Sneakers/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

The film is from 1992, before the NSA was as well-known and infamous as they are today. Therefore, Dick Gordon (Timothy Busfield) gives us the exposition-heavy dialogue about what the NSA is/does. Martin plays dumb, allowing the exposition to happen. In Martin's line of work, he'd certainly know all of this. However, Marty's just been outed in a room of stuffed shirts for having roots in the counterculture. Marty's just busting Dick's chops. (He even pointedly switches to calling him "Dick".)
The same exposition-heavy scene introduces each of the main characters in the ensemble one by one, with said character in the background of his respective shot, out of hearing range. (How convenient that this takes place in a conference room surrounded by glass walls.) Notice that they're all oblivious to the fact that they're being talked about, except Whistler, the blind guy gifted with great hearing.
- It gets better. The reason the conference room exists is so that people can talk in it without being overheard (the interior windows keep people from using laser mikes on the building windows to hear, and being a wide-open and transparent space its very hard to place audio bugs inside without them being discovered and removed). So, Whistler is overhearing people talk about him from inside a chamber designed to be proof against audio eavesdropping.
- And later in the movie, he can sense ultrasonic motion detectors. Ultrasonic, as in, operates outside the range of human hearing. That one only sunk in on a second viewing.
Wallace bristles at Bishop's insult, "I could have joined the NSA, but they found out my parents were married." (Played for laughs.) But wait, Wallace working for the NSA turns out to be a ruse, right? When Gregor helps Martin dig for answers, he helpfully points out that the reason Wallace is where he is -- working for "good family men" -- is that he was drummed out of the NSA.
- ...Which makes Wallace the perfect candidate for a criminal operation that requires fake NSA agents.
Things don't go so well during the Martin-Cosmo reunion, ending with Cosmo spitefully ensuring Martin goes to prison. The next shot? Martin being tossed out of a car by henchmen, in the streets of San Francisco with Alcatraz in the background.

Fridge Horror

The NSA comes out of this as fops but for one thing. Marty's only real crime is his "prank" hacking when he was in college. However, he's framed for capital crimes. By the end, he's granted his wish and the government clears his record. The Fridge Horror comes in when you realize that the NSA never learns what he actually did and what he was only framed for. As far they know, Marty really is guilty of all of those things, and they covered it up. (But don't let that ruin the otherwise perfect karmic justice.)
- To be fair, Marty's 'prank' was wire and securities fraud to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is definitely a major set of warrants you'd really want to duck. As for what Marty was framed for later in the movie, the NSA almost certainly knows that's a frame job by the time Abbott catches up to them. The murder of a Soviet consular official with diplomatic immunity on US soil is bad enough, but it turns into a major diplomatic crisis if the US government can even be credibly suspected of having had the killer in its hands and letting him go. If he honestly thinks Marty whacked the guy, his only option that both avoids the doomsday clock inching closer to midnight and keeping his secrets involves blowing Marty's head off and then telling the Russians 'Well, we got the guy who killed your ambassador, but he resisted arrest'. *cue knowing smiles and approving nods from the Russians* If Abbott's willing to just do some polite blackmail instead, then he already knows the stakes are lower than that.