Truth and Power - 1 ª Season

Black Lives Matter is a twenty-first century civil rights movement born and bred on social media. Created by a group of young, female activists in the wake of Trayvon Martin's death, the movement grew as instances of American police brutality were broadcast around the world. Activists at the forefront of the movement soon discovered that their activities had not only sparked a nationwide social justice movement but had also caught the attention of the FBI and local law enforcement who have been using their own sophisticated technology to track them. Their surveillance recalls law enforcement and the FBI's treatment of civil rights movements of the past and controversial programs enacted to dissuade progress. This episode charts the explosive growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, spotlights its key figures and examines the government's tactics to surveill them. How far will law enforcement go in its efforts to track the organization, and what does this mean for democracy?

The rise of government-sponsored spyware is examined through the eyes of two young Moroccan activists and the team of innovative hackers who uncovered the foreign government tracking their every move online. During production of this episode, the commercial spyware company behind the malicious software was itself hacked, revealing countless secrets about the lucrative business of selling spyware to oppressive regimes that track dissidents, activists and journalists.

Daniel Rigmaiden- a brilliant, young scam artist turned whistleblower-evades the FBI for months after being accused of filing fraudulent tax claims and illegally collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the IRS. After being tracked down and arrested by the feds, Daniel becomes convinced his location was identified through illicit means. He uses his time, then in prison, to investigate. His obsessive search for the truth leads to a groundbreaking discovery: law enforcement used a secret technology called a Stingray to intercept his phone calls and personal information, as well as those of millions of unsuspecting Americans. He takes his discovery public, and the revelation not only carries implications for his case, but also for the fate of the Fourth Amendment.

Two former prisoners turned journalists are among the private prison industry's most out-spoken critics. They take viewers into the controversial issue and multi-billion dollar business of mass incarceration. Their story illuminates the messy entanglement of lucrative contracts, extravagant lobbying, fierce secrecy, and deplorable conditions that distinguishes the United States' prison industrial complex.

A journalist and a punk-rock academic who are passionate about animal rights become government targets for their efforts to expose controversial treatment of animals. Undeterred, they use freedom of information laws to uncover a troubling link between the U.S. government and big agriculture that has silenced animal rights activists.