Enemy of the State/YMMV


 * Complete Monster: Thomas Bryan Reynolds and his accomplices.
 * The operatives employed by the NSA seem more Ax Crazy than heartless psychopaths.
 * Harsher in Hindsight: This movie predates the USA PATRIOT Act by almost four years.
 * Also, they make a point of saying that Reynold's birthday is on September 11th.
 * Brill makes a passing reference to a previous operation supplying weapons to the Afghani rebels fighting against the Soviets. Ironically, in real life it was the US's providing of weapons and training to the Afghanis which enabled the Taliban to carry out 9/11, precipitating the aforementioned USA PATRIOT Act.
 * The harshest part is that the USA PATRIOT Act made everything the NSA did in the movie legal (with cause). Except the murders, of course. Convenient, eh?
 * Incorrect. They'd still have needed a search warrant to tap his voicemail, and impersonating officers of the Washington DC police department without its permission is still illegal.
 * Also, the satellite surveillance was already legal before PATRIOT act. The Supreme Court ruled in the 80s that anything visible from an aircraft is, by definition, in "plain view" and thus has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
 * Moral Event Horizon : Reynolds and his men have no hesitation to kill a man who was against the NSA project and an innocent girl just for framing Dean of murder.
 * Paranoia Fuel: Invoked by the filmmakers.