'1971' At Tribeca: An Analog Precursor To NSA, Snowden - AP/HuffPo

[WillyT]

'1971' At Tribeca: An Analog Precursor To NSA, Snowden
JAKE COYLE - AP/HuffPo
Posted: 04/18/2014 1:41 pm EDT Updated: 04/18/2014 1:59 pm EDT

<snip>

NEW YORK (AP) — A trove of government documents reveals widespread domestic surveillance of Americans. Leaked revelations hit the front pages of newspapers. A powerful governmental agency is brought under scrutiny.

Sound familiar?

It's the story of the documentary "1971," premiering Friday at the Tribeca Film Festival, a film about a little-known but hugely important break-in on March 8, 1971. A group of eight calling themselves the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into a laxly guarded satellite FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. They found files that proved the extensive spying that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was conducting on dissident groups, civil rights leaders and anti-Vietnam War activists. It was the initial revelation of Hoover's covert Cointelpro (counterintelligence) program.

If "1971" was a blockbuster, it would be called a prequel. In many ways, the story is an early echo of the National Security Agency and the Edward Snowden affair, only in a less technologically sophisticated time. (The manhunt for the burglars focused partly on tracing the photocopy machine they used.)

"My concern all along prior to Snowden was that people would view it as this quaint bit of history," says director Johanna Hamilton, who began working on the film four years ago. "Now, that's much less easy to do. I've always sort of laughed that they're the analog version."

The connection between "1971" and the NSA revelations isn't just historical metaphor. Laura Poitras, the journalist and documentarian, is a producer on the film. Snowden, an NSA contractor, initially contacted Poitras about leaking thousands of documents that revealed the NSA's collecting of Americans' phone and email records. On Monday, she shared in the Pulitzer Prize for public service given to The Washington Post and The Guardian for the NSA revelations.

In an exclusive interview, Poitras and Hamilton reflected on the connections between the two eras, both times of privacy intrusions revealed by government document theft. Though "1971" never explicitly refers to the NSA or Snowden, its thick contemporary relevance is hard to miss.

"You would have to be living in a cave not to pick up on it," says Poitras.

The burglars...

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More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/18/1971-tribeca-film-festival_n_5174648.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment

[arely staircase]

1. none of those people fled the country and made propaganda for fascists nt

[WillyT]

2. I Wonder If They Got Pulitzers ???

[arely staircase]

4. let me guess, you think Snowden got a Pulitzer don't you. nt

[WillyT]

5. No... But Close...

DULink: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024821710

[arely staircase]

6. close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades nt

[elias49]

7. A lot has changed in 50 years...

the Patriot Act for one thing.
Are you one of those folks who make comparisons between today's Republican party and the 'party of Lincoln'?
Doesn't work.

[arely staircase]

8. the people who pulled off the FBI break in opened themselves up to criminal liability too

so there goes that argument.

[elias49]

9. Not really. FBI investigation went on for 5 years

and the case was closed because of a statute of limitations. Had the perpetrators been discovered, who knows what legal repercussions would have ensued.
No valid comparison. I vote "fail"

[arely staircase]

10. if the FBI was trying to find out who I was and arrest me for 5

years I would consider myself exposed to criminal liability.

[elias49]

12. I don't get your point.

Would you be in Leavenworth?

[arely staircase]

13. my point is these people were heroes for what they did

and snowden would be one too had he not fled to tyrannical countries and then started making propaganda. he could have leaked the info and asked the reporter to keep his identity confidential. he would have run the risk of capture, as did the people in the 71 case. but people who truly do things for selfless reasons tend to do that. egotistical selfish people not so much.

[elias49]

14. Huh. Why didn't "those people" come out in 1972

or 1973, '74, etc.?
Truly "selfless" people...in hiding. Come on.
There is no comparison between the two issues

[arely staircase]

16. like snowden they didnt want to go to jail. unlike snowden they ran the risk for what they belived.

[Blue_Tires]

11. The jury is clearly still out on Snowden

I wouldn't go comparing him to the Citizens' Commission just yet...But of course Poitras is involved so naturally she's going to link the two...

[WillyT]

15. Not With This Juror... Verdict: HERO !!

[frylock]

17. really looking forward to seeing this film

knr