Summary: Have security tactics damaged our individual liberties? How much independent power should we give the FBI? And do the FBI abuses of Americans’ rights during the Cold War prove that its power must be counterbalanced by the courts? Security versus Liberty, a part of the PBS America at a Crossroads series, is a post 9/11 look at “questionable security practices” - and those who challenge them. ...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Following World War II, the parks were overwhelmed as visitation reached 62 million people a year. This final episode describes how a billion-dollar campaign, Mission 66, was created to build facilities and infrastructure to accommodate the growing flood of visitors. Biologist Adolph Murie introduced the revolutionary notion that predatory animals deserved the same protection as other wildlife....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As the war in Iraq continues, the first measures of its psychological toll are appearing. This episode of Frontline tells the stories of soldiers who have come home haunted by their experiences and asks whether the military and the government are doing enough to help. A medical study estimates that more than one in seven returning veterans are expected to suffer from major depression, anxiety,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: This episode tells how, by the end of the 19th century, industrialization had left many Americans worried about whether the country would have any pristine land left. Poachers in the parks were rampant, and visitors were littering or carving their names in wilderness sites. Congress had yet to establish judicial authority or set aside appropriations for protection of the parks. This sparked a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This episode follows the growth of the NPS after the advent of the automobile gave more people than ever the ability to travel to visit the parks. Stephen Mather embraced this opportunity and worked to build more roads in the parks. In North Carolina, Horace Kephart, a reclusive writer, and George Masa, a Japanese immigrant, launched a campaign to protect the last stands of virgin forest in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In the early 20th century, America had a dozen national parks, but they were a haphazard patchwork of special places under the supervision of different federal agencies. This episode traces how the conservation movement pushed the government to establish one unified agency to oversee all the parks. This led to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. Its first director, Stephen...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: How far can a President go to defend the nation? This program examines the unprecedented presidential power that some say has been amassed by the Bush administration-and wielded, often secretly, in the name of national security. Bill Moyers gets perspective from two experts on the limits and abuses of federal power: Charles Fried, who teaches Constitutional law at Harvard Law School and served...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This Frontline program examines the current controversy surrounding the issue of childhood vaccination in America. Young parents are concerned over the sheer number of shots - up to 26 inoculations for 14 different diseases by age 6. Advocacy groups, such as Generation Rescue, view vaccines as responsible for rising rates of autism and ADHD. Yet public health officials tout vaccines as one of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: During the 1980s, a new civil rights movement got underway-for people with disabilities. In this program, Larry Paradis, executive director of Disability Rights Advocates, speaks with NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels about the importance of litigation in pressuring companies and communities to comply with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. But are such legal actions actually...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Why have America's health care costs skyrocketed? In this NBC News program, Tom Brokaw follows several cases at Staten Island University Hospital as he explores reasons behind financial turmoil in the U.S. health-care system. Among the patients: a 24-year-old man with no insurance who lost both legs in the Staten Island Ferry accident of October 2003. Another victim: a 62-year-old woman with a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Each year, more than one million people try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, contending with dangerous forces that prey on their hopes and exploit their gullibility. This program exposes the most painful, disturbing, and hidden dimension of illegal immigration: the growing black market trade in human beings. Shedding light on the poverty that causes so many to risk everything by leaving their...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Pro-life advocates have waged a successful campaign to reduce abortions throughout the country, using state laws to regulate and limit the procedure and creating clinics offering alternatives. This Frontline documentary investigates the steady decline in the number of physicians and facilities carrying out abortions and focuses on local political battles in the states-particularly Mississippi,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: One government service after another has been turned over to private business for a profit. In this program, Bill Moyers Journal and Expose: America's Investigative Reports examine a whistleblower's tale of military housing contracts gone awry as Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Eric Nalder reveals what happens when one private contractor drops the ball. In addition, Bill Moyers talks with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: How much do American and Canadian citizens really understand about the personal, social, and economic struggles of undocumented workers? This program deepens that understanding, providing an intimate look inside the lives of two non-status migrant laborers. Geraldo, a Costa Rican construction worker, and Angela, a Caribbean domestic employee, describe their experiences with labor exploitation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: When it comes to situations involving life and death, the United States is strongly polarized. Liberals commonly support the legality of abortion as a private matter of personal choice but condemn the death penalty as inhumane, while conservatives often support execution as a form of justice but denounce abortion as legalized murder. How did these points of view become a part of the ideologies...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: One of the most dreaded weapons in the terrorist's arsenal can be delivered in a paper envelope. Vividly exploring situations that public officials, health care workers, and law enforcement personnel would have to confront in the event of a biological attack, a panel of experts wrestles with questions that have gone largely unanswered in the public record: Who among America's leadership is in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Critics of affirmative action say that it pits Americans against each other and elevates the importance of race, gender, and ethnicity at the expense of hard work and merit. Supporters claim that discrimination remains pervasive in the U.S. and that the government must continue to play a role in aiding minorities and women. This program explores the historical roots of affirmative action and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: To many, worrying about constitutional rights seemed like an archaic luxury while Ground Zero was still smoking. The need for tighter homeland security made civil liberties take a back seat to urgent measures such as the USA PATRIOT Act designed to defend America from terrorists. But two years later, that piece of legislation came under fire from both the left and the right. In this ABC News...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: The path Steven Rockefeller has taken on his intellectual and spiritual journey would very likely surprise his great-grandfather, the tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Sr. A convert to Buddhism, Steven Rockefeller has been teaching Religion at Middlebury College in Vermont for almost 20 years. Centering on what he calls "the democratic reconstruction of religion," Rockefeller has steeped himself in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: As he took office on January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama must deliver on an ambitious campaign pledge to fight global warming. This program from NOVA examines the work of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is already leading the way with a dramatic and controversial program to slash carbon dioxide emissions and promote energy efficiency. The pros and cons of California's bold...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As the controversy over intelligent design and science education heats up, open-minded discussion about the issue can be in short supply. This ABC News program sorts through arguments on both sides, examines the debate in the context of America's larger political climate, and explores its fundamental questions: Are evolution and I.D. incompatible? Is exposure to both ideas harmful or beneficial...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Do American schools adequately prepare students to take part in society? Can a complacent, ill-informed public trace its problems back to the nation's classrooms? This program examines the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on the ability of public education to involve students in civic and governmental processes. Filmed in economically and culturally diverse schools, the program includes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Year by year the tourist trade has dwindled in fictional Pingwah Falls, leaving the town practically bankrupt. When a plan was unveiled for a modern resort, everyone's hopes rose.until they learned the land is home to a threatened species of bird. In this Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller, panelists including former county supervisor Tom Mullen; Christopher...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey is making his case for a refocused mission in Iraq. The 9/11 Commission member and Vietnam war veteran tells Bill Moyers why having U.S. military forces in Iraq is necessary in fighting terrorism, but calls for a bipartisan plan to end U.S. policing and occupation in the war-torn nation. Also on the program: Joan Claybrook, one of Washington's most...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007