A GOOD AMERICAN is more than just a film. We need to get rid of this mass surveillance nonsense.
Mass surveillance is not only violating everybody's privacy - it also aids terrorists to reach their goal, because while filling the pockets of government surveillance contractors, it makes intelligence analysts dysfunctional by flooding them with useless information. Analysts have been complaining about this for years. We have their testimony from the Snowden documents. You find a detailed analysis of that in our follow-up documentary THE MAZE, a film we made in response to the series of terror attacks since Paris 2015.
A GOOD AMERICAN not only tells the amazing account of the best code-breaker America ever had - it also tells the chilling story of ThinThread, a program that managed to find a solution against being flooded by useless information through filtering out UPFRONT the 99% useless data and focusing in UPFRONT on the 1% that were real threats, providing warning in milliseconds as threat-scenarios were building up.
Now here is some good news: a sort of ThinThread 2.0 is ready to go - built in Europe by a small big-data start-up. You find the intriguing story about it in THE MAZE. A working alternative to mass surveillance is on the table again, including a solution to really protect our fundamental right to privacy.
However, as we are writing this, a battle is still going on in our parliaments and institutions to expand mass surveillance - in US Congress, in several European Parliaments, but also in the largest democracy on earth, India. The battle is on between those who knowingly fail to provide security while stealing our privacy for the sake of power and money, and those who try as hard as they can to provide the best security while protecting our right to privacy and our fundamental freedoms.
If we want it or not, everybody is choosing sides in this battle.
Including you.
Help us get the story out!
The story of ThinThread is a story everybody should know about. A GOOD AMERICAN is the first film to fully tell it.
Please support our efforts and help us get the word out as widely as possible!
Help us get the truth out!
A GOOD AMERICAN is an incredible story, yet it is a true story. The truth is encapsulated in this report:
Report 05-INTEL-03 - December 15, 2004 - Audit Report
by the Office of the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense. You can find a redacted copy of the report on Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Redacted-dod-oi...). The redactions were applied to entire paragraphs that were marked as "unclassified". This is a report that the public has a right to know about. It is the detailed report about ThinThread and how NSA management under Director Gen. Michael Hayden killed it.
However, in Spring 2017 Patrick Eddington - one of the very few persons to ever have read the entire report, during his time as Senior National Security staffer in the House of Representatives - won a law-suit against the US gov over the declassification of that report. He has already obtained first batches from the NSA that are less redacted. But there is still a long way to go to obtain everything as ordered by the court. Wanna help him speed that up?
Inside the US:
Please sign this petition to the Intelligence Committees in US Congress
https://rightsanddissent.salsalabs.org/agoodamerican/index.html
for an official investigation into the ThinThread case.
The petition is hosted by a member of a cross-party Civil Liberties Coalition we are working with in Washington DC, backing the cross-party anti-surveillance Caucus in Congress (http://www.fourthadvisory.org/caucus-members) on a grassroots level.
Outside the US:
Please inform your local privacy advocacy and data protection group, your internet service provider, your Amnesty International group and your Reporters Without Borders chapter about ThinThread, A GOOD AMERICAN and THE MAZE. They know how to bring the information to the knowledge of lawmakers and how to run campaigns.
Help us make more films like this!
Making political documentaries takes a lot of time and efforts and after a film is done, the advocacy work begins.
We have been working with law-makers, journalists and influencers to make them aware that there is an alternative to mass surveillance since September 2014, when the film was still in the making.
We rented theaters to hold screenings, we lobbied, we went on panels and we even managed to get official screenings at the EU Parliament and in the UK House of Lords. But all of this advocacy work costs a lot of time and money.
And then there are so much more films to make and eye-opening and inspiring stories to tell!
Please support our future work!
Thank you!
Friedrich Moser, director & producer of A GOOD AMERICAN
