How the U.S. Built a Hidden Anti-Terror Apparatus After 9/11 (full documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)

How the U.S. government built a huge and hidden anti-terror apparatus after the 9/11 attacks. (Aired 2011)

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In “Top Secret America,” Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Dana Priest investigated the growth of a massive maze of clandestine government and private agencies aimed at fighting terrorism after the 9/11 attacks.

Those secret efforts, she and her team reported, included a covert international war waged by the CIA that included drone strikes, black site prisons, and “enhanced interrogation techniques” widely criticized as torture; a domestic surveillance program that authorized the NSA to intercept certain telephone calls and emails of American citizens without a warrant; and other anti-terror programs.

The documentary shed new light on the nature, scale and scope of the government’s counter-terror operations after 9/11 — and explored mounting questions about those programs’ effectiveness.

“Top Secret America” was directed by Michael Kirk. It was written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser, and produced by Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Jim Gilmore. It was reported by Dana Priest, Jim Gilmore and William Arkin. The executive producer of FRONTLINE was David Fanning.

In the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, we are making a number of seminal documentaries from the days and years after 9/11 available to stream on YouTube for the first time. These documentaries offer a profound historical record of the attacks, what led up to them, the U.S. government's response, and the ripple effects across the U.S. and the world.

Explore additional reporting on “Top Secret America” on our website:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/front....line/documentary/top

#Documentary #CounterTerrorism #Sept11

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Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with major support from Ford Foundation, and Fialkow Family Foundation, as part of the Plum Bush Foundation. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Trust, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and Corey David Sauer, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen, and from Laura DeBonis and Scott Nathan.

00:00 - Prologue
01:00 - U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts After 9/11
12:50 - The CIA’s ‘Enhanced Interrogation Techniques’ & Other Operations
24:25 - What Was the NSA’s ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program’?
32:50 - The 9/11 Commission’s Recommendations & What Followed
39:39 - Former President Barack Obama’s Approach to Counterterrorism
52:16 - Credits