Last week, PBS aired the first half of United States of Secrets, a Frontline documentary covering the rise of US surveillance in the wake of September 11th, 2001. Produced by Michael Kirk (who worked on the award-winning NFL expose League of Denial), the first half contextualized last years leaked documents through interviews with government officials, whistleblowers, and journalists. It didnt include new revelations, but it captured the mood of a decade, when the intelligence community was given the power to prevent further terrorist attacks at any cost. As the world would learn in 2013, the NSA used those broadly defined powers to store the phone records of millions of Americans, denying that it did so until faced with a leaked court order sent to Verizon.