A Good American

Edward Snowden’s revelations started an ongoing conversation about government surveillance of our data and communications. With news of the possible fate of Bill C-51, and Apple’s ongoing legal battle with the FBI, this conversation shows no sign of disappearing. The balance between security and privacy seems to have no satisfactory solution. But what if the relationship between governments and our data could have been different? Friedrich Moser’s A Good American poses this question through the story of William Binney, an ex-NSA intelligence official turned whistleblower. Binney pioneered methods of monitoring metadata — information regarding the origins, destinations, and times of phone calls, emails, text messages, and other forms of telecommunications. (More critically, the security system he developed in the early 2000s had built-in privacy protection measures.) Binney’s system was so mathematically rigorous in its ability to identify communications patterns that experts claim it could have prevented 9/11. In remembering September 11, Binney’s pain, regret, and visible disgust with the American security establishment is palpable. As the NSA pushed to develop more expensive, less effective systems to invade citizens’ digital lives in the wake of the “War on Terror,” Binney’s discontent with his former employer reached a breaking point. Although his story shares elements with those of his fellow Citizenfour subject, Binney offers us a unique window into the shadowy world of government security systems. A modern-day Alan Turing, he shows that security and privacy don’t necessarily have to be at odds with one another, adding nuance to one of today’s most divisive conversations. -CP