A Good American

Thinthread is the most effec­tive algo­rithm-based sur­veil­lance pro­gramme used for espi­onage you’ve prob­a­bly nev­er heard of. It’s the brain­child of Bin­ney and a mod­est team com­pris­ing the cream of code-break­ing. Var­i­ous mem­bers detail the time­line lead­ing up to the ter­ror­ist attack that would shake the USA to its core and rever­ber­ate well into its future, start­ing with the ini­tial attack on the World Trade Cen­tre in ​’93 as one of the US’s most notable ter­ror raids. ​“We said this is not a one-time event.” These were words grave­ly spo­ken by for­mer NSA senior exec­u­tive Thomas Drake on the ini­tial attack. But despite all the names and faces we’re shown, Bin­ney remains the most promi­nent character.

So invest­ed is he in the cat­a­stroph­ic clash of inter­ests that lead to the cut off of his pro­gramme, it’s dif­fi­cult not to share his enthu­si­asm. It real­ly lends a can­did nature to his sto­ry­telling that leaves you want­i­ng more. ​“Every­thing is human behav­iour,” he says. ​“Human behav­iour is extreme­ly pat­terned.” A sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of the process by which Thinthread accessed a net­work of 2.5 bil­lion phones, no doubt.

But Moser visu­alis­es this mag­nif­i­cent­ly as an inter­con­nect­ed sys­tem of dots sus­pend­ed in a void. Com­pared to stars and atoms, the project’s immense scope and pow­er is nev­er under­es­ti­mat­ed. This makes Binney’s betray­al by the NSA all the more shock­ing. The film staunch­ly pro­motes a left-wing agen­da, and effec­tive­ly leaves lit­tle wig­gle room to protest its claims due to stead­fast polemic argu­ments that cre­ate an atmos­phere of ​“truth” that’s hard to dispute.

Yet this immer­sive look into pol­i­tics and espi­onage man­ages to be as top­i­cal, espe­cial­ly with the US government’s insid­i­ous omnipres­ence when it comes to the sur­veil­lance of its cit­i­zens. A Good Amer­i­can expos­es a polit­i­cal scan­dal swept under the rug. It ques­tions morals, mon­ey, and gov­ern­ment hon­esty in the face of its peo­ples’ safe­ty, all with a con­spir­a­to­r­i­al glint in its eye.