Just an andendum to my earlier post about the Fisa debate:
On Sunday night, I caught the Will Smith-Gene Hackman thriller Enemy of the State on one of DC's local television stations. For those who haven't seen it, the movie's about an ordinary lawyer (Smith) who comes to possess some sensitive intel and is subsequently pursued through the streets of Washington DC (via all manner of bugs and satellites) by a government spy agency intent on keeping that intel under wraps.
The movie was released back in 1998, way before 9/11 and the current Fisa bruhaha. But its point about the ease with which the government can - and does - pry into our personal lives, and the need to restrain its surveillance powers, is more salient now than ever.
Sure, it's just a bit of Hollywood fluff. But I still smiled at the tought that that some television producer had his eye on the newspaper headlines when he decided to put the movie on the air.
