Tag Archives: Spy

America’s Surveillance State

We live in the United States of Surveillance – with cameras positioned on every street corner and much more invisible spying online and on the phone. Anyone paying attention knows that privacy is dead. All of this is not happening by accident – well funded powerful agencies and companies are engaged in the business of keeping tabs on what we do, what we say, and what we think.

To many in the world today, the face of America also has a big nose for sniffing and sifting mountains of data – phone calls, emails and texts. And with many mouths silenced by paranoia to keep what they decide is secret, secret.  America has become a Surveillance-Industrial State where everyone’s business has become its business, and where one huge US intelligence Agency has been given the sanction and unlimited amounts of money to spy on the whole world.

Mass Surveillance is the focus of this new 6 part investigative documentary series examining who is watching whom and why.

The Devil Operation

The charismatic Father Marco Arana, named a Hero of the Environment in 2009 by TIME Magazine, has been so effective in advocating against the US-owned Yanacocha mine that he’s code-named “the Devil” and targeted in a campaign of harassment and terror.

When one colleague is threatened with rape and another is killed, the activists fight back, capture a spy, and uncover a military-scale operation of surveillance and violence that shocks even them.

When billions of dollars are at stake, just how far are corporations willing to go to protect their bottom line?

A gripping David and Goliath tale of corporate espionage unfolds in this exposé of torture, intimidation, and murder of Peruvian eco-activists and indigenous farmers. Shocking video footage, horrifying photos, and meticulous reports compiled by private security firms working for gold mines are uncovered by the filmmakers to reveal the truth in this real-life political thriller.

Informant

Informant examines Brandon Darby, a radical activist turned FBI informant who has been both vilified and deified, but never entirely understood.

In 2005, Darby became an overnight activist hero when he traveled to Katrina-devastated New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a friend stranded in the Ninth Ward. Soon after, he became a founding member of Common Ground, a successful grassroots relief organization.

After two young activists were arrested at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Darby shocked close friends and activists nationwide by revealing he had been instrumental in the indictment as an FBI informant.

As the only film with access to Darby since his public confession, Informant meticulously constructs a portrait of his life – before and after the death threats – through interviews with Darby and tense reenactments starring the man himself.

Darby’s version of events are accompanied and often contradicted by commentary from acquaintances and expert commentators on various points along the political spectrum.

“The unreliable-narrator docu develops a new wrinkle or two with “Informant.” Jamie Meltzer’s engrossing portrait lets Brandon Darby tell his own story – of a self-proclaimed far-left, anti-government activist-turned-FBI snitch now feted at Tea Party gatherings –while fellow travelers cast doubt on that testimony every step of the way. An absorbing puzzle with the potential to intrigue viewers all along the political spectrum.”
– Dennis Harvey, Variety

“A kind of ‘Fog of War’ for the age of Occupy”
– Indiewire

“The force of Darby’s personality – a rich stew of righteousness, arrogance and self-delusion — gives the doc a psychological appeal independent of politics… it deserves a theatrical run.”
-John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

The FBI’s Secret Spy Planes

John Wiseman is a planespotter. He spends his days tracking radio data from planes across the country, logging them and mapping their movements.

He’s noticed lots of weird things over the years, like military contractor planes dropping sterile fruit flies over LA as part of a fruit fly eradication program. When he heard rumours that planes circling over mass protests and riots in Baltimore were related to FBI surveillance, he began an intense research mission, collating seven billion raw aircraft transponder pings.

He found that certain transponder codes were being used by aircraft registered to front companies, many of which used PO boxes also used by the US Department of Justice. He put together a list of hundreds of suspected FBI planes, which the FBI eventually admitted were them. A massive FBI surveillance program was revealed – the planes circle locations all over the United States, spying on the people below and, in certain circumstances, mimicking cell phone towers to get digital data from the people below.