Hacker Cinema
Spooks
2002 · TV series · 60 min episodes · 10 seasons
Created by David Wolstencroft
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
4 negative1 neutralfrom 5 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
5 comments on Hacker News
I was amused by the UK TV show Spooks (aka MI5), from the early 2000s - it showed an organization with a ridiculous amount of surveillance and other powers, acting in blatantly partisan ways, but it tried very hard to make that all seem like a good thing.
The underlying argument was essentially the same one used in the US: almost anything is justified if it helps prevent anything they subjectively determine as “terrorism”.
And yet again the UK is not the USA, MI5 is not the FBI, Spooks is not a documentary.
The FBI's handling of MLK, and the general culture of fear of Hoover in the political establishment, is an excellent example as it is all before any of this technology. It isn't an argument against this, it is an argument for the effective oversight and regulation of the intelligence services. The USA might have some bizarre legal concepts in which the courts defer to the state when "national security" gets played but I can assure you that is not the case here. We've paid out settlements to the British Guantanamo detainees because trying their lawsuits would have potentially exposed intelligence relating to whether they were bad or not. NB nothing justified their treatment regardless of who they were.
It has always been the case that the intelligence services have the capability to destroy someone they don't like. If they don't have that then they're not any good at their jobs. If you have a (rational) fear that they can that is an argument for reigning in that service, not hobbling their ability to do the things we do need them to do.
> 28 Days set up a few shots like this in downtown London [..] which appeared to be taken very early in the morning.
That's some of my favourite "London" film footage. Most of the time London is shown horribly in films, just hamfistedly moving from one obviously recognisable location to another. Even the BBC do this - Spooks and Luther seem to need every outdoor scene to be set in some well-known location, which is not only distracting but a little insulting.
Saying that, because it was obviously so early in the morning for logistical reason it pulled me out of the film, even though I guess in the film's narrative of "we must travel during the day" might neccessitate a "it's morning, thus we are now travelling again" establishing shot.
Yes. There's even a TV show named "Spooks", though they renamed it for the US/Canadian audience. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160904
It makes me laugh, all these movies like Bourne Identity or the James Bond franchise or TV shows like X-files or Spooks where governments and intelligence agencies are made out to be a powerful and capable (if sometimes malevolent) entity. The reality is that any (Western) intelligence agency couldn't spy their way out of a wet paper bag.
And this is hardly the first highly public breach... MI6 staffers are notorious for leaving unencrypted laptops on trains or in taxis. But as an ordinary UK citizen, under the New Liebour government, I'm relieved that they're so completely incompetent.