Rockford Files; two episodes that reflected James Garner's politics. [View all]

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Rockford Files; two episodes that reflected James Garner's politics.
"So Help Me God" and "The House on Willis Avenue"



"So Help Me God"

Rockford receives a subpoena to appear before a Grand Jury investigating the disappearance of Frank Sorvino. This episode exposes the unfairness of the Grand Jury system. Specifically

Once you answer any question, you can no longer take the 5th amendment.
If you refuse to testify (after the first question) you can be imprisoned for the duration of the Grand Jury.
Even if you invoke the 5th amendment properly, the prosecutor can still apply for "immunity" from the 5th amendment and subpoena you again and require you to testify.

Jim was asked about a telephone conversation he supposedly had with Frank Sorvino the day he disappeared, but Jim testified that the conversation never took place. But the Feds have a deposition from Sorvino's secretary saying she dialed the number and Jim answered, and Frank talked to him.

The second time Jim invokes the 5th correctly and the prosecutor, Gary Bevins (William Daniels), dismisses Rockford and says he will apply for immunity from the 5th. Jim makes an angry speech attacking Bevins personally for violating his rights and having more contempt for the law than anyone Jim did time with. (Bevins told the Grand Jury that Jim had a record, but wouldn't acknowledge the fact that he received a full pardon.) Jim was cited for contempt and ends up back in the slammer. Angel visits Jim there with a photograph of the camera shy Frank Sorvino for which he charges $50, and Jim recognizes Sorvino as his client George Capmann, and all becomes clear. Jim is viciously attacked in prison by Sorvino's goons to stop him testifying and ends up in hospital. All charges are dropped and Jim testifies to what he now knows, which is probably enough to indict Sorvino, but Gary Bevins is ungrateful. Rockford is dismissed, but the foreman allows him to make a final statement in which he quotes from an article he read in prison to the effect that any injustice, no matter how small, hurts all of us. When Bevins doesn't get the point, Jim reveals that the article was quoting him.
A printed statement appears on the screen to the effect that the laws regarding Grand Juries allow the injustices portrayed here to occur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rockford_Files_%28season_3%29

Full episode: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2820276249/

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"The House on Willis Avenue"

In a prescient episode from season 4 of The Rockford Files titled, "The House on Willis Avenue" (1978), private detective Jim Rockford (James Garner) uncovers a government surveillance operation that is collecting intelligence on US citizens by means of data centers located in suburban homes. Each data center is protected by remote surveillance systems and continuously monitored by government agents. Rockford discovers one of these data centers while investigating the death of a fellow detective, which makes him a target for those trying to keep the surveillance operations secret. The episode does not offer much detail on the nature of the surveillance, nor why these unmanned centers would be located in suburban houses, but the efficiency and ruthlessness of the government agents operating them is unmistakably fascistic and contrary to American Constitutional rights. Rockford narrowly escapes being murdered in an attempt to secure his silence and, after confronting the owner of the private information company, goes on to expose a related conspiracy that vindicates his former colleague, prompting an investigation that promises to shut down the unlawful surveillance operation.

Most striking, at the conclusion of the episode, a text screen appears over silence with a didactic warning from the "U.S. Privacy Protection Commission," stating that such operations are being carried out in the real world, in violation of citizens' rights. This explicitly political gesture, which breaks out of the diegetic world of the show to comment on the world inhabited by viewers, is a rare occurrence for both The Rockford Files and network television generally. With this blunt text warning, The Rockford Files poses a critique of the looming potential for data surveillance that is beyond the critical capacity of a fictional drama. It is also presumably an artifact of the show's post-Watergate historical context when the data-gathering capacity of computer systems would not yet have attained wide public awareness. Indeed, the narrative closure of the episode included a disclaimer by a government official, who blamed the creation of the surveillance network on the overzealousness of individuals, rather than government policy: "it appears that [the men who were arrested] were attempting to set up a secret system of computers which would carry the personal records of some 200 million Americans." The episode concludes with a news broadcaster who summarizes the events: "It gives one pause. It's one thing for our government to have us categorized and computerized, but why does a company install a secret, underground computer center right in the middle of one of the world's largest cities? Why indeed?"

Youtube excerpt: Rockford Files blew the lid off secret surveillance decades before the NSA scandal

http://scalar.usc.edu/anvc/chaosandcontrol/libertarian-critique-the-rockford-files-1978?path=on-the-deleterious-effects-of-cyberlibertarianism