I still cannot figure out why Snowden is portrayed as the one to out all the NSA secrets. I mean yes he had the actual documents that detailed the NSA programs, but the knowledge of these programs was somewhat out already.
Watch the movie "Enemy of the State" with Will Smith from 1998. It shows how the NSA can and will use anything and everything to spy/track people. Phones, email, cameras, etc. And this was almost 20 years ago. I watched it recently and was blown away once I realized it came 15 years before snowdens leaks.
Enemy of the State is a fiction film, not a documentary. Might as well use The Interview as an example of what's going on in North Korea. I think it was more of a conspiracy theory before the Snowden revelations (and sometimes conspiracy theories turn out to be true). The USG was denying it collected such info right up until he leaked the info.
yes, I know it was a work of fiction, but my point is that it was 100% correct in the ways it depicted the phone tapping, email monitoring, cell phone gps tracking, etc that the NSA is capable of doing, and does to their surveillance targets (and the general public whenever they want). The writers weren't just guessing as to what the NSA was capable of, the knowledge was out there, just no one had the actual documents to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Now the documetns are out there (a small fraction of them?), so the gvt can no longer deny what it is doing.
In the "Making of..." bonus DVD feature, it's stated that the Enemy of the State production team employed actual NSA technical consultants to get all the surveillance capabilities correct. I can't remember whether the film was one of so, so many that was directly funded by the CIA, but even if it isn't officially attributed that way (as so many Hollywood films are), it's heavily suspected of being such a production (i.e. CIA propa-tainment).
Check out the "The CIA and Hollywood" documentaries here:
https://vimeo.com/tomseckerI agree, it seemed almost too accurate to not have direct nsa input. And the more I research about the CIA, the more I wonder how certain things make way into movies.
I'd have to say yeah, its definitely a form of propaganda. Like they can put all the NSA stuff into that movie, and so when people hear about those spying capabilities being abused they associate it with a work of fiction, and it doesn't exactly register as somehting they need to be worried about. I think they have a way of foreshadowing things like that, so it subconsciously is known to people, and doesn't really shock or surprise most people.
I think they must have a lot of influence with how the military is portrayed in movies as well, not to mention the heavy military propaganda you see in any sporting event, especially football games.