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:

#Documentary #CounterTerrorism #Sept11

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