November 22, 1998 -- As the old joke goes it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Paranoia is rampant in the new movie "Enemy of the State," starring Will Smith ("Men in Black"), as Robert Dean, an attorney who gets caught up in a web of intrigue in this slick thriller.

Dean gets involved because of a chance encounter with an old friend who is on the run from renegade government agents. He is on the run because he has a digital video recording of the assassination of a Congressman by government agents implicating a deputy director of the National Security Agency, played by Jon Voight ("Anaconda").

The NSA suspects that the digital recording was slipped into Dean's shopping bag and agents, including Krug (Jake Busey), set out to get the recording back. The full power of the NSA comes to bear on Dean, including satellite tracking of his whereabouts. The NSA has his phone records, banking records and other, supposedly private information. His house, even his clothes and watch, are bugged, his phones are tapped. All this is labeled a "training exercise" by the get around regulations against this sort of thing.

Even with all this hardware and information, the spooks can't find the recording, so they turn up the pressure. They even kill one of Dean's friends and frame him for it. But Dean finds a powerful ally in Brill (Gene Hackman) a mysterious private detective who is adept at covert operations. Together, they stage a daring counter attack against the vast forces arrayed against them.

This movie is a very good, slick thriller, with some good plot twists. The high tech gadgets are fun and the film generally pays attention to detail. Despite the mayhem, it is an exciting game of cat and mouse. Hackman and Smith make an excellent pair, with Smith's wisecracks providing just the right amount of comic relief. There is also a nice tip of the hat to Hackman's masterful performance in the 1974 film "The Conversation" by reproducing his workshop from that movie, which was also about evesdropping.

Smith is hotter than a pistol these days in Hollywood, coming off two mega hits, "Independence Day" and "Men in Black," and this film looks like another winner. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer ("Crimson Tide," "The Rock," "Armageddon,") is also on a roll and director Tony Scott ("Crimson Tide," "The Fan" and "True Romance") shows a great touch in this film. The real surprise is the writer, David Marconi, who is relatively inexperienced. He has written one of the best scripts this year. This film rates a B+.

I did a little research on surveillance technology after seeing this film, just to see what is possible and it looks like the technology used in this film is possible. Apparently, satellite imagery is down to about one centimeter resolution or better. ECHELON, the computer component to a global NSA spy network, apparently monitors all phone conversations.

According to a recent article by Patrick S. Poole in USA Today, "ECHELON is actually a computer component to a global spy system controlled by the National Security Agency (NSA) and shared with the GCHQ of England, the CSE of Canada, the Australian DSD, and the GCSB of New Zealand. These organizations are bound together under a secret 1948 agreement, UKUSA, whose terms and text remain under wraps even today."

President Bill Clinton recently signed into law House Resolution 3694, the "Intelligence Authorization Act." According to a statement by the President, " ... section 604 expands the Government's ability to conduct wiretaps when investigating a broad range of Federal felonies."

On October 8, Stanton McCandlish, Electronic Frontier Foundation director, called H.R. 3694, before it was approved by the Senate: " ... the worst sneak-attack on American privacy in three generations." It should also be noted that EFF has also criticized Clinton for his restrictions on encryption software. Some encryption software could be used to prevent the government from eavesdropping on private telephone conversations and data transmissions.

It should also be noted that the NSA's nosiness and the lack of privacy in U.S. communications is becoming a major diplomatic problem with Europe, which has more comprehensive privacy laws than does the U.S. So watch the movie and then watch what you say the next time you talk on the phone.

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