'On the Home Front,' With No Place to Hide

Then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte at the National Security Agency, which is part of the story in "Spying on the Home Front." (By Brooks Kraft -- Corbis)

What better place to open a documentary about national surveillance -- "Spying on the Home Front," "Frontline's" cautionary tale -- than in the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas?

As it turns out, what is downloaded in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas.

The city, it seems, is a hotbed of official voyeurism. And the "Frontline" report (airing tonight on PBS) uses Vegas, near the end of 2003, as just one example of how we have moved from state police to police state.

For a brief time, we follow the story of everyday newlyweds Stephen Sprouse and Kristin Douglas-Sprouse of Kansas City, whose credit card, phone and other digital records were collected -- along with those of 250,000 other Vegas visitors -- in a citywide data sweep by the FBI. The city was under an elevated threat of terrorism and the government asked all the casinos to turn over the digitized records of all their guests so that computers could look for strange patterns of behavior that might lead federal agents to terrorists.

Sheriff Bill Young tells "Frontline" frontman Hedrick Smith that the only time Vegas visitors are not on video is when they are in their hotel rooms or in public restrooms. "But the hallways, the elevators, the gaming area -- we've taken that to a level that has I think surpassed any place in the United States," Young says.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "indelibly altered America in ways that we are just now beginning to examine and question," according to Smith. The questions raised in the documentary are legitimate -- and the answers elusive. Throughout, there is a sense of the ominous, underscored by the telltale, one-chord-held-for-a-long-time music.

In the old days, Smith says, law enforcement officials ferreted out criminals and brought them to justice. In the post-9/11, Patriot Act world, the government engages in massive data-mining to determine the identities -- and to thwart the actions -- of potential evildoers. When dealing with terrorism, emphasis has shifted from prosecution to preemption.

The documentary is a straightforward indictment of the Bush administration's decision to sacrifice individual liberties for collective defense. There are clips of former attorney general John Ashcroft saying that "prevention means disrupting a scenario before it actually all comes together." Of former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, commenting on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that protects civil liberties, saying: "I think there's a law greater than FISA, which is the Constitution, and part of the Constitution is the president's commander-in-chief power." And of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales answering congressional questions about the National Security Agency's wiretap program.

According to "Frontline," the NSA also installed computers in the San Francisco headquarters of AT&T to intercept and analyze domestic and international Internet traffic. AT&T "refused on grounds of national security to answer questions from 'Frontline,' " Smith tells us.

More than 50 government agencies are engaged in nearly 200 data-gathering operations, "Frontline" reports. Big Brother is not, as once feared, a giant centralized supercomputer with a massive amount of information about every American; rather, it is a cherry-picking operation in which the government goes looking for what it wants among gargantuan corporate databanks.

Speaking for many of us, Douglas-Sprouse, the newlywed, says, "I'm sure that the government does a lot of things that I don't know about, and I've always been okay with them, until I found out that I was included."

Occasionally disjointed, "Spying" is for the most part disturbing. It makes you think that the government will be paying attention whether you watch it or not. So you might as well.

Frontline: Spying on the Home Front (one hour) debuts tonight at 9 on Channel 22 and at 10 on Channel 26.