We’re halfway through this series on “9/11 Cinema,” and the latest film that I examine is a reimagining of the 1962 classic film “The Manchurian Candidate,” which was released in 2004.

This update directed by Jonathan Demme and written by Daniel Pyne could have easily replaced anti-communism with anti-Muslim racism, since paranoia around “sleeper cells” in the United States persisted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. But Pyne had a far better and more compelling idea.

As Demme recalled, Pyne replaced “communism as the great global threat to mankind with what [was] arguably the biggest threat to humanity today: the multinational corporations who profit from war.” No longer were the Soviet and Chinese behind the brainwashing of U.S. soldiers. Instead, in this version, an evil and powerful corporation akin to Vice President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton was responsible.

The omnipresent surveillance of Denzel Washington as Ben Marco as well as the incorporation of fictional news reports, which clearly placed the film in a climate of fear, also help make the movie a fascinating example of post-9/11 entertainment.

*Full article on “The Manchurian Candidate” (2004) can be found here.

**Support independent film writing and receive early access to each article in this series by subscribing to The Weekly Matinee.

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On July 29, the Illinois Library Association announced that I had received the association’s annual intellectual freedom award for standing up for “the public’s right to access library spaces free from retaliation.”

The work that I do has led to many wonderful moments, like receiving praise or recognition from prominent people or esteemed individuals at reputable organizations. I carry that with me in my career. But this is one of the only awards that I have received for engaging in journalism, which makes it even more gratifying.

I live in the West Chicago suburb of Elmwood Park. Back in November, I shared that I had been fighting this suburb’s public library as Library Director Michael Consiglio attempted to censor a community newsletter that I co-founded called the Elmwood Park Advocate. (In fact, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker logged what happened as an incident in Illinois.)

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As part of our newsgathering activities, the newsletter reserved a library meeting room to host monthly “Community Conversations,” where residents could share their experiences in Elmwood Park. The newsletter firmly believed that our coverage of the community would better reflect the neighborhood if we held these gatherings.

I will let the press release from the ILA’s intellectual freedom committee take over from here. The committee emphasized that the Elmwood Park Advocate had used the public library’s meeting room “without incident to host ‘Community Conversations,’ nonpartisan gatherings on topics like traffic safety and support for senior residents.” But as the newsletter’s reporting became “more pointed,” the library’s posture shifted.

The library director “began enforcing meeting room rules unevenly” and later proposed “a $100-per-use fee aimed squarely at groups lacking 501(c)(3) status—a policy no other user of the room, including for-profit businesses, had ever faced.”

“A subsequent draft policy would have let the Director deny room access based on speech made outside the library altogether, a provision that drew immediate public objection. The Director also withheld a legal opinion whose existence he had already acknowledged.”

Yet as the committee applauded, “Gosztola met each escalation with documentation, not retreat: filing FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests, appealing to the Illinois Attorney General’s Public Access Counselor, engaging ILA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and the Citizens Advocacy Center, and continuing to hold Community Conversations throughout the dispute. His grassroots organizing drew residents to fill [Library] Board meetings in late 2025, opposing what many viewed as viewpoint discrimination against an independent local press outlet.”

My effort was recognized along with another Elmwood Park resident Jack Bower. “Their work has made the Elmwood Park Public Library, and libraries across Illinois, more accountable to the communities they serve.”

I spent a lot of time defending not just my rights as a journalist but also the rights of residents to gather, associate, and engage in freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Along the way, my colleague and co-founder Sara Lindsay played a significant role in challenging the library director and library board trustees. There were also several individuals who helped develop the newsletter, contributed articles, and attended meetings. They repeatedly showed up when the Elmwood Park Advocate needed their support.

I thank the ILA’s intellectual freedom committee for recognizing my effort. It was incredibly important to stand firm so that the library—and library board trustees—would not be emboldened in the future to support what I believe was an act of censorship.

Fortunately, in January, the library board not only backed down but reformed the meeting room policy. All that is now required to reserve a meeting room is a $50 security deposit, and in July, the library director referred to the newsletter as a “regular community partner” in his monthly report to the library board.

The library board president, who stood by the library director, resigned this month due to “health challenges.” While I have empathy for whatever he is dealing with personally, his resignation speech was incredibly partisan. So the newsletter looks forward to a public library less influenced by his pettiness toward certain residents.

Lastly, during this struggle, I appeared on “The Project Censored Show” co-hosted by Mickey Huff and publicized what this community was dealing with. I returned to the show at the end of July to discuss receiving an award from the Illinois Library Association and the importance of local journalism and fighting viewpoint-based discrimination wherever we may live. (You can listen here.)

*Originally published at The Dissenter.

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You cannot do a series about “9/11 Cinema” and ignore filmmaker Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” After all, it challenged all the power grabs and lies told by President George W. Bush’s administration, which defined the post-9/11 era.

“Fahrenheit 9/11” became the highest-grossing documentary in the United States, despite Bush adviser Karl Rove and the Bush administration’s efforts to suppress the film. It had such a buzz from the media and political backlash to it that many screenings sold out on opening weekend. That is unheard of for any documentary that does not star a music superstar.

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As Moore said for the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the powers that be would use that moment to rewrite history—“how we ended up in the war in Afghanistan, how we ended up in Iraq.” That is even more true today.

This movie is not only a counter to the suppression of the truth but also an important educational film for younger people who were babies or not even alive when this all happened.

*Read the full article on “Fahrenheit 9/11” here.

**Support independent film writing and receive early access to each article in this series by subscribing to The Weekly Matinee.

The third movie in the series on “9/11 Cinema” is “The Sum of All Fears,” an adaptation of Tom Clancy’s 1991 novel centered around the character of Jack Ryan.

I wrote about this film directed by Phil Alden Robinson and starring Ben Affleck for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. As part of this series for the 25th anniversary, I rewrote a large portion and focused on the backlash to it.

The CIA and the Pentagon fully supported the production. Yet because the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) succeeded in convincing the filmmakers to change the villain to a European neo-Nazi in January 2001, there were right-wing media pundits and film critics who were upset. To them, the movie needed anti-Muslim racism to match the post-9/11 climate of fear around terrorism.

Read the full article on “Sum of All Fears” here.

And you may subscribe to The Weekly Matinee, support this writing, and receive early access here.

I published the second article in my series on “9/11 Cinema.” I dive into “Collateral Damage,” which is a rather silly action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it’s a part of the story of movies after the 9/11 attacks.

Unlike “Black Hawk Down,” I did not write about this one when I marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11. I had never seen this movie, and I was afraid that it would be filled with American jingoism and racism. After all, our hero is a firefighter, and this was released just months after the attacks.

As I spent time considering the characters, dialogue, plot, setting, and remarks from Schwarzenegger and the film’s director Andrew Davis, the more intrigued I was by this box office flop. It is a kind of Rorschach test for audiences. I saw a movie that approached the issue of blowback from U.S. foreign policy when President George W. Bush’s administration had no interest in changing policy to end a cycle of violence. But I imagine most people who found this movie to be entertaining simply liked watching Schwarzenegger hunt down “The Wolf.”

The third entry in the series is already published for paid subscribers. It’ll be accessible for everyone by the weekend. Anyone may comment, and I plan to write about six or seven more of these by September 11.

Read the full article on “Collateral Damage” here.

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For ten years, I co-hosted a modestly successful podcast with Rania Khalek called “Unauthorized Disclosure.” She took a job with BreakThrough News while we were producing the show, and Rania is a chief news correspondent for the media organization.

But now House Republicans under President Donald Trump have subpoenaed BreakThrough News and placed everyone who works for the organization under a microscope. Republicans demand that the outlet provide financial records and copies of internal communications to further their fishing expedition.

BreakThrough News is not only a platform for left-wing political thought and news discussion. Its reporters, commentators, and producers do what any respectable outlet engaged in journalism should do. They seek out the voices of people in countries impacted by United States foreign policy, who can speak about their struggles for peace, justice, and human rights. Oftentimes they even travel to these locations in pursuit of the truth.

I have appeared on the outlet’s news show, “BT Live,” several times, particularly when the United States government was engaged in a political prosecution against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. I interviewed Brian Becker, host of BreakThrough News’ “The Socialist Program,” and Zoe Alexandra, who is now their news director. I even donated to BreakThrough News because their coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America tends to be perceptive and thorough.

In this darkening political climate, it is crucial to put forward a message of solidarity instead of running from past associations.

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The goal of targeting BreakThrough News is not to root out “foreign influence” by the Chinese Communist Party. Rather, the intent is to delegitimize the outlet, strip the organization of its tax-exempt status as a nonprofit organization, and frighten Americans so that it becomes much more difficult to raise funds for their work.

Certainly, given the rise of financial censorship, it is possible that putting BreakThrough News in the crosshairs will eventually mean that payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe abruptly cut off access to their services—for the outlet as well as any staff member or freelancer.

The best way to make it difficult for the Trump administration and Republicans to succeed in this attack on the First Amendment rights of a dissenting media organization is to keep watching and sharing their videos. Donate if you have a few dollars to spare because every little bit will undermine this witch hunt.

Separately, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long been a ghoulish anti-Cuban war hawk, led a summit on “political terrorism” and released an unhinged State Department report that insists Cuba has turned “Americans into instruments of their own nation’s undoing.” It is supposedly a “staging ground where the ambitions of Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran converge with the radical movements operating inside [U.S.] borders.”

A key part of this “subversive foreign influence” apparently involves “conferences, rallies, and organized travel delegations to Cuba” that—wait for it—oppose the Trump administration’s oil blockade and sanctions, which have plunged the country into a humanitarian crisis as part of a vicious effort to collapse the government and force regime change. So appalling!

The report was a total throwback to McCarthyism in the 1940s and 1950s, and it named names.

CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans were mentioned. I interviewed Medea at least a half dozen or more times, and I’ve met both Medea and Jodie. They have voiced support for my work, and I support their activism as well, especially because CODEPINK is one of the only groups willing to consistently confront people in power engaged in forever wars.

Incredibly, the report named Democracy Now! co-founder Amy Goodman. I’ve appeared on her news program multiple times, and recently, she toured the country with a film that was produced about her called “Steal This. Story, Please!”

This report went on to single out Ben Cohen and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). I crossed paths with Ben, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, while I was in Washington, D.C., to oppose the prosecution against Assange.

At almost every protest that I have ever covered, there is an NLG legal observer in a bright green baseball cap. They are key to ensuring the safety of everyone as people exercise their First Amendment right to assemble, and when police harshly respond or violently disperse protesters, it is the NLG who are there to clearly inform the public about what really led to the chaos and disorder.

We face a broad-based effort to weaponize the U.S. government against any individual, media organization, activist group, or nonprofit organization that has scrutinized the Trump administration or challenged his policies.

All of us should take note of who is targeted and which organizations are placed under clouds of investigation. Because what Trump and Republicans are telling the public when they name people and organizations is that they represent the biggest obstacle to their insidious agenda. They blame them for their failures as well as rare but important moments of accountability and political embarrassment.

Few U.S. media organizations with a wide audience will show solidarity, even though the Trump Justice Department has been subpoenaing their records, too. Which is why it is a positive sign that “Connect with Jacob Soboroff” on MS Now spoke with Manolo De Los Santos, the co-executive director of the People’s Forum, and contributor to BreakThrough News.

“We’re organizers. We’re activists. We’re on the ground almost every day, whether it’s organizing to support families who are deported by ICE, whether it’s going against the genocide in Gaza, [whether] it’s about standing up to different sanctions and blockades that the U.S. government imposes on people around the world, including Cuba,” De Los Santos told Soboroff. “We’re just literally pointing out injustice where we see it.”

“That is our daily work, and all of a sudden that becomes an un-American activity. And we’ve seen this script before. It’s not new. It has a long history in the United States, but it’s taking a dangerous turn now. Because it’s basically a wholesale attack on our free speech.”

De Los Santos said, “From the beginning their requests have been, why do you oppose Trump’s war on Iran? Why do you oppose our policy toward Palestine? Why do you oppose our stance on ICE? It’s essentially going to the question of what our political positions are.”

“That’s why we won’t surrender our free speech rights. If we were to accept what this committee is demanding from us, it essentially would be to accept that people in the United States have no right to protest, no right to organize, no right to express their differences with the U.S. government.”

Importantly, in an interview shared with nearly 10 million subscribers, De Los Santos was allowed time to outline the following:

The Trump administration is mired in a series of failures. It has been incapable of convincing the American people that deporting millions of immigrants is the right thing to do, and therefore it goes after the people who organize in defense of immigrant families. It hasn’t been able to convince millions of Americans that bombing Iran, bombing school girls in Iran, is a good idea. So the fact that we’re organizing protests against that is all of a sudden an issue. The fact that we stand with the Palestinian people, that we say no to a blockade against Cuba. These are not fringe positions. These are the positions of a majority of Americans right now.

To which Soboroff agreed that people across the political spectrum hold these views as well. That means Trump and Republicans are trying to suppress a majority, which will not succeed.

As Rania said during BreakThrough News’ live show, “They don’t even need to win here or prove we did anything wrong. I think this is really just about trying to bury us in legal proceedings until we’ve basically run out of money or stop reporting out of intimidation.”

The disjointed and difficult media environment makes it easier for the government to bully outlets like BreakThrough News and silence them through false accusations that they are “foreign agents.” Everyone is working on their own projects, and we are engaged in a daily scramble for any dollars that will help sustain what we do.

Still, our best chance at defending our collective rights to freedom of expression is not by turning inward but through alliance-building. We have to stand together on key issues, which we have a moral imperative to weigh in on as we inform readers and fight for a more equitable and just future.

I published the first article in my weekly series on “9/11 Cinema,” starting with “Black Hawk Down.” The film was released in 2002 with full support from the Pentagon.

Parts of the article may seem familiar to longtime readers. Back in 2021, while marking the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I revisited “Black Hawk Down.” But for the 25th anniversary, I stumbled across a “Democracy Now!” interview with actor Brandon Sexton.

Sexton used his role in the film to speak out against the global war on terrorism launched by President George W. Bush’s administration, and I incorporated much of what he shared about the production.

I also worked in more about the racist depiction of the Somali people in the movie, including a scathing review from New York Times critic Elvis Mitchell.

Each week, I’ll post an article in my “9/11 Cinema” series for paid subscribers of my film publication. Then I’ll make it available for everyone a couple days later.

There will be 10 articles in the series, and the last one will be published on September 11.

Read the full article on “Black Hawk Down” here.

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As part of the millennial generation, my worldview was profoundly affected by the 9/11 attacks and how the United States government responded. I spent much of the day in eighth grade watching news reports that showed the planes hitting the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center over and over again.

I was old enough to recognize that this was an event that would change everything. I even went home after school and recorded several afternoon and evening news broadcasts on to videotapes.

The next world-changing event that captivated my attention was the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. During evening rehearsals for a high school musical, I kept checking the television in the cafeteria for the latest updates. The nighttime footage of bombs exploding in Baghdad stuck with me.

Over the next ten years, I questioned everything: the lies about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s ties to al Qaida; the total erosion of civil liberties; the unchecked warmaking authority that was given to President George W. Bush (and three more presidents); the torture and rendition program; and the indefinite military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Bush senior advisor Karl Rove met with top Hollywood executives and filmmakers weeks after the attacks. The White House sought to enlist Hollywood in the “Global War on Terrorism,” but it was unnecessary. Hollywood had little interest in producing films that challenged the lawlessness perpetrated by the U.S. government, and the industry was only moderately interested in movies that reenacted the horrific tragedy.

Movies that dealt with 9/11 or the aftermath helped to justify the overreach and inhumane actions. The films reflected our collective fear and paranoia and showed that the U.S. had to act decisively or else “the Enemy” would strike America again.

The twenty-fifth anniversary offers an opportunity to take my interest in films released and produced in the post-9/11 climate (and expand on a series I previously published in 2021).

I compiled a list of movies that are definitive examples of this historical period. Each week from now until September 11, I will publish an article about a 9/11 film.

This series will appear at my film publication, “The Weekly Matinee.” Paid subscribers will be granted early access to each article in the series.

The Weekly Matinee

A space for appreciating the joy of movies, sharing weekly reviews, and exploring the way in which films shape our understanding of the world

By Kevin Gosztola

To be clear, I specifically refer to these movies as “9/11 cinema” because they reflect the environment that reinforced the righteousness of warfare and the further establishment of a security state in the years after the attacks.

I largely excluded films that merely recounted the heroic actions of first responders or the immediate response of government officials in New York and Washington, D.C. And while some of the films involved cooperation with the U.S. military or consultation with U.S. officials, not all of them had government influence. They simply created entertainment that mirrored our new normal.

The first 9/11 film in the series is “Black Hawk Down,” which Sony Pictures rushed into theaters just four months after the attacks. I’ll publish it on Sunday. Then the rest of the series will be published every Friday.

The following was originally published at The Dissenter. Support this independent journalism by becoming a subscriber.

When former CIA officer John Stockwell came forward, he maintained that he was the highest-ranking officer to go public and tell the truth about the agency.

He authored a memoir, “In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story,” that further exposed the cult of intelligence in the United States. The CIA retaliated by suing Stockwell for violating his “secrecy agreement” and secured a settlement, where all book royalties would be paid to the United States government.

Stockwell worked for the CIA for 12 years. During part of that time, he was the station chief for the CIA’s covert operations in Angola. He recalled, “Under the leadership of the CIA director we lied to Congress and to the 40 Committee, which supervised the CIA’s Angola program. We entered into joint activities with South Africa.” (South Africa was an apartheid state.)

“And we actively propagandized the American public, with cruel results—Americans, misguided by our agents’ propaganda, went to fight in Angola in suicidal circumstances. One died, leaving a widow and four children behind,” Stockwell added. “Our secrecy was designed to keep the American public and press from knowing what we were doing—we fully expected an outcry should they find us out.”

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On June 14, Stockwell died at the age of 88. He went missing, and police later found his body in a “wooded area” not far from his home in Austin, Texas.

The New York Times’ obituary mentioned that Stockwell’s family moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1940s after his father was “contracted to build a hydroelectric plant for a Presbyterian mission. At a boarding school that his mother supervised, his classmates were from the country, and when revelations about the CIA’s plot to poison Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba became public, it deeply affected him.

“First, men I had worked with had been involved,” Stockwell shared. “Beyond that, Lumumba had been baptized into the Methodist Church in 1937, the same year I was baptized a Presbyterian.” Lumumba and Stockwell were part of overlapping church communities, and the future prime minister was a “member of the missionary community” where he grew up.

A resignation letter to CIA Director Stansfield Turner, published by the Washington Post in 1977, specifically described how he became disillusioned with the CIA while stationed in Angola.

“From a chess player’s point of view the intervention was a blunder. In July 1975, the MPLA was clearly winning, already controlling 12 of the 15 provinces, and was thought by several responsible American officials and senators to be the best-qualified to run Angola; nor was it hostile to the United States,” according to Stockwell. “The CIA committed $31 million to opposing the MPLA victory, but six months later, the MPLA had nevertheless decisively won.”

“[T]he United States was solidly discredited, having been exposed for covert military intervention in African affairs, having allied itself with South Africa, and having lost.”

Stockwell additionally contended that when he was recruited in 1964 it was emphasized that the CIA was “high-minded and scrupulously kept itself clean of truly dirty skullduggery such as killings and coups, etc.” Yet the CIA was involved in assassinations of Latin American politicians and engaged in a coverup of the agency’s involvement in the assassination of Lumumba.

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, including when President Ronald Reagan’s administration was embroiled in the Iran-Contra scandal, Stockwell gave numerous interviews and delivered many lectures. (Here is a video of Stockwell at American University in 1989, when he talked for nearly three hours about the “secret wars of the CIA.”)

Stockwell said in a 1985 interview that he went into the CIA thinking that he was doing the “best thing” that he could do with his life, “the contradiction being that I was a humanist at heart. But, of course, their propaganda line is that you’re serving humanity by struggling to keep the world free from communism. It just took a lot of years making my way up the chain of command until I became convinced just the opposite was true.”

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From his time on a National Security Council subcommittee that managed covert action in Angola, he insisted that in “meeting after meeting, 170 meetings,” all he heard were discussions about “what lies to tell the American people, what lies to tell the Congress, what lies to tell each other, and never, ever any conception of telling the truth.”

By his estimation, during the time that he was in the CIA, anywhere from three to six million people died as a result of covert operations and the agency’s role in wars in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Stockwell mentioned in his memoir that he “testified for five days to Senate committees,” giving them full details about agency activities before writing “In Search of Enemies.”

“Unfortunately,” as he observed, the “intelligence committees in Washington are unable to dominate and discipline the agency. Some senators even seem dedicated to covering up its abuses.” He concluded that “only an American public can bring effective pressure to bear on the CIA.”

Part of Stockwell’s resignation letter to Turner took a stand for freedom of expression amidst the CIA director’s push to criminalize any disclosure of information. He argued that if this happened then “Americans who work for the CIA could not, when they find themselves embroiled in criminal and immoral activity which is commonplace in the Agency, expose that activity without risking jail or poverty as punishment for speaking out.”

“Cynical men, such as those who gravitate to the top of the CIA, could then by classifying a document or two protect and cover up illegal actions with relative impunity,” Stockwell declared.

Sadly, in the past twenty years, this is the status quo that developed at the CIA, and more broadly, the national security state. Former CIA officers like John Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling came forward to criticize the CIA. They were then prosecuted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to prison after the Justice Department secured convictions.

The CIA did not have to prosecute Stockwell. There was no internet, and precedents in two cases were effective enough in establishing a prepublication review system that empowered the agency to suppress books detailing corrupt, criminal, or shameful acts.

Former CIA employee Victor Marchetti co-authored a 1974 book, “The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence,” that described the CIA as a “secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy.” The agency went to court and secured a decision that allowed the government to enforce secrecy agreements against intelligence employees. The book was published with text that indicated where lines were exactly deleted.

After former CIA officer Frank Snepp authored “Decent Interval” in 1977 about the CIA’s role in the fall of Saigon, the CIA sued Snepp. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Lawyers Guild, and other groups argued that the precedent was an “intolerable restraint on the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.” The Supreme Court later ruled that the agency not only had the authority to censor Snepp but they could also collect the royalties from Snepp’s book, too.

Stockwell grew disillusioned with the CIA during a time that the agency had hundreds of journalists on the payroll. He recognized that it was unusual for the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Mike Wallace and “60 Minutes” to be interested in his story.

“Three Days of the Condor” (1975) had Robert Redford walk into the New York Times with his story. That’s the way the movie ended, but of course, by and large if you walk into the New York Times with a story like that, they’ll throw you out,” Stockwell contended. “[T]he simple truth, the unending and continuing horror of what the CIA is doing, they don’t publish it.”

Stockwell saw his book as a way to reclaim his First Amendment right to freedom of speech, which did not exclude Americans who “signed CIA oaths.” And as he eloquently declared in his resignation letter to the CIA director, “I predict that the American people will never surrender to you the right of any individual to stand in public and say whatever is in his heart and mind.”

“That right is our last line of defense against the tyrannies and invasions of privacy which events of recent years have demonstrated are more than paranoiac fantasies.”

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Originally published at The Weekly Matinee

The stock market is at record highs, and the richest people on Wall Street rake in billions every day.

President Donald Trump, his administration, and members of Congress engage in glaring examples of alleged insider trading, getting richer and richer off the war on Iran, the oil supply shock, tariff negotiations with China, and more.

Meanwhile, the cost of living increases for lower income Americans. Unemployment, the lack of affordable health care, rising food and fuel prices, and money in politics are all viewed as major problems.

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This is the backdrop for the Criterion Channel’s tantalizing and incredibly entertaining collection of “Corporate Thrillers.”

The curated collection of 11 films from the United States spans a quarter century, from the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s to the 2008 financial crisis that sparked a recession and massive bailouts for “too big to fail” banks. They begin in the era of President Ronald Reagan and end with the first term of President Barack Obama.

Together, the collection represents the culture of neoliberalism that was fostered as a result of market deregulation and a loss of interest in curbing the enormous amount of corruption that followed.

Within each of these thrillers, the seeds of Trumpism, which first took hold of the U.S. government in 2016, can be found.

‘Wall Street’ (1987), directed by Oliver Stone

Rampant wealth inequality is part of the fabric of the United States. Stock traders or real estate speculators, like the iconic character of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), do zero labor to enrich themselves. As Gekko boasts, he creates nothing. But people with his money “make the rules. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip.” Everyone wonders how they are able to manipulate prices and set market trends, and insider trading is a key facet of success. And let’s not forget one of the most memorable movie quotes of all time: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” It is a foundation of American capitalism.

*Leaving the Criterion Channel on May 31

‘The Firm’ (1993), directed by Sydney Pollack

Senior partner Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman), makes it clear, when he tells Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise), the newest member of Bendini, Lambert & Locke, “Being a tax lawyer’s got nothing to do with the law. It’s a game. We teach the rich how to play it so they can stay rich. The IRS keeps changing the rules so we can keep getting rich teaching them.” White-collar crime is practically built into the profession, and it may involve fraud. But that fraud wins wealthy and powerful individuals protection as tax lawyers employ offshore tax havens and other tax-dodging schemes to impress their flush clients.

‘Disclosure’ (1994), directed by Barry Levinson

While it is conveyed in a bewildering and groan-inducing way, the story reflects the lengths that a corporation will go to protect its profits, growth, and investments. Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas) believes as a “stockholder” that “whatever’s best for the company” is good for him. Yet once his employment threatens a $100 million merger deal at the fictional corporation known as DigiCom, CEO Bob Garvin (Donald Sutherland) is out to banish him. Plus, when Sanders sues Garvin, he expresses how the legal system is supposed to protect rich executives like him from facing any accountability for their actions.

*Leaving the Criterion Channel on May 31

‘Primal Fear’ (1996), directed by Gregory Hoblit

This is really more of a courtroom drama than a corporate thriller, though part of the story involves shady real estate investments in Chicago. State’s attorney John Shaughnessy (John Mahoney) is implicated in this corruption, which is exposed by defense attorney Martin Vail (Richard Gere). Vail, who was once a state prosecutor, switched sides to make more money and savor the media attention. It could be argued that Vail’s drive for fame and fortune leads him to compromise his morality and take on Aaron (Edward Norton) as a pro bono client. Aside from that, it does not have much more to say about the world in which high-powered attorneys operate.

*Leaving the Criterion Channel on May 31

‘The Devil’s Advocate’ (1997), directed by Taylor Hackford

Nothing about this film is subtle. Al Pacino is the Devil, and the Devil is the owner of a prestigious New York law firm. Defense attorney Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) is lured into this underworld. Attorneys like Lomax defend murderers or rapists with deep pockets. They represent various corporations and the leadership of countries responsible for brutal violence. Such law firms depend on people like Lomax, who are willing to abandon their morality when offered money, status, and power.

‘The Game’ (1997), directed by David Fincher

Money gives wealthy people control over their lives. For example, investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) always has a luxury vehicle waiting for them to avoid mixing with the bottom 90 percent. But this film says that life as a rich person becomes boring and a chore, given all the museum galas, fundraisers, weddings, etc, that one is expected to attend. The corporate class has so much money that they stop living or are numb to life. “The game” makes life fun again. The answer is a “profound life experience,” feeling like you have lost control of everything. Everything that ever made that person rich is taken from them, and for a moment, they feel what it is like to become poor and destitute like millions of Americans.

*Available from the Criterion Channel on June 1.

‘Antitrust’ (2001), directed by Peter Howitt

Through the character of Teddy Chin (Yee Jee Tso), friend of Milo Hoffman (Ryan Phillippe), the film pinpoints the problem with tech moguls. “They don’t even know the meaning of open source,” Chin says. “They just want to own everything. They clone stuff. They reverse engineer it. Everybody’s stuck with their inferior proprietary version.” The tech mogul in this film is Gary Winston (Tim Robbins), who comes off as a cross between Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Winston has a winner-take-all mentality that is the Silicon Valley overlord version of greed is good. Either you’re a zero or a one, he says. The ones steal technology, improve upon it, and then push it into the market to make billions. Success can only be maintained by operating as a monopoly that is ruthlessly protected from threats by the government or news media.

‘The Deal’ (2005), directed by Harvey Kahn

All of the action in this film unfolds on Wall Street with a fuel crisis as a backdrop that—despite its heavy-handed and convoluted nature—feels timely, given the oil supply shock that Trump’s war on Iran has created. It recognizes that the world population will not ultimately care where they get the oil. It could come from a Russian oil cartel so long as it curbs unfolding shocks to the economy. This could be applied to any natural resource, and the lengths that elites will go to keep that resource cheap and widely available. And of course, the investment firm at the center of “The Deal” will make lucrative profits so long as no person of conscience gets in the way.

‘Michael Clayton’ (2007), directed by Tony Gilroy

Corporate law firms take on clients that they know are responsible for heinous and unconscionable acts. Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack), a partner at Kenner Bach & Ledeen, states it plainly. “We’re defending cancer for crissake.” U-North produced a weedkiller that poisoned the water supply. Kenner Bach & Ledeen saw the opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars. The firm thrives off representing corporations that need help with coverups. Employees of the firm will go to extreme and vicious lengths to ensure that no person of conscience jeopardizes the work that they do for a business whale.

*Left the Criterion Channel on April 30.

‘The International’ (2009), directed by Tom Tykwer

Global banks are integral to money laundering, which enables arms trafficking, terrorism, and other criminal enterprises. The film shows investigators from Interpol (Clive Owen) and the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan (Naomi Watts) are rather impotent when it comes to stopping the individuals responsible for this activity. Arms manufacturer Umberto Calvini, a candidate for Italian prime minister, is pretty clear. The banking industry has an interest in war because it creates debt.“[T]his is the very essence of the banking industry, to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt.” Furthermore, the system will not allow justice because all the most powerful governments in the world would be implicated in some way.

‘Arbitrage’ (2012), directed by Nicholas Jarecki

World events revolve around money. Hedge fund managers like Robert Miller (Richard Gere) possess supreme confidence in their ability to identify asset bubbles before they will pop so that they can make profit (essentially, this is arbitrage). A hedge fund’s reputation depends on the management’s ability to make deals, even if that requires deception in the fund’s books that amounts to fraud. Rich men like Miller make bad bets that do not work out, and they believe that they should be free of any consequences. Their god complex takes over. If they take responsibility or admit to authorities that they committed criminal acts, then “jobs, families, a lot of innocent people” would get hurt. Elites should be shielded or forgiven because of the contributions that they make to the economy.

Additional Notes

• Michael Douglas stars in “Wall Street,” “Disclosure,” and “The Game.” Richard Gere appears in “Primal Fear” and “Arbitrage.” Hal Holbrook appears in “Wall Street” and “The Firm.” Felix Solis appears in “The International” and “Arbitrage.”

• Sydney Pollack directed “The Firm” and stars in “Michael Clayton.” David Rayfiel, the screenwriter for “Three Days of the Condor (1975), which Pollack directed, co-wrote “The Firm.”

• Robert Towne, who won a Best Screenplay Oscar for “Chinatown” (1974), co-wrote “The Firm.”

• Tony Gilroy co-wrote “The Devil’s Advocate” before writing and directing “Michael Clayton.”

• The story for “The International” was apparently inspired by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal, which occurred in the 1980s.

• Both “Primal Fear” and “Arbitrage” open with the media interviewing the character played by Richard Gere.

• The anti-feminist “men can be sexually harassed in the workplace, too” vibe in “Disclosure,” coupled with the appearance of Dennis Miller as Mark Lewyn, really made me roll my eyes and chuckle.

When Project Censored launched in 1976, its founder Carl Jensen set out to confront what he described as the “systematic omission of certain issues from our national media.”

The media literacy project has documented and analyzed “censored” news as well as “junk food news” and “news abuse” for 50 years. Its director Mickey Huff is hugely supportive of the Dissenter, which is built around covering stories involving press freedom, whistleblowers, and government secrecy that rarely receive regular attention in the establishment press.

In fact, current staff at Project Censored enthusiastically back my work. Editor at large Andy Lee Roth, associate director Shealeigh Voitl, social media manager Reagan Haynie, digital media and website manager Kate Horgan, outreach and engagement manager Mischa Geracoulis, associate producer Eleanor Goldfield, and operations manager have all promoted the Dissenter’s journalism.

I have appeared on the project’s radio show hosted by Huff and Goldfield countless times. It was Censored Press, which publishes their books, that worked with me to produce “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange.”

On May 7, Project Censored marked its 50th anniversary with an event at the Haymarket House that celebrated independent journalism in the Midwest. We all enjoyed food from the Nabala Cafe, a Palestinian eatery and coffee shop in Uptown.

The event was not only a chance for me to meet Project Censored staff in person for the first time, but also an opportunity to collectively appreciate media outlets that are making a difference in an extraordinarily difficult moment.

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Editors from publications that have been covering social justice issues for decades—The Progressive, In These Times, and Truthout—were joined by editors from new and vibrant journalism projects—The Objective, Respair Media, and Cicero Independiente.

Huff, who moderated the discussion, acknowledged all that plagues journalism these days, however, rather than dwell on doom and gloom, the event focused on the ways that these organizations carry on the honorable tradition of independent journalism.

Back in 2024, I interviewed Truthout editor at large Maya Schenwar and Lara Witt, the editor-in-chief of Prism. Both co-founded the Movement Media Alliance to build solidarity among a coalition of journalists, strengthening their ability to confront challenges we face daily. Schenwar challenged the notion that journalists should not be involved in activism or organizing their communities.

“Journalism itself is action,” Schenwar said. “Journalists are not separate from communities. We’re writing from our communities.” She also contended “we’re intermingled” and as organizers we know what stories should be covered.

Steve Macek, who is part of Project Censored’s campus affiliates program, outlined how college or university students contribute to the project by researching stories that go ignored by the establishment press and writing entries for the annual “Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis.”

James Salanga of the Objective, which analyzes and reports on inequities that are embedded in journalism, spoke compellingly. The publication, which is somewhat like the Columbia Journalism Review or Poynter, critiques many facets of the media ecosystem.

But Salanga said what separates the Objective from these outlets is how it stands up for marginalized people and assesses journalism from the “standpoint of identities and how those identities are intrinsically important.” That means there is no hesitation when representing the perspectives of Palestinians or transgender people, which are often taboo topics in the establishment press.

I listened intently to Sabrina Beydoun, the digital and audience communications director for Cicero Independiente. It is a hyperlocal journalism project that is dedicated to reporting on communities in Cicero and Berwyn, which are both suburbs of Chicago.

Beydoun said the people of Cicero and Berwyn have “real human needs” and that “necessitates journalism.”

“As long as communities exist, there will need to be media that serves them,” Beydoun added, mentioning that Cicero Independiente was the only independent newsroom serving these communities when it launched.

I started a hyperlocal journalism project in the Chicago suburb of Elmwood Park, where I live. What Beydoun described matched my experience over the past year. I, too, setup a publication to confront the loss of local journalism and how the community basically lived in a “news desert.”

“With all the layers of institutional failure,” Beydoun declared, “the hope is independent journalism can be a source of truth that doesn’t lose public support.”

Damon Williams introduced us to Respair Media, emphasizing how it was different from typical print or online publication. Essentially, the project built an audio archive to celebrate people engaged in struggles for freedom and justice. He shared how Respair might focus on the impact of a corporation poisoning the environment in a podcast or film, however, those productions would also highlight the people standing up to the corporation.

With an eye toward creating movement journalism, Respair connects with communities that need information about past organizers, like Hazel Johnson, to recognize how they can be part of the “process of liberation.”

From the Progressive, associate editor Rachel Monk recalled that the magazine had focused on publishing articles from Palestinian writers. “Anywhere that there is war” or “people fighting international militarism, that’s where we want to be embedded in those communities.”

“We are here to uplift the voices of people who have been told their voices don’t matter,” Monk said.

It was exciting to hear Monk share how printing a traditional magazine is important to readers of the Progressive. People, including younger generations, want to hold something in their hands. That gives the magazine an opportunity to present a “curated package” and design it in a way that publications really cannot do online.

Ari Bloomekatz, the executive editor of In These Times, responded to a question about breaking through the algorithms that control so much of the information that we consume. He similarly demonstrated the value of printing a magazine that could be shared.

“Make your stuff utilitarian,” Bloomekatz declared. He showed that a recent issue of In These Times had a “Know Your Rights” guide for ICE that could be pulled out. The back of the magazine’s cover had a “Fuck ICE” sign that readers could hang on the wall.

It is harder and harder for the Dissenter to grow its base of subscribers and readers, which is necessary to power the newsletter. However, the answer is not necessarily spending hours upon hours trying to figure out how to game the system of online algorithms.

Schenwar had it right. Independent publications need each other. Collaboration will “help us break through these algorithms when competing for clicks is actually breaking us,” she said. (That is one reason why I donate monthly to the Movement Media Alliance.)

If outlets allow their articles to be reprinted, that’s a key way they can expand their reach.

Press freedom, a regular focus of the Dissenter, is inextricably tied to the crisis in journalism. The crisis in journalism is driven by many factors, including a lack of funding and an erosion of trust in media institutions. However, I do not believe that most people distrust independent media. It is my sense that they increasingly turn to smaller outlets that have demonstrated their value time and time again.

While that fractures and divides an audience, it means that those people form an appreciation and even kinship with the writers, editors, and staff of that publication, podcast, or news show. Those people often become longtime supporters of independent media.

As Mickey Huff has said, we need media literacy education for all, and it should start at an early age. Project Censored plays a key role in documenting “the news that did not make the news,” and the organization will continue to fight for media democracy.

“What we need is a truly independent free press reporting factually, transparently, and ethically in the public interest,” according to Huff. “[N]ot one owned by corporate conglomerates and big tech mogul billionaires blasting oligarchic propaganda and AI slop.”

The above article was originally published at The Dissenter.

Originally published as part of my film publication The Weekly Matinee

As a parent, you like to believe that you will always be able to keep your children safe and happy and provide what is best for them. But when the world plunges you into a crisis of confidence, leaving you doubtful of your ability to care for your kids, it is the worst kind of feeling.

In Cole Webley’s debut feature “Omaha,” John Magaro plays a widowed dad during the 2008 economic collapse, who does not know how to tell his children, Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and Charlie (Wyatt Solis), that the bank foreclosed on their home.

The film opens with Dad waking up Ella and Charlie. “I need you to think about some things that you want to bring with you,” Dad tells Ella. “Pretend that there was a fire in the house, and we need to get out as quick as [we can].” Ella grabs an arm full of books. We see a photograph of mom. Their dog Rex jumps into the station wagon.

Outside their home, the sheriff waits. “You know what’s happening here. What do you need to talk about?” Dad tells the sheriff. The vehicle stalls, and the family pushes it out of the driveway and down the street while the sheriff pins an eviction notice to their door. The sequence sets up the movie quite well.

Ella and Charlie have no idea where Dad is taking them. Dad is ashamed that his life has fallen apart since their mother died, and that he can no longer provide for his children. Eventually, Ella insists during the road trip that Dad tell her where they are going. He does not lie. “Nebraska,” Dad responds.

The reason why Dad has chosen Nebraska—specifically, Omaha—remains unknown to the audience until the heart wrenching but pitch perfect finale that reminds you of the power of independent filmmaking.

Magaro was magnificent in Celine Song’s “Past Lives” (2023), and he performs this character with just as much depth if not more. His acting movingly illustrates the anxiety and helplessness that a father would feel in this predicament.

When the family enters a 7-Eleven, Charlie wants a toy that is $4.99. Dad buys lunch, but Ella also would like a sundae. That costs money. Dad has to feed two kids and a dog. They spend the night in a motel. Dad understands the math. Every dollar spent brings the family closer to that inevitable moment when they will have no money to spend.

It has the structure of a road trip movie, and Webley and screenwriter Robert Machoian even embrace the element of playing a song with the car’s CD player that the whole family knows and could sing together.

Both Solis and Belle Wright deliver remarkable performances as child actors. The genuine reactions from the children sharpen the social realism as Dad struggles to accept and navigate life on the fringes. It isn’t exactly in the vein of Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou’s early films or Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s films, but similarly, Webley intends to generate as much empathy as possible for these characters.

In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Webley said that he tried to “place humanity upon the people on the edges and the fringes of our society.”

“We’re so ready to forget them because we don’t know them or see them every day. We’re so ready to judge them, ready to say, ‘deport them.’ But these are people who are trying,” Webley added. “And if they’re not trying, they probably need help and a loving system that is going to provide options rather than punishment. The sentiment is compassion and understanding and reaching out as a neighbor to offer help, rather than punishment.”

Screenwriter Robert Machoian came up with the idea for the film in 2008. In 2013, the Sundance screenwriter’s lab rejected it. “Their response back was, ‘No one makes a movie with two kids and a dog. You know, that’s just not a thing,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t believe you,’” Machoian told the Salt Lake Tribune.

But another film that he wrote, “The Killing of Two Lovers” (2020), premiered at Sundance, and Webley was “smitten” by it. According to an interview for SAGindie, Wesley learned that Machoian also lived in Utah. Machoian eventually shared the script for “Omaha” with him, and Webley knew this had to be the first movie he made.

“Omaha” premiered at Sundance in January 2025. Owed to the many obstacles that a film like this one faces when seeking distribution, it took more than a year to secure a limited release in theaters. It opened on April 26 in a handful of theaters. The film may make it to a few dozen more screens by May 8, but there simply is no interest among industry executives to program a film like this in the major multiplexes. Not even under the banner of “specialty” or “arthouse” cinema.

When I consider the arc of the story in this film and the bittersweet moments along the way that speak to me as the father of a toddler, I am truly distressed that a film like this is not given a bigger opportunity to find an audience in theaters.

Webley and Machoian made a movie that unflinchingly grapples with the dark underbelly of American capitalism. Particularly with the economic crisis that is intensifying in the United States (largely as a result of spiking fuel prices due to war against Iran), it has never been more important for us to put ourselves in another’s shoes and reflect on the kind of society that we want to live in.

Because the truth is, every parent recognizes how quickly they could find themselves on the road like the family in this film. We can tighten our belts and try to prevent a crisis from ruining us, however, so much of this world is out of our control. Not all of us have the means to withstand a recession or something far worse.

The more important thing is, who will be there for us when we need someone to tell us not to give up and keep living for our children?

The FBI arrested Fort Bragg whistleblower Courtney Williams and charged her with violating the Espionage Act when she communicated and shared information with journalist Seth Harp.

FBI Director Kash Patel cheered the arrest and attack on freedom of the press. “Let this serve as a message to any would-be leakers: we’re working these cases, and we’re making arrests. This FBI will not tolerate those who seek to betray our country and put Americans in harm’s way.”

”Courtney Williams is a veteran, a mother, and a patriotic American. She has committed no crime. Her arrest and imprisonment is an outrage,” Harp stated. “I am confident that the [Justice Department’s] slapdash indictment, full of misleadingly juxtaposed questions taken out of context, will fall apart upon careful scrutiny.”

"Ironically, while the FBI was monitoring my phone and investigating Courtney on vague and weak charges, the perpetrators of half a dozen murders involving Fort Bragg soldiers involved in the drug trade have gone entirely unsolved. A real police agency would go after real criminals instead of engaging in this sort of penny-ante political theater.”

The case against Williams is the second Espionage Act prosecution against a media source during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Williams was officially charged on April 3 and taken into custody on April 7. She remains in jail ahead of a bond hearing set for April 13 that will determine if she remains in pretrial detention.

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Three months ago, Representative Anna Paulina Luna proposed a subpoena against Harp and then referred Harp to the Justice Department for prosecution. Harp shared information from a public profile on Duke University’s website that identified a Delta Force commander, whose men were reportedly involved in kidnapping Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro.

Nonetheless, Luna claimed in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that Harp had “knowingly obtained, retained, and disseminated information that was closely held by the United States government and classified or classifiable at the time of disclosure. The publication of this information was not incidental or inadvertent; rather, it involved the deliberate attempt of identification of a specific individual whose anonymity was essential to the lawful execution of sensitive military operations.”

The Justice Department never pursued charges against Harp because journalism is not a crime, and it is not illegal for a reporter or writer to publish classified information. However, at some point, federal prosecutors in the national security division combed through Harp’s acclaimed book, “The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces,” and singled out Williams, who spoke to him.

Williams was a “signature reduction specialist” for a “special military unit” (SMU) at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. According to an excerpt of the book that was posted at Politico, “she served as the custodian of a controlled repository of valid but fictitious passports, identity documents and financial instruments,” which were issued to operators in the Delta Force unit known as the G Squadron. She was part of the unit from 2010 to 2016.

According to Williams, an intelligence squadron commander humiliated her after she asked to deploy overseas with the unit. He “laughed hysterically” and said, “You were hired for your assets,” and gestured at his chest. “If they want you to deploy with them, it’s because they all want to fucking run a train on you.”

The same commander, a lieutenant colonel, also allegedly engaged in sexual harassment, summoning Williams to his office and forcing her to bend over so he could see if her underwear showed through her white pants.

“Williams filed a grievance at the squadron and unit level, but nothing was done,” Harp recalled. “The next time she came up for a performance review, she received a mediocre rating. Now she was really angry. ‘My work,” she said, ‘was immaculate.’ She appealed the performance review, submitted a complaint with [US Army Special Operations Command’s] inspector general and eventually filed a discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC].”

Whistleblower retaliation allegedly escalated after Williams spoke up. As a mother, any time that she had to take care of her sick daughter she could be marked as “AWOL.” Finally, the unit revoked her security clearance in 2016 because of the fact that she was challenging sexism and harassment that was rampant.

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‘This Is Going To Be More Of A Nightmare For My Children Than Not’

The book was published on August 12, 2025, along with the article from Politico. That day Williams allegedly texted Harp to express frustration.

“After quickly reading through everything I will just say I wish you had sent me a copy of what was to be published prior to publishing. Other than a few factual errors, I would definitely have been concerned with the amount of classified information being disclosed,” Williams wrote.

Williams seemed to believe that she had gone on background to offer Harp a “better general understanding” of how the unit operated. She worried that she had revealed a “TTP,” or tactic, technique, or procedure, and because it was sent out under her name that gave the government a “chance to legally persecute her” and a colleague or acquaintance.

“I’m taking deep breaths, but have a feeling this is going to be more of a nightmare for my children than not,” Williams added.

In another text message chain with her mom, Williams apparently said, “I might actually get arrested, and I don’t even get a free copy of the book.” After her mother asked why, she clearly stated “for disclosing classified information.”

The FBI affidavit in support of the criminal complaint indicated that the Politico article detailed “Williams’s allegations of mistreatment” in the unit. Her position and duties in the unit were described as well.

An “original classification authority” reviewed the information related to her position, duties, and discrimination complaint and concluded that the information was “classified” at the “secret” level. It was not to be shared with any “foreign governments, foreign nationals, foreign or international organizations, or non-US citizens.” It contained information about “TTPs utilized by the SMU to execute sensitive operations.”

To further the FBI’s investigation, the national security division obtained phone call detail records between Williams and Harp. The length of each phone conversation was noted.

On January 17, 2022, Williams and Harp allegedly spoke to each other for 144 minutes and 27 seconds. They talked on October 25, 2022, twice—for 123 minutes and 30 seconds, and then 165 minutes and 12 seconds.

While the FBI did not obtain the content of the calls, FBI Special Agent Jocelyn Fox asserted that she had “probable cause to believe that Williams and the Journalist discussed Williams’s employment at the SMU and associated information during those consistent and extensive phone conversations.”

‘Pure Speculation’ Behind The Allegations

The complaint specifically criminalized Harp for soliciting classified information, something that the Justice Department, Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security Department, and the Pentagon have regularly done under Trump.

Approximately 180 text messages between Williams and Harp were reviewed. Fox called attention to a text message from early 2022. “[Harp] identifies themselves as a journalist and states that they are seeking information about the SMU to support upcoming articles and an upcoming book.”

In 2025, dozens of journalists refused to sign a loyalty pledge issued by Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, which unconstitutionally demanded that they refrain from soliciting information from officers or they would be deemed a “security risk” and lose their media access.

The FBI affidavit refers to another text message on November 2, 2022, from Harp that involved “the return of an external storage device via a self-addressed, prepaid envelope.” Fox presumes that the storage device contained classified information that was included in the article and book.

“I’ll save an FBI tactical team the trouble of kicking my door down at 4 am,” Harp wrote in response to this part of the affidavit. “The jump drive contained a public EEOC complaint that was too large of an electronic file to send by email.”

“As a lawyer, I’m astonished by the lack of specificity and pure speculation in this indictment,” Harp added.

Fox further speculated on the transmittal of documents to Harp, noting that Williams had saved “10 batches of documents” that were marked for “the journalist.” However, it is not clear that the FBI has any evidence that Williams sent any of the batches to Harp.

Ellis Boyle, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, proclaimed, “We trust our war fighting individuals to cooperate as a team to protect our military and country. We will pursue criminal charges to keep these warriors safe whenever we find leakers exalting their own feelings over the safety of the United States.” (Williams’ “feelings” were that sexual harassment should not be tolerated in the military.)

“When the government retaliates against a whistleblower instead of addressing the illegality she exposed, it tells you all you need to know about the administration’s priorities,” declared Seth Stern, advocacy director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “It also underscores why the Pentagon’s unconstitutional efforts to limit journalists’ access to everything except ‘authorized’ information are so absurd. Does anyone think Pete Hegseth or his authorized PR flacks would have voluntarily disclosed these abuses to their briefing room of stenographers?”

Ask anybody who has read ‘The Fort Bragg Cartel’ which they think is the real threat to national security: Seth Harp’s sources, or the rampant corruption and criminality they allowed him to document,” Stern added. “The administration knows the answer to that question, and that’s why it wants to punish whistleblowers and chill investigative reporting.”

Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent, said, “As we have long warned, the Espionage Act enables the surveillance of journalists even when they are not allegedly the target of the criminal investigation.”

“The flimsy indictment appears to be based mostly on speculation, further creating the inference that this is retaliation against a public critic of the U.S. military and an attempt to surveil a reporter.”

Gibbons worked on the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act, which was introduced by Representative Rashida Tlaib in March and would curb the abuse of the Espionage Act against whistleblowers, journalists, and citizens. He urged Congress to pass the legislation immediately to prevent future retaliatory cases, like the one pursued against Williams.

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A version of this article originally was published as part of The Dissenter Newsletter, which regularly covers whistleblowing, press freedom, and government secrecy.

Reitman collected stories from individuals and organizations impacted by financial censorship for “Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech,” a book that is available to order and will be published on April 7.

Ahead of the book’s release, Reitman joined Dissenter Newsletter Editor Kevin Gosztola to discuss “Transaction Denied” and outline why anyone concerned about press freedom and broader struggles for civil liberties must stand up against financial censorship.

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The book exposes a pattern of extralegal punishment by payment processors and banking corporations. Reitman also weaves in her own personal narrative of dealing with censorship when she was engaged in the campaign to free United States Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

One of the most stark examples of financial censorship involved WikiLeaks when it was targeted by a banking blockade in 2010 and 2011, and Reitman was particularly inspired to help WikiLeaks circumvent this repression while the media organization was in the crosshairs of the U.S. government. In fact, as she recounts, the Freedom of the Press Foundation largely formed in response to the blockade.

Reitman highlights activists, journalists, Muslims, individuals engaged in sexual speech, and even cannabis business owners, who have been targeted. She urges financial companies to exercise neutrality and makes a compelling case for government intervention to end this repression.

You can purchase a copy of the book here. Half of the proceeds go to support the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and there is a website with details about upcoming book events in Berkeley, San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Washington, D.C.

*For a full transcript of the interview, go here.

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg maintained that an unauthorized disclosure could be a “a patriotic act and a service to the country, helping to save lives and preserve core principles of democracy.” But today it is far too easy for the United States government to wield the Espionage Act and suppress individuals, who dare to reveal or publish hidden truths.

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On March 12, Michigan Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib introduced the Daniel Ellsberg Press Freedom and Whistleblower Protection Act to “reform the Espionage Act” and “prevent its use and abuse against whistleblowers, journalists, and the American public for exposing government corruption and wrongdoing.”

“Alerting the public to government wrongdoing is not a crime,” Tlaib declared. “With whistleblowers, journalists, and civil liberties under significant attack and government decision-making shrouded in increasing secrecy, reining in the abuses of the Espionage Act could not be more urgent.”

Tlaib previously pursued efforts to curtail the Espionage Act. At the time, Ellsberg was still alive. In 2022, he supported Tlaib as she introduced the reform as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

“For half a century, starting with my own prosecution, no whistleblower charged with violating the Espionage Act of 1917 has had, or could have, a fair trial. These long-overdue amendments would remedy that injustice, protect the First Amendment freedom of the press, and encourage vitally-needed truth-telling,” Ellsberg said.

Read the full article at The Dissenter.

I, like many of you, woke up this morning to the news that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iran for the purpose of regime change. Unlike June, Trump promises to bomb Iran repeatedly throughout the next week.

This horrible development comes during sham negotiations over a nuclear deal—sham because Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, and Trump, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio et al have no interest in a deal. Trump shredded a 2015 nuclear deal that the U.S. agreed to with Iran when Barack Obama was president.

Unleashing another war in the Middle East is unconscionable, yet it is a continuation of decades of interference and meddling against Iran. Everything the Trump administration says is a lie. There was no “imminent threat.” Trump officials did not have to launch an attack to stop missiles from raining down on Americans.

It’s also incredibly stupid and nightmarish for Trump officials to say that now is the moment for the Iranian people to “seize” their “destiny.” A wider regional conflict makes it harder for Iranians to rebel and fight for democracy and human rights, and in fact, at least 57 were killed at a girls' school in southern Iran.

Trump officials have no moral authority to speak about defending democracy and human rights. The attacks on Iran come from the same regime that unleashed a secretive militarized force known as ICE on our communities. ICE systematically violated our constitutional rights. ICE abducted hundreds of thousands of our neighbors for detention and deportation.

The Trump administration has specifically gone after non-US citizens residing in the country, who exercise their right to freedom of speech, assembly, and freedom of the press. Meanwhile, there are murmurs of a plan by the Trump White House to declare a “national emergency” around the 2026 election that will infringe upon Americans’ voting rights.

We can see through the fraud that the Trump administration is dangerously perpetrating, and I really hope that people speak up even more loudly.

Don’t be intimidated by accusations that you are disloyal or un-American because you don’t support bombing a country that the U.S. and Israeli governments see as a sworn enemy.

Hold on to that part of you that recognizes this is wrong, and join others in demanding an end to this warfare immediately.

In documentary filmmaking, few figures defined the craft like Frederick Wiseman, and for over 50 years, he consistently churned out movies that captured what he described as “ordinary experiences.”

Wiseman made over 50 films before he died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 96.

He openly disliked the “documentary” label that was affixed to his movies. To him, it was marginalizing, and he told Paris Review that he made movies “based on real events” with a “necessary and obviously fictional aspect to them.”

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As the editor, Wiseman took over 100 hours of footage, and selected sequences for each film. The selection required him to reduce the sequences and place them in an order that would “create the illusion” that each sequence took place the way it was finally edited.

The institutions that he explored through his filmmaking were “obvious” choices. They “exist in all societies.”

“Every society has the equivalent of doctors and hospitals, of police departments, armies, schools, theater and dance companies, et cetera. The overall goal is to do an impressionistic account of contemporary life through institutions that are common and have analogues in other places,” Wiseman shared.

Wiseman scoffed at the “pretension” that there was any link between documentary and social change, that any one film is so “strong that it is going to change people.” He contended in an interview for Documentary Magazine that people obtain information through many sources. How could you possibly measure the social impact of a single film?

Perhaps, part of this viewpoint stemmed from Wiseman’s belief that the art he produced was not that “important or influential.” Even though he employed a structure and stuck to aesthetics that distinguished his films from most documentaries, he was simply a workaholic. If he wasn’t making a movie, he felt depressed and out of sorts.

Read the full article at my film publication.

On February 6, President Donald Trump’s administration took a major step toward transforming the merit system for civil service employees so that it functions more like a “patronage spoils system.”

If successful, the administration would effectively establish a Trump state that could influence or undermine government well beyond Trump’s current term. It would also effectively complete a project that President Richard Nixon failed to accomplish because of Watergate.

Trump’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) finalized its “Schedule Policy/Career” (Schedule P/C) rule so that the administration may reclassify tens of thousands of jobs as “policy-influencing positions” and fire those employees at will if they are not politically or personally loyal to the administration.

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At least 50,000 employees of the federal government are expected to lose whistleblower retaliation protections.

The reclassification was first pursued by Trump during his first term, but Biden reversed many of the rule’s changes. The rule was then included in the conservative Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025,” a blueprint for Trump’s second term, and in January 2025, Trump issued an executive order to revive the rule.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP), which filed a lawsuit against the proposed rule a little over a year ago, contends that the rule violates the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Read the full article at The Dissenter.

Originally published at The Dissenter

The FBI spied on Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson prior to raiding her home in Virginia. The bureau also obtained search warrants that allowed agents to force Natanson to unlock her devices if they were biometrically secured and depicted her as a reporter involved in a criminal conspiracy.

On January 14, the FBI seized Natanson’s work laptop, personal laptop, iPhone, a terabyte hard drive, and Garmin running watch. The search warrants indicated that the raid was connected to an Espionage Act prosecution against Pentagon contractor Aurelio Perez-Lugones, one of Natanson’s alleged sources who had contacted her via the Signal messaging app.

The same day that the United States Justice Department arrested journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia unsealed the FBI’s application for search warrants [PDF].

In the application by FBI Special Agent Matthew Johnson, the agent requested warrants to search Natanson’s residence, “a maroon 2013 Ford Fusion, and “the person of Hannah Natanson.”

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Johnson revealed that on January 10, three days prior to the application, the FBI conducted “physical surveillance” of Natanson as she entered and exited her home. “At approximately 8:40 a.m. yesterday morning, the FBI observed Natanson using an Apple iPhone while walking from her residence to the King Street Metro Station.”

The FBI asserted that there was “probable cause” to believe that Natanson’s electronics “contain classified national defense information unlawfully provided to Natanson by Perez-Lugones, potentially including classified information that has not yet been published. Through this warrant, the Government seeks to recover classified information that is evidence of Perez-Lugones’s crimes and which, if disclosed, could harm national security.”

Or, more clearly, the FBI sought search warrants against a journalist to seize unpublished information, and to potentially prevent that information from becoming part of any news stories published by the Post.

Johnson never explicitly accused Natanson of being a criminal co-conspirator, however, the application treated her like a co-conspirator and effectively criminalized Natanson’s journalism.

Read the full article at The Dissenter.

Abby Martin and Mike Prysner created a sweeping film that documents the United States military’s destruction of our planet, and all the pollution and carnage that the Pentagon hides in its insatiable pursuit of global dominance. It is a testament to the power of cinema and an intensely personal project as well.

I have known Abby, host of “The Empire Files,” for over a decade. She was gracious enough to write the foreword to my book, “Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,” and I talked with Abby about “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” in 2021 when it was in the early stages of production. (And I have interviewed Mike a few times, too.)

In the documentary’s opening scenes, Abby and Mike share their origin story—how they met, why they started “The Empire Files,” and what shaped them into the journalists and activists that they are today.

Abby, who narrates the film, describes herself as a “product of the war on terror,” and like me, she was outraged by how the establishment media covered the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. It inspired her to become a journalist, hit the streets, and become the media that was needed to oppose militarism.

Mike is a U.S. military veteran who deployed to Iraq. When he returned home, he committed himself to exposing the war and resisting the biggest empire in the history of the planet. Naturally, the two fell in love and got married.

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The film painstakingly details many examples of how the U.S. military is the greatest purveyor of human-caused climate change, and there are numerous sequences where we see Abby and Mike go where they are not supposed to go and say what they are not supposed to say, as the great people’s historian Howard Zinn once encouraged.

As the parent of a toddler, the bravest thing that Abby and Mike do with their film is show us their children. Abby recalls that when they had their son they had a “new obsession”—the future, and what life would be like when their child was their age. The anxiety they felt about the climate deepened. They wondered if the worst impacts of a growing climate catastrophe could be avoided if the Pentagon was allowed to keep operating as it does.

Abby and Mike knew that including their children in the film would cost them some privacy. However, they recognized that featuring their two kids would sharpen a key message of the film, which is that the youth of this planet will never forgive us for how we behaved if we do not take a stand and fundamentally rethink our culture and government.

You feel the enormity of this production not only because of the many topics that are tackled in two hours but also because each sequence takes Abby and Mike to another part of the world that has been horribly affected. They stand shoulder to shoulder with communities that have boldly resisted the Pentagon’s presence; for example, in Okinawa, where a grassroots mobilization has repeatedly engaged in direct action to slow down construction of the Henoko military base.

In an early sequence, Abby and Mike are on an Alaskan glacier speaking with fellow journalist Dahr Jamail when they are kicked off the glacier so that the the landowners can throw a private party. It’s straight out of a Ruben Östlund film, and this captures the twisted depravity of life on a planet ruled by elites, who only see the Earth and its precious resources as commodities for their own enrichment.

Another ridiculous scene that lingers in my head involves a minder at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2021, who is tasked with ensuring that protesters follow rules that the U.S. government has demanded. A group of people speaking out against depleted uranium and toxic waste from the U.S. military are told that they may not call out specific countries. Abby asks for clarification. “What you cannot do is naming and shaming,” the minder responds.

The U.S. military props up American capitalism, and that is absurdly illustrated through a sequence that shows U.S. soldiers “disposing” unused artillery in a theater of combat instead of transporting it for later use. “Fire in the hole!” the soldiers shout as a massive pile of bullets, shells, and other projectiles ignite in a blaze, releasing toxins into the air.

My toddler loves animals. Most parents probably have children that could spend hours watching wildlife. A profoundly disturbing sequence highlights the U.S. military’s harassment, injuring, and killing of millions of marine mammals.

Editor Taylor Gill deserves a lot of credit for the impressive job that he did weaving in countless archival clips and maintaining a rhythm that keeps the audience immersed. The interviews are interspersed at the right points in the documentary, and Gill constantly enhances what the subjects say through visual storytelling rather than simply relying on a traditional shot of a talking head.

Watching “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” made me think of “Cover-Up,” the critically acclaimed documentary by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus that profiled investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. Both films examine the extent to which the U.S. military is responsible for atrocities that they hide from the public, and the films also highlight the shameful lapdog nature of the media establishment that traditionally fawns over the Pentagon.

It is easy to suggest that this is fearless filmmaking at its best, yet I believe what makes it gripping is that the filmmakers are actually afraid. Their well-founded fears about what will happen to the planet drive them to confront the very people in power who should stop this madness.

Abby and Mike distributed the film themselves, taking it on the road, partnering with grassroots groups, and engaging with subscribers and followers at screenings throughout the United States. I saw the film at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Siskel Film Center, which was sold out.

During the post-film Q&A, Abby shared that they had tried to find a distributor. What they heard from the industry was that it was not marketable and needed to be a docuseries. There also needed to be some positive things shared about the U.S. military in the film. And of course, it was a problem that they spent a segment focusing on the “most devastating ecocide and genocide of our generation”—the U.S.-backed Israeli war on Gaza.

This self-censorship, and how the U.S. military is able to control its image in the media and entertainment, pops up in part of the film, as Abby and Mike try to secure an interview with anyone from the Pentagon. “We have to have final say on the script,” the Defense Department’s Media Entertainment Office informs them. “We just want to make sure the military is presented fairly and accurately.” (The military claims that “once in a blue moon” they make filmmakers change something, which is a gigantic lie. See David Robb’s groundbreaking book “Operation Hollywood” or Matthew Alford and Tom Secker’s more recent book “National Security Cinema” for plenty of examples of censorship and influence.)

The Q&A ended with a question about how we talk to our children about the dangers of militarism and climate change. Abby shared that she has not had to worry about this difficult conversation with her son yet because he’s not figured out death. But she isn’t looking forward to explaining how this has become normal.

“He’s already so confused about why we step over bodies in the streets, why there’s people begging for change. And he carries around a pouch of coins with him because he wants to help them,” Abby mentioned.

Abby dreads the day that she will have to tell her children about Gaza and our complicity in the mass starvation and killing of children. But she emphasized that we must show our children “all the beauty that we have left to preserve because it’s so easy” to feel “paralyzed and succumb to the darkness.” Like Palestinians, who are still having families, we have to cling to preserving as much beauty, hope, and life as possible.

While the film shows how much the U.S. military has taken from us, there is still “so much love left,” Abby concluded. “We have to fight for that. Your children deserve that.”

This is the most compelling message that I took away from the film. If we care about more than just our own generation, then we have a responsibility to have difficult conversations with our family, friends, and colleagues or else we have consigned our children to a far greater apocalyptic future than we can presently imagine.

Check the “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” website for details on where the film will be screening next, and check the website in the coming months for information on how to watch the film at home.

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***Trailer for the film: