Rented "Enemy of the State" - Fact or Fiction?

F

Futo Inu

New member
Very scary and thought-provoking. I liked it a lot. Don't know that I've ever disliked a Gene Hackman flick. But what's the real scoop on NSA? How much info does our gov't actually have?

(BTW, also watched "Analyze This" - watching Billy Crystal pretend to be an Italian gangster and slap the fat guy at the end was a howl).
 
Futo-

A friend of mine who was heavily involved as a weapons consultant for many years for the military spoke to a general friend of his after seeing the movie himself (confused yet? :)) and asked him how much of that they could actually do.

The reply was that about 90% was right on(including the satilite photos).

He (the general) would not specify what the 10% consisted of.

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John/az

"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
 
Futo,
I've been "out" for twenty years - but even then a good answer would have been "more than we could comprehend..."
 
Futo,
The information and information-gathering resources are out there and are making quantum leaps in intelligence gathering, storage and dissimination. Back in the late 1970s when the National Security Agency was just beginning to make its' presence felt and was very much shrouded with layers of secrecy (Old intel joke. "NSA" stands for "No Such Agency") the technology was in its' infancy. I can only imagine and speculate from various sources what it is capable of now. All it would basically take is a person or group of persons well placed and conspirational enough in nature to manipulate the various intelligence/information sources. If you know a police officer, ask him about the capabilities of a simple EPIC pipeline check. The really scary part is such checks are very likely only the first sign of a very large, dangerous iceberg dead ahead.
Take care and God bless,
Paladin
 
Futo Inu - you need to see Gene in "The Package" if you haven't already. It's a pretty good movie and as a bonus features a little work with a Steyr AUG.
 
Went to England a year ago and i noticed that they have cameras on stop lights and at street corners and all over the place.
Kinda like enemy of the state.
Very scrary if you think about it
 
there is no way anyone is going to tap into the security camera that is monitoring a clothing store and pull off a realtime VR model and spin it

unless every store in the country has a t3 line on the videocamera, and the security camera was high def tv

i was in a federal building making a service call a few years back

the tv screen on the security camera was so burned in from looking at the same loading dock all day, you could hardly see a man moving on camera.

you can't side look a satellite that far.
every city would have to have several geo stationary birds

given enough lead time they might be able to get a bird on target, but you are not going to skywatch a guy running around
clouds kinda get in the way too...

online 3d databases of citywide building blueprints cross referencing realtime pings from planted micro bugs?

well maybe if the NSA had power mac G4 500's

;)

dZ
 
Thanks, all.

dZ, glad to hear it; hope you are right - I for one couldn't imagine a satellite ever being able to take real-time video of Will S. on the roof of a building from that high up.

H&K, yeah, The Package is an awesome movie! Two thumbs up.
 
Perhaps something else to think about? For the sake of the conversation, one also has to wonder why. You'd have to be a pretty big target and have caught big brother's attention. If you're just another Joe going about your business, I doubt any agency would waste their time with you.

Or am I wrong here? :)
 
I think you can spot where the movie obviously exaggerates. However I do recall that early news reports on the capture of the Unabomber admitted that he was being surveiled by a satellite!

The obvious problem with satellites is that they draw in huge amounts of information, how do you pull out the exact stuff you're looking for?
 
SB, I don't know. In the political climate of the US today, just being an active member of this forum may be enough to draw attention.
Of course, I could just be letting my paranoia show. Just a thought. :)

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RKBA
www.southernparty.org
 
The 3D tracking is very possible...hams are doing it right now...its called APRS. As far as where in the building, yeah thats a stretch...every building in the city would have had to have been databased, but the tracking technology is there.

Andy
 
What's possible today?

1. Telephones: Needless to say, any tele-communications system that isn't connected to a special de-scrambler, is capable of being listened upon. Hardwire telephone lines would require tapping from a hard lined source. Cellular telephones, cordless house phones, and any other wireless equipment are very easy to listen in on with the proper equipment. Cell phones can be tracked to locations by linking cell and mini cell sites to the phone when connected.

Satellite Imaging: Satellites orbit the earth...they are moving objects which cannot remain stationary over a fixed object on earth. They look straight down and at slight angles only. They can however take momentary photos and record moving images for short durations of time. But tracking an individual running on foot from outer space from a moving orbiting satellite is not possible. You can get a sense of photos taken from satelittes by checking out
( http://terraserver.microsoft.com ). Moving images are best made by FLiR taken from an aircraft.

3-D Imaging: Those scenes in "Enemy of the State" where the Feds were tracking Wil Smith inside a mutli-story building are computer generated annimation, and not possible with today's technology. Radio transmitters can be tracked wherever a clear radio signal can be broadcasted, but not through steel and concrete structures. And certainly not three dimensionally inside an office building.

Multi-Site Video Feed: The movie obviously went all out to scare its viewers into believing that our gov has linkable access to any and all video feeds within a given area. This would be an obvious violation of privacy rights and would require the cooperation of many civilian property and business owners.

The best thing about the movie though, was its believability. You really end up with a true sense of paranoia after watching it. What it should do to you, is realize the possibilities of an Orwellian dream come true.
 
Satellites can remain stationary over an object on the earth. I believe the term is a geosynchronous orbit satellite which is timed to fall in pace with the earths rotation. This is what you use if you get one of those small dish TV receivers. You find the spot in the sky and lock the dish in.
 
Paul,
Terraserver is interesting and fun. But the pictures do not approximate what I worked with in 1977. We had much better resolution then and I'm sure it has only improved in the last 22 years.

As for the movie, I haven't seen it so I don't know what they showed so I can't comment.
 
Valdez, if what you are saying is true, that a satellite can remain stationary, then anyone familiar with photography can tell you that a much much clearer picture can be realized due to a slower shutter speed, even in dim light - but these would be still photos, not a video of the quality shown in the movie - I just doubt the laws of optics allow it from that high up.

SB, I would guess that you are right. If the movie is accurate, it portrays enormous amounts of resources dedicated to tracking one guy, including large amounts of man-hours. If so, then there's no possible way they have enough money to track any LARGE group of people in this manner, esp. given the incredible sums they've spent on technology. Yes their budget is undoubtedly overblown, but it's still limited. The key is - don't get on their s**t list. I doubt being on TFL could do it, but probably being the owner of TFL would, wouldn't you say, Rich? ;)

[This message has been edited by Futo Inu (edited November 09, 1999).]
 
There are geosynchronous satellites but they have to orbit close to the equator.

Supposedly the optical capabilities have developed to the level that satellites can see from quite a flat angle, extending their range. I saw an example on the evening news suggesting that a modern spy satellite could get resolution high enough to identify the faces of individuals standing on bridge in Central Park.

True or not that is what the "expert" claimed.
 
I work for the largest independent wireless company. The closest we can come to locating exactly where the user is, is by noting the tower they're connected to. This could be as far as 12 miles from user under optimum conditions...

Though, it should also be noted that digital phones are a lot harder to eavesdrop on than analogs.
 
Paul R., Dennis is right about the degree of detail available from todays equipment. The detail is UNBELIEVABLE. As far as clouds are concerned, not a problem anymore with the thermal imaging available, and it has been around longer than you think. The early versions used liquid nitrogen for cooling, but in the vacuum of space it is pretty cold, if you catch where I am going. Use a search engine with 'keyhole' and 'spy satellite' as key words, should turn up all sorts of interesting info. Check the date on the latest version and remember that even on the old stuff you are seeing only declassified info and lies.
 
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