Homeland foresaw real life with a storyline about the secretive Fisa court. But which other shows displayed similar prescience?

NSA on TV and film: the shows that predicted the surveillance revelations

Homeland, the slick Showtime drama renowned for its improbable cliffhangers, is back for a third season in the US on Sunday, and in the UK a week later.

But there's something else about the show that made Damian Lewis a household name in the US: Homeland predicted one of the biggest news stories of the year.

In one of the first episodes of Homeland, CIA division chief Saul Berenson blackmails a federal judge into granting a warrant from the secretive Fisa court to allow his star agent, Carrie Mathison, to surveil Nicholas Brody, the US marine she suspects of being a terrorist.

But very few viewers would have known much about the Fisa court, until June, when Edward Snowden's revelations showed the workings of the shadowy court that oversees the intelligence apparatus in the United States.

Which prompted the question – which other TV shows and films over the years tried to warn us about all of this? And how did we not see this coming?

Whiz Kids (1984)

In one particular episode of this critically acclaimed series, the computer-adept “whiz kids” get in trouble after accidentally hacking into National Security Agency computers. An adult authority explains:

Some people wonder if they even exist. You know, they're more secret than the FBI and CIA put together.

Not only does the NSA catch the teens exposing its security flaws, the resulting threat of prosecution means the hackers’ band can’t perform at a school dance. Golly.

Notable technology: Typewriters

Good Will Hunting (1997)

After Will is identified as a math genius, the NSA tries to entice him to become a code-breaker. When the NSA recruiter challenges Will to find one reason why he shouldn’t work for them, Will pretty much eats him alive with words. The monologue is too long to publish, but here’s a quote:

I figure, fuck it, while I'm at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy? Hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

Notable technology: Payphones

Murder She Wrote movie: South by Southwest (1997)

America’s nosiest crime writer, Jessica Fletcher, is on a cross-country Amtrak train from Los Angeles when she befriends the only witness to the murder of an NSA employee “who was going to leak information that was going to compromise our government”. Jessica’s new friend goes missing from the dining car, and the journalist helping her investigate the disappearance turns up dead soon after.

Pursued by an FBI agent, Jessica stumbles across a restricted government area in the middle of the desert, where she learns her missing new friend was an NSA analyst herself – one going through a messy divorce, “mentally erratic”, and possibly in possession of encryption data for every single US military satellite, worth $10m on the open market (that’s not a typo).

NSA chief: “We simply download information from satellites and pass it on to the appropriate agencies.”

Jessica: “Including spy data for the Pentagon, right?”

NSA chief: “It’s what the NSA does. We protect all US classified communications … It only makes the situation worse if any of of this gets into the press.”

Notable technology: Original Nintendo Gameboy

Enemy of the State (1998)

Gene Hackman’s speech in the second half of this movie about what happens when the government tries to pass a bill expanding its surveillance powers, eerily parallels Snowden’s revelations this year. Note: we’re not the first to realize this fact. Zeke Miller from Time pointed it out earlier this summer:

The government’s been in bed with the entire telecommunications business since the 40s. They have infected everything. They can get into your bank statements, computer files, e mail, listen to your phone calls.

Notable technology: Hackman’s VCR

The Zeta Project (2001)

The NSA is the prime villain in this one-season spinoff of the popular animated series Batman Beyond.

Infiltration Unit Zeta, a robot designed by the NSA to carry out assassinations, has an existential crisis about killing and decides to abandon the mission, with the NSA in hot pursuit.

Notable technology: :Laser cutters

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

When Springfield is quarantined, the Simpsons escape – but President Schwarzenegger’s administration is on their track. Marge warns that anyone could be listening to their conversations, and the shot changes to an immense building bearing the words: National Security Agency.

A room filled with NSA agents is seen listening in to mundane conversations between friends, lovers – and people ordering pizza. One agent lights up as he picks up on the Simpsons' call: “Hey everybody, I found one! The government actually found someone we’re looking for! Yeah, baby, yeah!”

The Newsroom (2012)

Removing cell phone batteries for conversations in the New York public library could seem like a dramatic television-only move, but as reporting of the NSA stories showed, being a journalist in this situation requires some pretty paranoid moves.

A key subplot in season one is the meetings between Charlie Skinner, director of The Newsroom’s fake news network, and NSA analyst Solomon Hancock. In their meetings, Hancock claims to have information about a top-secret – and eerily familiar – NSA program.

Hancock: “The project title is Global Clarity, and it intercepts 1.7bn phone calls, emails and texts every day.”

Skinner: “Legally?”

Hancock: “No, it involves a significant amount of illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.”

Zing!

Have you seen other TV shows or films that hinted at the NSA files story? What did we miss? Tell us in the comments.