"National Bird" on PBS Independent Lens

[countryjake]

Anybody else see this last night? For any who missed it, this incredible documentary and expose of our government's insidious drone program by Sonia Kennebeck will be available online at PBS for the next two weeks. It is well worth the watch.



http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/national-bird/

"National Bird follows the dramatic journey of whistleblowers who are determined to break the silence around one of the most controversial issues of our time: the secret U.S. drone war. The tense and timely film, which had to be made in relative secrecy, gives rare insight into the American drone program through the eyes of veterans and survivors. Plagued by guilt over the killing of faceless people in foreign countries and suffering from PTSD, the veterans decide to speak out publicly, despite the possible consequences. Executive produced by renowned filmmakers Wim Wenders and Errol Morris."

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, Heather, a former U.S. military drone pilot who is now a masseuse, talks about the emotional distress caused by knowing she was responsible for the deaths of people, something she tried to push out of her mind but found impossible to shake. "You see someone die, because you said it was okay to kill them," she says. When she was a drone pilot she would alternate between taking breaks to cry, and just feeling an empty void, on top of the brief adrenaline rush when piloting.

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, Daniel, a former NSA signals intelligence analyst-turned-whistleblower, as his attorney Jesselyn Radack tells us, now exists in the worst of all worlds because the government is investigating him for espionage. As someone who has both worked for the intelligence community, and who is politically active, Daniel must live in fear and secrecy. Raddack explains that "he could be indicted any day, or years from now, for espionage, because the government suspects that he is a source of information about the drone program that the government doesn’t want out there."

In this excerpt from the Independent Lens film National Bird, former U.S. military drone pilot Lisa talks about working on the DGS (distributed ground system), which spans the globe, eating personal data and contributing to decisions that led to drone strikes from anywhere, anytime. "I thought I was going to be on the right side of history and today I don't believe I was," she says, over aerial footage of an American suburban neighborhood. "It’s like borders don’t matter anymore, and there is a huge system that spans the globe that can just suck up endless amounts of your life, your personal data. It’s a secret program and what that means is that I can’t just go shouting off the hilltops, telling the public what it is. What I can tell you is that to me, one person who worked within this massive thing, it’s frightening."

[2naSalit]

1. One of my housemates had it on

while I was cooking so I caught about a third of it.

I knew about this, sucks to be us sometimes.

[countryjake]

2. I remember when the videos came out, from Afghanistan...

of those same survivors returning with the victims to their village. It was hard to listen to their account of that drone attack now and sad to hear their opinions on the USA's "National Bird".

Thanks for replying, 2naSalit. That show was a powerful statement on the tactics we've chosen to use in war.