Are there TV Shows or Movies that actually take into account Mass Surveillance? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I hate how every character just pretend like phone lines and text messages are secure, and talk about their plan to defeat the villain, blow shit up, cast magic, or whatever, on their normal smartphone with all the surveillance on it.

And like "Is this a secure line?" WTF is that question? How do you magically "secure" a line? (there's no magic in-universe btw)

Is there anything that's accurate to real life?

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[-] vvilld@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 year ago

That's sort of the whole premise of The Wire, especially the 1st, 4th, and 5th seasons. The mass surveillance side is mostly shown through the cops' perspective, and the show is now 20+ years old, but it shows an extremely realistic portrayal of how cops use surveillance to build cases against criminal organizations and career criminals.

It's set in the early days of mass adoption of cell phones, so there are some pretty dated moments. The entire 1st season centers around monitoring a drug enterprise that uses pay phones to communicate. There's a moment in a later season where the cops have to have text messaging and sending pictures over cell phones explained. They go into a lot of detail about what a burner phone is. It's kind of funny in retrospect, but it was all very timely when the show originally aired.

The title "The Wire" is a reference to wire taps, ie the police getting warrants to allow them to listen to phone calls.

this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2025

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