NOVA: The Spy Factory DVD

Comments about PBS NOVA: The Spy Factory DVD:

One of the agencies you rarely hear about. Another way the US pursues its enemies.

Comments about PBS NOVA: The Spy Factory DVD:

There is so much more to communications technology than one might even imagine unless one is involved with it. Satellites have been superseded by fiber optics running under the oceans all round the world. The sophistication of communications is amazing--and the NSA is capturing and filtering it all with banks of Cray computers. Now every telephone call, fax, or email one makes can be assumed to be recorded and listened to. All these billions of dollars spent on global and domestic spying. It is sobering to consider that these defenses have been built to protect us from ragtag civilian soldiers, dismissively called "camel jockeys" and "ragheads," from some of the very poorest parts of the Middle East. Shocking is the fact that the NSA knew that the 9/11 hijackers were in the country and failed to pass the information along to the FBI and other pertinent agencies, and failed to prevent the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Just how safe are we when billions of dollars and the best technology in the world can't keep us safe from people whose ideal society is a 15th Century Islamic Caliphate?

Comments about PBS NOVA: The Spy Factory DVD:

Having worked in this field (and with colleagues still at NSA) I found the story instructive and gripping. But it also admirably points out the unobvious limitations of signals intelligence --sorting through vast data for what matters. For an accurate depiction of how signals intelligence (albeit low-tech) rests on HUMINT, also rent Fred Zinneman's 1973 "Day of the Jackal" -- the fictionalized version with Edward Fox of a case I know well because I worked it.