Let's be honest, A good American is not the easiest documentary to watch, with alot of things that are to us, 'the normal human beings', difficult to understand. It's basically about Big Brother watching us, in everything we do, as soon as we are using an electronic device. The right to privacy might be written somewhere but the truth is that they couldn't care less about the right of your privacy. For brainwashed America it should be a mandatory watch, so that maybe people would open their eyes, on how the whole system there is just controling the masses and making as much money as they can, well only for the chosen few then, not for you and me, the common people. It's not about your safety, they don't really care about that, it's a bonus that's all. It's all about greed and power. That exactly people of 'good will' like the former technical director of the NSA William Binney, that created a system that could have prevented 9/11, get harassed by their own government is just a shame and disgraceful. Not that I'm a big fan of their system, far from, but at least they didn't do it out of greed or wanting to get rich, they did it to save humanity from atrocities. So yes A Good American is worth a watch, a watch until the end, so that you can truely understand the whole picture on how corrupt the whole American system is.
13 Reviews
Great documentary
MoDo123 July 2018
Warning: Spoilers
I thought this was very well done and the story even more compelling. It truly gives even more ammunition to the 9/11 was an inside job crowd. "Hey, we have developed a program that ties together activities which can pin point and produce terrorists, for cheap!"
Higher ups order their system to be wiped out, right when they all knew they were behind in the emerging digital age and had stumbled onto a holy grail, but....
3 weeks later the planes hit the buildings, scott free.
Higher ups order their system to be wiped out, right when they all knew they were behind in the emerging digital age and had stumbled onto a holy grail, but....
3 weeks later the planes hit the buildings, scott free.
A Real Look At Our Corrupt Government
aurasbob13 February 2019
This documentary is a true story about 6 Brave, Intelligent NSA Computer Analysts wrongfully abused for trying to protect US from Our Governments illegal surveillance's. It also shows how the govt stopped the operation of our defensive network tracking terrorist communications 3 weeks before the 9/11 Trade Center Attack.
Frustratingly vague
LordManhammer6 March 2019
This documentary places the U.S. intelligence community's failure to thwart the 9/11 attacks into the context of that community's attempts since WW2 to grapple with "Big Data," the ever-growing cache of data created in the digital world. The film is not overtly political, which some will appreciate, and others not.
The irony here is that a film about overwhelming data is quite short on the details. There is little explanation as to how the subjects' data-collection system, ThinThread, actually worked and the sorts of meaning-making it undertook. There are no examples as to the significant results of analyzing metadata. I don't mean to say the film was overly dumbed-down for those without knowledge of software development, coding, or cryptanalysis. To the contrary, the subjects would make a few highly technical yet vague statements about their project, then move on.
Ultimately, the subject matter is riveting and infuriating, and I bet anyone watching this will be driven to do further research on ThinThread and the NSA and DoD's scandalous treatment of it before and after 9/11. Yet the documentary's vagueness--and relative lack of follow-through about attempts to reveal this scandal to the public--leave the film feeling like conspiracy theory rather than investigative reporting or whistleblowing.
The irony here is that a film about overwhelming data is quite short on the details. There is little explanation as to how the subjects' data-collection system, ThinThread, actually worked and the sorts of meaning-making it undertook. There are no examples as to the significant results of analyzing metadata. I don't mean to say the film was overly dumbed-down for those without knowledge of software development, coding, or cryptanalysis. To the contrary, the subjects would make a few highly technical yet vague statements about their project, then move on.
Ultimately, the subject matter is riveting and infuriating, and I bet anyone watching this will be driven to do further research on ThinThread and the NSA and DoD's scandalous treatment of it before and after 9/11. Yet the documentary's vagueness--and relative lack of follow-through about attempts to reveal this scandal to the public--leave the film feeling like conspiracy theory rather than investigative reporting or whistleblowing.
the piece of information that we were missing
frantastika16 November 2016
Many documentaries show us situations that we have some idea, that somewhat we know a bit or we have heard or read about it but not deep enough. For that reason, this documentary was a complete surprise from the beginning to the end and it seems the audience was very compelled too through the whole film... so I guess I wasn't the only one feeling like "how this happened and I did not read or hear anything about it". The topic is extremely important and current; we have several documentaries about how important is protect our data and privacy but not so many about how we got in this situation. Here is that piece we were missing and helps a lot to make sense nowadays with our sense of surveillance. We have films about Edward Snowden and the last one, "Snowden", have the Nicolas Cage's character base in the creator of "Thin thread" that is the man, the good American.
Not as Engaging as it Could Be
gavin694218 September 2017
"A Good American" tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.
Variety called the film "compelling if only semi-persuasive," and said that it was marred by bias toward William Binney. The Guardian described the film as a "fascinating, conspiracy theorising documentary", and said that while "some of the film's content has been aired before, the inside experience has not been voiced in such a collective manner, with (director) Moser joining the dots just as Binney might connect his metadata." I tend to side with Variety here. Although I enjoyed the documentary, it does have two major flaws. One, it really only tells Binney's side. That might be alright, but it allows the idea to be pushed that 9/11 would have been prevented, which cannot be said with as much confidence as he wishes. And two, for a film about a super-smart computer and global terror, it is a rather boring documentary. This should be gripping, but it was really rather mundane.
A third point could be added... why make this in 2015 (and release it in 2017)? While no less interesting today than ten years ago, it does not seem as timely.
Variety called the film "compelling if only semi-persuasive," and said that it was marred by bias toward William Binney. The Guardian described the film as a "fascinating, conspiracy theorising documentary", and said that while "some of the film's content has been aired before, the inside experience has not been voiced in such a collective manner, with (director) Moser joining the dots just as Binney might connect his metadata." I tend to side with Variety here. Although I enjoyed the documentary, it does have two major flaws. One, it really only tells Binney's side. That might be alright, but it allows the idea to be pushed that 9/11 would have been prevented, which cannot be said with as much confidence as he wishes. And two, for a film about a super-smart computer and global terror, it is a rather boring documentary. This should be gripping, but it was really rather mundane.
A third point could be added... why make this in 2015 (and release it in 2017)? While no less interesting today than ten years ago, it does not seem as timely.
Corruption - NSA the REAL terrorist.
The_Boxing_Cat17 February 2019
EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN should see this.
We, the taxpayers need to stand up and make sure these people never hold another public position EVER.
Watch this film, I will not list any spoilers. Beware- you too will get angry.
They have blood on their hands.
Watch this film, I will not list any spoilers. Beware- you too will get angry.
They have blood on their hands.
A Must See
stevechristison13 September 2017
This film reveals that the inner workings of our intelligence agencies and the NSA in particular, often place the security of US Citizens below the motive for profit. It shows that these intelligence agencies can be more fearful of embarrassment than of attacks by extremist organizations. It has the courage to state facts and name names. It describes how software already in place at the NSA that actually predicted the 9/11 attacks was totally shut down mere months before the actual attack occurred.
When covering up leaderships ignorance, takes a back seat to the truth, America Loses
cblast-8341619 September 2017
A Good American highlights the brilliance of the American Mind & ingenuity, while exposing the utter buffoonery & incompetence of those leading the American Intelligence Community.
Good American reveals the importance of holding senior intelligence officers accountable for their failures. Rather than holding congressional inquires into the ignorance and incompetence of General Hayden & Maureen Baginski, the intelligence community invests all the resources available to them in order to discredit, intimidate, incriminate, & indite the whistle-blowers who simply tell the truth of their leaderships ineptitude.
It makes it hard to teach your children to be accountable for their actions when they grow up in a country who refuses to be accountable for its own actions. At some point America needs to look in the mirror and hold its leaders accountable for the compete and utter incompetence, bordering on treasonesque, instead of using all of its resources to villainize whistle-blowers for exposing the truth.
Good American reveals the importance of holding senior intelligence officers accountable for their failures. Rather than holding congressional inquires into the ignorance and incompetence of General Hayden & Maureen Baginski, the intelligence community invests all the resources available to them in order to discredit, intimidate, incriminate, & indite the whistle-blowers who simply tell the truth of their leaderships ineptitude.
It makes it hard to teach your children to be accountable for their actions when they grow up in a country who refuses to be accountable for its own actions. At some point America needs to look in the mirror and hold its leaders accountable for the compete and utter incompetence, bordering on treasonesque, instead of using all of its resources to villainize whistle-blowers for exposing the truth.
Questionable, unconvincing and vague
sdpoo29 October 2020
I read the following description before watching this documentary and it really piqued my interest:
""A Good American" tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution."
I saw no evidence their system could magically pick up any electronic signal in the world.
As someone with a technical background I saw nothing more than network packet sniffing.
The so called "graph" or sphere with trillions of connections was an interesting concept but seems implausible and there was no detail on how they were compiling, storing and querying this data. The whole film seemed to lack any detail and therefore felt dull and unimpressive.
In fact the most interesting part I paused the screen to look at was a totally basic flow chart outlining a vague data capture process that essentially said "if the user is American, do nothing, otherwise log details". Hardly groundbreaking research.
Most of the "experts" were pretty unconvincing. The main protagonist kept referring to the software developers as "the computer guys", like he'd never seen a computer before in his life.
""A Good American" tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution."
I saw no evidence their system could magically pick up any electronic signal in the world.
As someone with a technical background I saw nothing more than network packet sniffing.
The so called "graph" or sphere with trillions of connections was an interesting concept but seems implausible and there was no detail on how they were compiling, storing and querying this data. The whole film seemed to lack any detail and therefore felt dull and unimpressive.
In fact the most interesting part I paused the screen to look at was a totally basic flow chart outlining a vague data capture process that essentially said "if the user is American, do nothing, otherwise log details". Hardly groundbreaking research.
Most of the "experts" were pretty unconvincing. The main protagonist kept referring to the software developers as "the computer guys", like he'd never seen a computer before in his life.
The Arrogance of Power
lavatch16 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This superb documentary tells the story of Bill Binney and his team of code-breakers at the NSA, who developed such sophisticated technology that the attacks of 9/11 could have and should have been prevented.
Binney was always ahead of the curve in his work as an analyst. In 1967, he had detected the evidence of the North Vietnamese TET offensive that should have led to greater preparedness of the American military in the 1968 offensive. He also predicted the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. By the end of the century, Binney was ahead of everyone in understanding the importance of "traffic analysis" through the gathering of "metadata." He also recognized the potential for the abuses of power in the national security network. He had worked too long with people who believed that they had so much power that they were invincible.
The name of Binney's operation was Thinthread, and the film goes into great detail about the visionary work of Binney's system to track electronic and phone communications of anyone throughout the world. His program also ensured that no American citizen's identity could be compromised without a warrant.
But the bureaucracy of the NSA opted for greed instead of the goal of protecting the American people. It also chose discarding civil liberties in the name of national security. The Thinthread project was disbanded in favor of outside contractors selected by General Michael Hayden. The new program called Trailblazer failed whereas Thinthread would have identified specific details about the al-Quaeda plot of September 11, 2001.
Binney and his colleagues even demonstrated how the data would have been generated to prevent the attacks. In the wake of 9/11 and to prevent embarrassment to Hayden and his minions (Maureen Baginski, Bill Black, and Sam Viser), the homes of Binney and his colleagues were raided, and their programs were confiscated.
This is a story of corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse. It is also the story of the incompetency of unelected officials determining national policy that favor greed over security of its citizens. Vice-President Dick Cheney discussed the "dark side" that he embraced in the wake of 9/11. The film reveals how the dark side has compromised the ideals of our nation's foundational documents and how the moral standing of America in the world has possibly been irredeemably compromised.
Binney was always ahead of the curve in his work as an analyst. In 1967, he had detected the evidence of the North Vietnamese TET offensive that should have led to greater preparedness of the American military in the 1968 offensive. He also predicted the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. By the end of the century, Binney was ahead of everyone in understanding the importance of "traffic analysis" through the gathering of "metadata." He also recognized the potential for the abuses of power in the national security network. He had worked too long with people who believed that they had so much power that they were invincible.
The name of Binney's operation was Thinthread, and the film goes into great detail about the visionary work of Binney's system to track electronic and phone communications of anyone throughout the world. His program also ensured that no American citizen's identity could be compromised without a warrant.
But the bureaucracy of the NSA opted for greed instead of the goal of protecting the American people. It also chose discarding civil liberties in the name of national security. The Thinthread project was disbanded in favor of outside contractors selected by General Michael Hayden. The new program called Trailblazer failed whereas Thinthread would have identified specific details about the al-Quaeda plot of September 11, 2001.
Binney and his colleagues even demonstrated how the data would have been generated to prevent the attacks. In the wake of 9/11 and to prevent embarrassment to Hayden and his minions (Maureen Baginski, Bill Black, and Sam Viser), the homes of Binney and his colleagues were raided, and their programs were confiscated.
This is a story of corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse. It is also the story of the incompetency of unelected officials determining national policy that favor greed over security of its citizens. Vice-President Dick Cheney discussed the "dark side" that he embraced in the wake of 9/11. The film reveals how the dark side has compromised the ideals of our nation's foundational documents and how the moral standing of America in the world has possibly been irredeemably compromised.
On the anniversary of 9/11 honors to all the lost
teetersj-251-69222011 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In the time of Corporate contracting this is an example that our Government resources and experts may have been in the position to be more effective. Hearing from the people who were respected analysts view that this may have been prevented should shock us?
As usual, if Oliver Stone is involved...it's good.
fsfaludi29 January 2023
So this is not some gripping thriller. It's reality, it's a documentary. It narrates how some very smart, ethical people in the intelligence agencies were trying to stay one step ahead of some very dangerous people. If this were turned into some fictional story you could make it fantastically interesting in the hands of a good script writer I'm sure. People who reviewed this movie poorly, fail to see the significance of this. They likely believe that essentially "the story of 9/11 is how some foreigners brought the military and intelligence community of the greatest super power in human history to its knees". You can discount my opinion (in quotes) and it's significance if you are so inclined. But you shouldn't discount the fascinating & informative value of the story told here and the quality of the production.
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