CLOSED: [2016-06-08 Wed 17:02] SCHEDULED: <2016-06-08 Wed>
:PROPERTIES:
:ID: 2016-06-08-a-good-american
:CREATED:  [2016-06-07 Tue 21:23]
:END:
:LOGBOOK:
- State "DONE"       from "NEXT"       [2016-06-08 Wed 17:02]
:END:

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a public screening of a
movie called «[[http://agoodamerican.org/][A Good American]]» by [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4931608/][Friedrich Moser]].

The main focus of this documentary is the pre-9/11 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency][NSA]] intelligence.
Management decided to cancel an elegant, efficient, privacy-aware,
internal data collecting and extracting system called »ThinThread« and
replaced it with an inefficient multi-billion Dollar system that was
implemented by external companies. The small team operating
»ThinThread« is absolutely sure that they would have found evidence
for 9/11 before the tragic events took place.

This movie proves that the NSA deliberately replaced a fully working,
rather cheap system with a much much bigger system that could not
prove any use probably until today. Making money was more important
than finding the bad guys.

«A Good American» has at least the same explosive content as
«[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenfour][Citizenfour]]» has: brave whistle-blowers that openly speak about
really big mistakes of the officials, causing massive problems to
billions and even death to too many people. Unlike «Citizenfour», the
movie by Friedrich Moser highlights the story how this horrible
situation was created prior to the 9/11-attacks.

After the movie, we had a lively discussion with Friedrich Moser who
gave us very interesting insight to the making of the movie, things he
was able to dig up but he could not mention in the final movie, and so
much more. What a great event!

Unfortunately, despite announcements at our University, there were
only fourty students. As I already stated [[id:2016-04-04-podiumsdiskussion-ohne-studis][elsewhere]], I do think that
even tech-savvy people more and more do not care about political
issues, the erosion of our privacy, total mass-surveillance, and so
forth. What a pity for the next generation(s).