The scope of U.S. intelligence-gathering is itself a secret, except that it costs at least $75 billion a year, and continues to creep into the lives of unwitting citizens, as The Wall Street Journal reported in December. The film notes that 60,000 phone calls and emails are intercepted by intelligence agencies every second. Every second. Satellite photos of the physical expansion of National Security Agency sites are chilling. It is former CIA director Michael Hayden - not Assange - who delivers the quote for the title: "We steal secrets."

Egypt's military, the biggest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel, is in decline, according to American diplomats, who blame the Arab nation's top brass for failing to modernize and adapt to deal with new threats. U.S. diplomatic memos leaked this month show previously unknown friction between the two allies over military assistance and strategy. Military cooperation has always been seen as an unshakable link between Egypt and the U.S., even as the political side of the alliance has gone through public ups and downs over Washington's on-and-off pressure on reform and human rights.