts
Power trips for the low-level managers
Blackmail ammo for the higher-ups
And beyond insider-trading info for the movers and shakers

[MisterP]

5. what about "The Siege"? or "Blow"?!

on edit: that last one's about the *snicker* "Last GOP Patriot" (near the bottom)

[Ichingcarpenter]

14. SNEAKERS -1992

George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four is the most famous fictional work about omnipresent government surveillance and its myriad risks. Yet, an often-overlooked movie from 1992 provides even more prescient insights into the modern surveillance state, especially recently revealed National Security Agency collection programs.

Sneakers centers on the development of an advanced decryption device that can break all U.S. codes — and the NSA’s attempts to obtain the device at all costs.

Along the way, it explores the legality of NSA domestic surveillance, the U.S. government’s interest in spying on Americans, and the onset of the digital age in which information is power. Despite a tongue-in-cheek plot, Sneakers is extremely relevant for the ongoing public debate about privacy and the serious risks posed to civil liberties by increased NSA domestic surveillance.
Sneakers was the first major Hollywood movie to focus on the NSA

Read more: Too Many Secrets: The Movie Sneakers and the Risks of NSA's Domestic Surveillance | TIME.com http://nation.time.com/2013/07/18/too-many-secrets-on-sneakers-and-the-nsa/#ixzz2tqa6UoGP