In my latest article for Shadowproof I examine the FBI's role in the Mark Felt biopic Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House.  Using documents obtained under FOIA and an interview with Ed Gray, the son of FBI acting director Pat Gray (who is depicted in Mark ...
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Vice has won awards along with praise from audiences and critics alike, but how well does it inform its audience about Dick Cheney? This week I take a look at the important material that Vice overlooked, or didn’t know about. From his rewriting of a key investigation into CIA black ...
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Little Mizz Innocent has been languishing in development hell for several years as the 'female Jason Bourne movie' has struggled to get into production. It tells the story of a UN interpreter 'caught in a power struggle between the FBI and a criminal dynasty'. FBI emails released under FOIA reveal ...
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In late 2009 the FBI got wind of the fact that Martin Scorcese was developing The Wolf of Wall Street, about stock fraudster turned federal cooperator Jordan Belfort.  So the Bureau's Michael Kortan wrote to Scorcese to offer their help and support in producing the film, noting that 'all assistance ...
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A story doing the rounds claims that the Trump administration is taking advantage of the government shut-down to change the rules by which the Department of the Interior processes and responds to FOIA requests. This story could not be less accurate if they were actively trying to mislead people. As ...
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I recently filed a FOIA request for documents on Top Gun 2. Going through the entertainment liaison office reports it is clear that - just as on the original film - the Navy are taking the lead on military support. The Navy responded saying they found over 20,000 pages of ...
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Pitch Perfect 3 appears on the surface to be a family-friendly piece of lighthearted, forgettable entertainment. But beneath that surface lies a carefully-crafted piece of military PR, aimed at recruiting people the DOD usually finds it hard to attract. Documents recently released by the US Air Force and the Pentagon ...
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Two and a half  years ago I asked the US Navy for various documents relating to their work with the entertainment industry, including the Production Assistance Agreements they sign with Hollywood producers.  After over a year's delay they responded saying that they don't keep any copies of these contracts.  Following ...
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As part of their outreach efforts the Air Force's entertainment liaison office has started running annual tours for dozens of Hollywood bigshots. Recently released documents detail last year's tour to US Space Command. In this focus episode I go through the documents page-by-page as an open source case study in ...
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Reel Power broke the mould for books covering the role of Hollywood in promoting militarism, war and the political status quo.  It took the Chomsky/Herman propaganda model and adapted it to film and TV, showing how Hollywood's output varies, but tends to repeat and reinforce the same ideological priorities regardless ...
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Dennis Rodman's visit to North Korea in early 2013 sent shock waves through the international media and inspired a CIA-supported Hollywood film about assassinating Kim Jong-Un. It also drew the attention of the US State Department, who recently released cables about Rodman's trip, though they are highly classified and heavily ...
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Professor CJ invited me onto his Dangerous History Podcast recently to discuss the research behind National Security Cinema, what we found, and what it means. We talk about conspiracy theories, how I got into this line of research, what methods I employed, the nature of the entertainment liaison offices and ...
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