HBO's 'The Newsroom' Predicted And Broke Down The NSA's PRISM Program Last Year (Video)

"The Simpsons Movie" didn’t contain the only pop culture reference to the NSA that predicted the warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of American citizens, as HBO’s “The Newsroom” had an intimate scene describing the exact situation we’re currently dealing with.

The scene takes place in the New York Public Library as Charlie Skinner secretly meets with Solomon Hancock, who makes a peculiar request.

“Would you mind taking the battery out of your cell phone?” asks Hancock, a National Security Agency analyst. “The walls in the New York Public Library are three feet thick,” fires back Skinner.

Hancock proceeds to break down exactly why he made the request.

“Sometimes at the NSA, we download a rolling bug on smartphones to slay the microphone,” Hancock explains.

Hancock goes on to tell Skinner about NSA’s software, and how data mining initially intended for spying on terrorists was actually being used on American citizens.

“The project title is ‘Global Clarity,’ and it intercepts 1.7 billion phone calls, emails and texts everyday,” Hancock reveals. “Legally?” Skinner naively asks. “No,” Hancock retorts, “it involves a significant amount of illegal, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.”

Hancock goes on to explain how members of the NSA are using the technology to spy on ex-wives, along with all sorts of other personal affairs.

The “secrets” of the NSA were common knowledge all along, yet it took Edward Snowden to get people to care. Check out the jarring video below!

Photo via HBO