NPR Podcast Recap: 'Frontline' Doc Explores How Sept 11 Created Today's NSA

Americans recently have learned thanks to leaks from Edward Snowden that the NSA is spying on them on all their electronic devices - from their phones to their emails. What they do not know is what the motivation behind this spying is. Michael Kirk, the director of a new documentary called Frontline regarding the NSA and their secrets recently uncovered, came to discuss the NSA and the journey it has taken - starting with 9/11 - which may serve as their motivation for what they have done. In the days preceding 9/11, NSA official William Binney introduced "Thin Thread". Thin Thread was the method of NSA surveillance far less aggressive than that of the present day. However, once the tragic events of 9/11 had unfolded, everything changed. William Binney was forgotten, and former Air-Force General Michael Hayden was contacted and essentially asked to be America's savior, to be the man who would change things, to be the man who would allow Americans to leave the dark world of fear they had entered ever since that fateful day. And he did just that. He started the NSA on its way to the level of surveillance that it is at today. Sure, he encountered some opposition. The head of the FBI threatened to resign if they did not put the brakes on this movement of unwarranted spying. He gave, and in 2004, the operation slowed down - but not for long. Also, journalists from The New York Times were moments away from publishing a story in that same year that unveiled to the American public the NSA’s surveillance methods until they were contacted and ultimately threatened by President Bush not to do so. Despite the opposition, nothing could stop the NSA from going where it was going, and the NSA has continued to head in the direction of extreme surveillance until the present day – which, perhaps, means that 9/11 pushed the NSA over the edge and towards this path of extreme surveillance.