1971 | movie | 2014 | Official Trailer - video Dailymotion

Forty years before WikiLeaks and the NSA scandal, there was Media, Pennsylvania. In 1971, eight activists plotted an int | dG1fcTR1WUpGMlBfS1k

Transcript

00:00I knew that we would find things in that office that were not only immoral, but probably illegal.

00:15What we thought of at the time as the war machine wanted to do as much damage to it as we could before we got caught.

00:24We knew that if we got caught, we were going to probably face very serious prison time.

00:28It was very empowering to know that ordinary people could actually take action.

00:40Philadelphia was full of young families just like ourselves who were very active politically.

00:45I was ready to make a transition from nonviolent protest to nonviolent disruption.

00:51They feared there were FBI informers in their midst.

00:54We heard someone trying to break into one of the apartments in the building.

00:57Somebody yelled back, FBI.

00:59Everywhere you went, there was somebody taking your picture.

01:01Even the presidents of the United States were afraid of the FBI.

01:04If the FBI was suppressing dissent, it was as important to expose that as it was to end the war.

01:10So many things were so wrong, there was no decision to be made.

01:14You have to do something.

01:15Break into an FBI office, remove files, and mail them to newspapers.

01:21More than a thousand documents were stolen from the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania.

01:26They call themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI.

01:30These documents reveal illegal activity by the FBI.

01:34Surveillance of people engaged in protected First Amendment activity.

01:38The fortress was under siege.

01:41150 agents were looking for us.

01:44I worry about it.

01:45What would happen to those three kids?

01:47This was quite a substantial risk they took.

01:51What happened there is a bunch of ordinary people got together, did an extraordinary thing.

01:57They risked everything.

01:59They saw injustice and decided that they were going to act on it.