Airdate: A Good American

On Thursday iwonder premieres A Good American, a docu-thriller from Executive Producer Oliver Stone about a ground-breaking surveillance program, the mastermind behind it and how a perfect alternative to mass surveillance was killed by NSA-management for money – three weeks prior to 9/11.

iwonder Head of Content, Alexandra Fox-Hughes, says of the film: “In contrast to conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 that have bubbled beneath the surface for years, A Good American instead asks the more troubling question, what if the US had the power to prevent it all along? A disturbing reminder of the sinister forces at work in the world, the film explores what it takes to stay on top of terrorism and how history can be defined by our attitudes to intelligence.”

A brilliant cryptologist and long-time National Security Agency (NSA) analyst, Bill Binney developed a sophisticated program named ThinThread, able to gather data capable of providing clues, in real-time, of potential terrorist threats.

Built-in safeguards would have prevented the massive surveillance methods later exposed by Edward Snowden, so why was the programme killed off and who was behind the decision to do so?

Eye-opening and disturbing in equal measure, A Good American tells the complete story of Bill Binney and ThinThread, including chilling accounts from those willing to go on the record to expose the truth and what happened to them as a result.

At the heart of the documentary sits the question: could ThinThread have prevented 9/11? While a test-run suggests the answer to be very likely, the results remain classified to this day.

Thursday September 10 on iwonder.