Jedburgh, who is the fixer for national security, explains to Thomas Craven (played by Gibson) that his slain daughter, Emma Craven, was flagged as a terrorist in one of the national security databases, but she was not a terrorist. Jedburgh is careful to reiterate this.
I find this exchange to be interesting because it challenges the nexus between activism and terrorism. And it opens up the question of who decides whether someone is a terrorist or not. This question is not explored further in the movie.
Another theme throughout the movie is that Emma turned to activism once she had exhausted all legal avenues for exposing the illegal activities of her employer, Northmoor. The security requirements of her job meant there were none. But this theme also explains her father's actions in uncovering the mystery for he does illegal entry, impedes police investigations, destroys evidence, break and enter, vandalism, property damage, assault, murder.
The wry comment made several times throughout the movie is that everything is illegal in Massachusetts. This comment seems justified the extraordinary actions of the main characters. The reasoning appears to that, if the law is so restrictive that one cannot be a decent human being, then one must choose to be a decent human being over the law.
The setting of the movie in Massachusetts is significant from several perspectives. The origins of the American Revolution in Boston, Massachusetts, is referred to at one point in the movie as Thomas tries to understand how Emma provided material aid to a group of anarchists who tried to break into the Northmoor facility. Another perspective is the existence of the high-technology industries, of which Northmoor is a part, that provide a significant number of jobs to the economy of Massachusetts.
Another interesting theme I find is the distinction between private and public employment. Public employment is held in higher esteem because the civil servant attempts to live up to a code of ethics, whereas the private employee does anything for money. There are several references in the movie to the private security at Nortmoor being out of control.
The economic rationale for letting Northmoor have a free reign is that the company brings jobs into the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This is really an expression of the idea of dictatorship of the corporation - whatever the corporation needs, it gets. But also it expresses the implicit contract between the population and the corporation: you let us do what we want and you get to eat through having a job.
However, the movie fails to consider that media outlets, such as Fox News, are also corporations who follow the same logic. The movie assumes that the corporate press is a truly free press that pursues the public interest. In the battle between corporation and the people, the corporations stick together to defend their monopoly on power.
In reality, Thomas Craven and Jedburgh are anarchists for they do not abide by the laws of the state or rely on the state as an intermediary in their quest for justice. Both of them justify this defiance of the supremacy of the state by holding themselves accountable to their codes of honour. The law that they obey is internal not external. This is a symmetry with the opening of the movie with the death of three anarchists as they tried to enter the Northmoor facility.
Another symmetry in the movie is between the betrayal of the three anarchists by their mentor, and Thomas' betrayal by his boss. Both betrayals are driven by economic self-interest: the mentor to keep his comfortable liberal life-style; and the police captain's desire to provide for his family. Here economic power is one face of state (or corporate) terror: Obey and you eat; Disobey and you starve.
