Date: June 29, 2006 1:02:38 AM PDT
Subject: Move over "Controlled Press," How About A Controlled CINEMA?
June 26, 2006
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Art Imitating Life: the NSA,
Hayden, and "Enemy of the State"
WMR has learned of a connection between senior NSA personnel and the producers of the movie about NSA, "Enemy of the State." In the fictional account of an NSA Deputy Director (played by Jon Voight) who illegally authorizes domestic wiretaps by having them deemed "training missions," the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and U.S. Signals Intelligence Directive 18 (USSID 18) -- governing such domestic intercepts -- are bypassed.
NSA is permitted to conduct warrantless domestic communications surveillance as part of training missions, but all data collected must be destroyed after the completion of the training. However, NSA sources report that the scenario of the training missions being used for illegal surveillance was passed on to the producer and director of "Enemy of the State" by a retired senior-level NSA official in return for his aspiring actress daughter getting a small part in the movie.
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Fictional Deputy NSA Director Thomas Brian Reynolds (Jon Voight) and Michael Hayden: Unsettling similarities.
The training mission scenario was authorized by NSA Director Michael Hayden to conduct eavesdropping on U.S. politicians between 2002 and 2003, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and others who were known to be acting against the Iraq and North Korea policies of the neocons, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and State Department official John Bolton. Targeted domestic surveillance intercepts that were to be destroyed according to USSID 18 were, instead, passed to Cheney and Bolton by NSA.
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"Enemy of the State" -- Art imitating life. Training missions used to bypass U.S. law to spy on U.S. citizens. Movie producers originally got the idea from NSA.
While he was NSA Director, Hayden invited "Enemy of the State" star Will Smith to tour the NSA as part of Hayden's public relations campaign. Next year, filming on the movie's sequel, "Enemy of the State: Enemy Within" is due to begin. Based on the previous cooperation between the movie's producers and studio (Disney), we can expect to see more cooperation between the NSA and the movie producers and writers.
