US Homeland Security Department hires liaison to work with movie makers: report

US Homeland Security Department hires liaison to work with movie makers: report

Xinhuanet | March 11, 2005

The US Homeland Security Department, following the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies, has hired a Hollywood liaison to work with moviemakers and scriptwriters, the USA Today newspaper reported Tuesday.

The employee, Bobbie Faye Ferguson, a onetime actress, was now reviewing 14 movie, TV and documentary projects. If she approved of a script or idea, the department would offer advice and technical help to the directors, producers and actors about portraying the nation's homeland security defenders.

Ferguson, who was hired last October, would help "give the public a better understanding of how the department...protect the country," Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse was quoted as saying.

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The department gave guidance to last year's The Terminal, in which Tom Hanks played an immigrant stranded at John F. Kennedy airport in New York, and to the TV shows CSI: Miami and NCIS, the report said.

At least a half-dozen other government agencies have long had employees charged with promoting their image and providing technical help with documentaries, movies, TV shows and novels.

The Defense Department, which has had an entertainment office since it was created in 1947, often allows moviemakers to film itsplanes, ships and other equipment, according to the report.

In Operation Hollywood: How the Pentagon Shapes and Censors theMovies, author David Robb last year portrayed the Pentagon's office as a propaganda machine that cajoles Hollywood into showingthe military only in a positive light, the report said.

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