Alpha Dominance

This great exposé from Nova details the failings of the intelligence system in the time leading up to 911.  It details the internecine battles and information hoarding that caused information known to different branches of the intelligence services not to be shared between the NSA, CIA and FBI.  This appalling oversight allowed the 911 hijackers to effectively operate right out in the open without the intelligence services piecing together their plot.  It is truly an appalling failure of bureaucracy.

Further, the program details the extensive weakening off civil liberties under the Bush administration.  At this point one should not consider any communication to be private except face to face communication.  Every email, phone conversation, fax or other electronic communication you engage in is being logged by such various incarnations of signals intelligence technology as Carnivore (now discontinued in favor of commercial offerings), Einstein, Tempest and Echelon.  A warrant is no longer needed to monitor American citizens so they are archiving these things wholesale by the petabyte to be accessed as needed.  The program shows how telecom switching backbones have been set up to have their entire traffic split and diverted to NSA and DHS supercomputers.  This is scary stuff that ought to be addressed to ensure the proper balance of protection and freedom.