Monday, November 7, 2016

The movie "A Good American" and discussion

---

The ZKM will perform the recently released interview film "A Good American" by Fritz Moser on 16 December 2016 in Karlsruhe.

Details of the event can be found here: http://zkm.de/event/2016/12/sicherheit-oder-datenschutz-ein-falscher-gegensatz

Following the documentary "Citizenfour" by Laura Poitras (2014) and the feature film "Snowden" by Oliver Stone (2016), this section now describes how the introduction of mass surveillance tools came about from the perspective of a former NSA technical director. From his insights you can see:

• Targeted surveillance is possible solely on the basis of metadata analysis, even without having to store the metadata of all.
• If you do not filter everything, but the right thing, you can act immediately (in real time).
• The "ThinThread" program developed by Bill Binney was ready in November 2000, but was stopped by NSA Chief Michael Hayden.
• With ThinThread, 9/11 could have been prevented, as a subsequent test run of the software with the data recorded before September 11, 2001 showed.

But, as one senior NSA staff member explained internally, from an NSA perspective, "9/11 was the greatest gift to the NSA and to the companies benefiting from their contracts."

See also:

• http://www.agoodamerican.net
• http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/?mode=play&obj=61323
• http://www.br.de/radio/bayern2/sendungen/zuendfunk/netz-kultur/kino/a-good-american-dokumentarfilm-100.html
• http://www.programmkino.de/content/links.php?id=3445
• http://srv.deutschlandradio.de/themes/dradio/script/aod/index.html?audioMode=2&audioID=3&state%5blaunchMode%5d=4&state%5blaunchModeState%5d%5bsuche%5d%5bsearchTerm%5d=a+good+american
• http://www.getidan.de/kritik/film/gregor-torinus/75120/a-good-american-regie-friedrich-moser-ab-03-november-im-kino
• http://derstandard.at/2000032492126/A-Good-American-Sehenswerte-Doku-ueber-die-NSA-und-911
• http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Computer-Weekly-at-the-movies-Surveillance-9-11-and-the-NSA

The discussion at the ZKM Media Theater will focus on:

• Balancing between security and privacy -- by state and society
• Active contribution -- by each individual / self protection.

To get you in the mood, a quote from Edward Snowden in a telco in October 2016: "I can give you tips on how to protect your communication, but this is a battle you cannot win like this. You need to fight it on the front pages." Who, if not him, deserves asylum in Germany?