Greenwald's reporting up to this point has been strictly about government surveillance. Scahill, on the other hand, recently published a book called "Dirty Wars," detailing America's most secretive military special operations units.
They're teaming up to write a series of pieces about how NSA intercepted information has fed Washington's global,
A scene made famous by Harrison Ford in the late Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger" predicted this sort of collaboration - going as high as the president - 20 years ago.
In it, Ford (Jack Ryan, Deputy Director, CIA) and "Robert Ritter" (Deputy Director of Operations, CIA) get in an argument. Ryan has learned that Ritter kept him in the dark while illegally authorizing "boots on the ground" assassination operations on drug cartels in Columbia, all with the president's express permission.
The scene begins with Ryan storming into Ritter's office holding print outs of classified email communications between Ritter and the executive office. The emails contain planning to launch covert
"You're going to jail, buddy," Ryan growls at Ritter, clutching the emails.
"What is that, what do you think you have there?" Replies Ritter.
"You broke the law," says Ryan.
Ritter then shows him a written authorization to conduct the operations from the president of the United States, calling it his "get out of jail free" card - then explains to Ryan how he'll end up being scapegoated for the executive office running a covert war in Columbia.
The operation, called "Reciprosity," relied on government snooping of foreign cell phone signals to guide special operations air and ground units as they struck high valued targets in Columbia's drug cartels - which is exactly the kind of assistance the NSA may have supplied for U.S. special forces.
If you've seen the movie, then you know that the operation doesn't go as planned.
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