you knew the deal. no contact.
one of many people who would live a word with you.
you've heard of the national security agency?
that's who they are.
yes.
okay.
you drive a black bmw, license plate srk1339?
i clipped this from your wheel well just before they towed your car away.
it's a sat-tracker.
like a lowjack, but two generations ahead of what the police use. it pulses at 230 giga-hertz.
230 giga-hertz. they use that band for the aquacade spy-sat uplinks.
it means the nsa can read the time off your wristwatch.
if i knew, they'd be after me. which they probably are right now. 'bye.
pal, you're cooked. it's over. what you did, who you were. that's done. i'd find a quiet job somewhere shoveling snow.
they're spooks.
exposure. they can't have it. they wanna learn what you know and then deal with it.
no shit.
hey, if you live another week i'll be impressed.
look, you gave me some work over the last year. we'll call it even.
and you won't. now move--
they froze your accounts. get outa my way.
if you find something, chalk the baltimore sheraton mailbox and go to temperanceville. it's south of salisbury. and take this.
get dressed. we're leaving.
move it.
i taped it off the 11 o'clock news.
i was worried about my hundred and twenty 'k'.
the price rises with the temperature and right now you're smokin'. but you're right, you should shop around and get the best price. i'll just let you out here.
did you call anyone?
i mean did you call anyone.
jesus!
what'd i tell you?
what'd i tell you?
what'd i tell you?
i told you no calls.
you don't get it. they go through your phone records. they fuckin' monitor everyone you called in the last--
oh, i'll bet that threw 'em off the scent. i sure hope you covered the mouthpiece with a handkerchief and used a funny voice!
a hundred and fifty.
it's a consumated marriage.
the nsa's been in bed with the entire tele-communications industry since the 40's. they've infected everything: banks, computers, phones, mail, name it. the more technology we buy into, the easier it is keeping tabs on us. it's a brave new world. at least it better be.
none of your business.
i was a traffic analyst.
i intercepted phone calls.
they can tap anything as along as it's an airwave intercept. cellulars and pagers your kid can do. hard-line calls we'd pick off the relays as they were being fed into ground cables or fired up to the sats. we'd suck in everything. all foreign, most domestic. domestic was my group. druggies, radicals, loud-mouths. anyone we wanted.
meade has 18 underground acres of computers. they scan every phonecall for target words like "bomb" or "president". we red-flag phone numbers or voice prints. whatever we wanted. when the computers found something, it was bounced to comparative analysis.
that was twenty years ago. with digital? they can suck a salt grain off a beach.
it was '72. i figured we had enough problems without monitoring a berkeley kid's class schedule. so i sold my story to ramparts and split.
well. there'd be too much disclosure to prosecute me. so they ruined my records and made sure i'd never hold a real job again.
what do you think?
welcome to santa's workshop.
i call it the jar. no phone or utility lines going in.
self-contained. unplugged from the world. nothing for a wire bug to piggy- back in on. that leaves only transmitters and signal sweep for those. now let's see what we got.
that is one ugly sunrise.
yeah. take a walk with me.
remember when senator hamersley died in an accident up near shenandoah?
the nsa killed him.
well, actually, you have proof. could you walk a little faster please.
they're here.
them.
here?
in the warehouse. they're hiding in a duct on the third floor. when we go back inside, they're gonna kill us. when they notice that we're moving toward the car, they'll come running out of the building.
empty 'em 'till they're almost flat. and turn your head. there might be some debris flying your way.
they shouldn't have come without calling first.
where's your gun?
you sure?
those are feds.
think we let out enough air?
we lost 'em.
fuckin-a.
yeah, i can see where that'd--
these guys are incredibly persistent.
drive.
drive.
drive or i'll blow your fuckin' head off.
goddammit--
drive the damn car!
listen to you, "directly". you're not gonna get near the news department. and if you did, it'd never get on the air. time-life buried the zapruder film for 15 years.
same thing?
i was thinkin' about asking for my hundred and fifty grand and calling it quits.
it'd never get through. all packages are screened, x-rayed and then hand-searched for explosives. you didn't like my "give-me-my- money" idea?
the area's wired for surveillance, they'll be looking for those moves.
i know. i know what they're looking for and i'm telling you.
have you seen how fuckin' slow the net is? it'd take ten minutes to unload enough video so that people know what they're seeing, and it'd take the nsa maybe 40 seconds to see it coming down and shut down the access.
but maybe if there were no phone line--
what if we transmitted it over cellular?
nah, they'd shut down the pin number.
if they couldn't do that, they'd shut down the whole system, all the relays.
they've done it before. takes maybe two minutes.
what if what?
how?
reynolds.
who?
you wanna get caught spying on albert?
how fast can you learn?
we'll have to re-stock some basics.
bugs, frequency scanners, contact mics, transmitters, pin-holes, fiber optics--
what do you know about locking cellular phone signals?
shit.
a 'modified' oki 900 interfaced with a lap-top creates an enormously powerful tool. i got into the software, did some code re-writing and turned it into one of the best scan-looking systems around.
this is every call on the grid. i can lock and position any one i want and follow the hand-offs in real time.
need a place to stay for the weekend? a new tv?
all from a hundred dollar scanner at radio shack. but it's time for business.
ameritech's data-base. there's albert's d.c. office address and his phone's identity code. now we just reprogram out phone with his id code and you know what we've got?
a receiver tuned permanently to the senator's phone.
the important thing about installations is numbers.
they may find one, but they're not gonna find 'em all.
got it.
baudmore consultants.
who's calling?
jerry's on vacation 'till monday. i can give him the message when he gets back. that was patrick and the last name--
my name's neil. maybe i can help you.
oh yeah. got another one here.
nasty fella. a tx-703. remote on- off, three-thousand foot range. shit, you could listen from a shopping mall across the street.
well, sir, i'm afraid it's not as simple as that. your average newspaper guy or hard copy lady or whatever, they can't buy this stuff.
ah, sir, you know, it's not for me to say.
the thing is, senator, and i don't want to get in the middle of nothing, but--
most of this stuff's only available to law enforcement.
fbi, cia, nsa, local cops.
i yanked this off your rv. it's a global positioning tracker.
tracks your location to the inch and works directly with--you know.
with spy satellites. i don't like saying these things senator.
anytime.
albert's primed. we'll let him stew for a day and then drop the tape.
c'mon.
feeling lucky?