Sneakers/Headscratchers


 * Ummmm.... why is it possible for Bishop and co to blackmail Mr. Abbot at the end of the movie? Abbot has the guys with guns and the infrastructure to cover up anything he does to them. I get that they don't *have* to shoot the gang, but they can rather than let them blab to the world about the NSA's new toy. Certainly the situation is nothing approaching "having the NSA by the balls". As Crease pointed out earlier - there isn't a government on Earth that wouldn't kill them all for that thing. The NSA is exempt.... why?
 * Because in this movie, our government doesn't kill civilians. When Martin questions Crease about that very statement earlier in the film -- "You said it last night, there isn't a government on earth that wouldn't kill for that thing" -- Crease emphatically adds, "Not ours!" And Crease should know where the US draws the line; he's a CIA veteran.
 * There is also the practical concern that Abbot does not know who else they've told, and whether or not those people are sitting on instructions to release the news if Bishop and co. turn up dead. He also knows that they, especially Crease, are intelligent and experienced enough to remember to take this kind of precaution. Now, if the gang was bound and determined to release the news anyway then Abbot has nothing to lose by shooting them and hoping they he can catch up to any dead-man arrangements they have made before they go pop... but if Bishop and his crew are willing to keep silent in return for what are in fact relatively minor bribes, why not pay them? Abbot can easily afford what they're asking, it would hardly be the first time in the history of US intelligence that somebody was paid off as part of a cover-up, and its less risky than trying to successfully cover up multiple murders.