This superb documentary tells the story of Bill Binney and his team of code-breakers at the NSA, who developed such sophisticated technology that the attacks of 9/11 could have and should have been prevented.

Binney was always ahead of the curve in his work as an analyst. In 1967, he had detected the evidence of the North Vietnamese TET offensive that should have led to greater preparedness of the American military in the 1968 offensive. He also predicted the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. By the end of the century, Binney was ahead of everyone in understanding the importance of "traffic analysis" through the gathering of "metadata." He also recognized the potential for the abuses of power in the national security network. He had worked too long with people who believed that they had so much power that they were invincible.

The name of Binney's operation was Thinthread, and the film goes into great detail about the visionary work of Binney's system to track electronic and phone communications of anyone throughout the world. His program also ensured that no American citizen's identity could be compromised without a warrant.

But the bureaucracy of the NSA opted for greed instead of the goal of protecting the American people. It also chose discarding civil liberties in the name of national security. The Thinthread project was disbanded in favor of outside contractors selected by General Michael Hayden. The new program called Trailblazer failed whereas Thinthread would have identified specific details about the al-Quaeda plot of September 11, 2001.

Binney and his colleagues even demonstrated how the data would have been generated to prevent the attacks. In the wake of 9/11 and to prevent embarrassment to Hayden and his minions (Maureen Baginski, Bill Black, and Sam Viser),the homes of Binney and his colleagues were raided, and their programs were confiscated.

This is a story of corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse. It is also the story of the incompetency of unelected officials determining national policy that favor greed over security of its citizens. Vice-President Dick Cheney discussed the "dark side" that he embraced in the wake of 9/11. The film reveals how the dark side has compromised the ideals of our nation's foundational documents and how the moral standing of America in the world has possibly been irredeemably compromised.

"A Good American" tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy as demanded by the US constitution.

Variety called the film "compelling if only semi-persuasive," and said that it was marred by bias toward William Binney. The Guardian described the film as a "fascinating, conspiracy theorising documentary", and said that while "some of the film's content has been aired before, the inside experience has not been voiced in such a collective manner, with (director) Moser joining the dots just as Binney might connect his metadata." I tend to side with Variety here. Although I enjoyed the documentary, it does have two major flaws. One, it really only tells Binney's side. That might be alright, but it allows the idea to be pushed that 9/11 would have been prevented, which cannot be said with as much confidence as he wishes. And two, for a film about a super-smart computer and global terror, it is a rather boring documentary. This should be gripping, but it was really rather mundane.

A third point could be added... why make this in 2015 (and release it in 2017)? While no less interesting today than ten years ago, it does not seem as timely.

Let's be honest, A good American is not the easiest documentary to watch, with alot of things that are to us, 'the normal human beings', difficult to understand. It's basically about Big Brother watching us, in everything we do, as soon as we are using an electronic device. The right to privacy might be written somewhere but the truth is that they couldn't care less about the right of your privacy. For brainwashed America it should be a mandatory watch, so that maybe people would open their eyes, on how the whole system there is just controling the masses and making as much money as they can, well only for the chosen few then, not for you and me, the common people. It's not about your safety, they don't really care about that, it's a bonus that's all. It's all about greed and power. That exactly people of 'good will' like the former technical director of the NSA William Binney, that created a system that could have prevented 9/11, get harassed by their own government is just a shame and disgraceful. Not that I'm a big fan of their system, far from, but at least they didn't do it out of greed or wanting to get rich, they did it to save humanity from atrocities. So yes A Good American is worth a watch, a watch until the end, so that you can truely understand the whole picture on how corrupt the whole American system is.