Since it premiered at the New York Film Festival last month, Laura Poitras Citizenfour, about the dramatic life and choices of Edward Snowden, has been something of a strange bird. To the (somewhat self-selected) group that's seen or taken a keen interest in it, it's been one of the most important and brave movies of the year, a film that brings home in a chilling way our current all-too-true narrative of surveillance. To many others, it's passed by unremarkably. To that group, the film is a blip, either making them wonder why we're talking about Snowden again or, for the more engagedly skeptical, why were glorifying a traitor.

Not insignificantly, the film, which opened in U.S. theaters two weeks ago, has also confounded some of the usual political divides. People who tilt decidedly right-libertarian have embraced it, as have people who tilt decidedly left-liberal -- its criticisms of big government and security hawkishness play, respectively, to each side. But those closer to the middle have struggled with it, and certainly the D.C. establishment has been discomfited by Snowden in general; you wont find Ari Fleischer and Barack Obama in the same movie very often, much less agreeing.

Watching Citizenfour a second time at the Berlin premiere Wednesday night, though, had a different effect. Both the policy and the politics of it fell away. It became clearer what the movies appeal was, how that appeal worked and ultimately, perhaps, where it can take the film.

The backstory to Citizenfour is a homegrown one. Poitras moved to Berlin several years ago and cut the film here, immersing the producers and editors she worked with in her world for over a year. There were so many local crew and helpers on stage with her after the screening Wednesday that I lost count (probably about 35). This city is also, for a mix of reasons, ground zero for the pro-Snowden movement.

But it wasnt politics that shone through Wednesday night. At the New York screening, I was taken with the import of what Snowden was doing, running through what I knew about the story and comparing the new information to what I already knew, how it fleshed out or contradicted that. In more reflective moments I thought about the issues -- the vast surveillance machine and what it means.

A second viewing operated differently. It made me see why Snowden was so compelling to so many in the first place, regardless of the position one takes on him or the National Security Agency. For all of his, and Poitras, grand ambition to change how we think about government, the films neat trick is that it works most at a human level -- which may be why (beyond the self-selection) those who see it come away with warm feelings toward its main character.

As he lays out the stakes and describes the NSAs activities, Snowden reminds that it is not my story ... but everyones story. Yet the movie is, indeed, very much his story. Watching him take the action he does -- walk away from a lucrative career and a nice life at the age of 29 because of an ideal -- makes us wonder if we would do the same, no matter the particular context. Its a kind of aspirational viewing, a rooting for someone because he does the thing wed like to think wed do but suspect we might not.

That may be one reason the interest in Snowden personally has been so high, and why the seemingly after-the-fact detail in the film that his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, is living with him in Moscow has been so touted. You see, that closing moment seems to be saying, you can walk away from it all and still have a happy life. At the screening Poitras said that the last time she talked to Snowden, in September, he was in a good state of mind. It drew a relieved and appreciative reaction from the audience.

The German lens is a particularly interesting one through which to view "Citizenfour." The fact that popular Chancellor Angela Merkel is the closest thing the film has to a governmental hero enhances its standing, as does the countrys very recent history with rampant spying (albeit of the lower-tech version) via the Stasi. There was a pointed quality to the movie being shown in the Kino International, the old East German, silver-curtained theater where high-ranking members of the GDR used to gather for screenings. This is a movie theater more associated with government surveillance than almost any other in the Western world, and yet on its screen Snowden was battling against just that -- fitting" Poitras noted before the screening.

This film has long been lauded as a kind of great documentary hope, transcending the many other nonfiction stories that have found their way onto TV (and Netflix and other platforms) in recent years. The jury is still out. The packed handful of U.S. theaters in Week 1 became a much sparser couple dozen theaters in Week 2. If "Citizenfour" does catch on, though, its aspirational quality might have a lot to do with it. Ditto for the academy, which is widely thought to be faced with a choice between this film and the Roger Ebert movie Life Itself for the year's best documentary. The two might be different in a lot of ways, but in our identification with a central character, and the feeling the film leaves of wanting to lead a life much like the one we're watching, they're not all that dissimilar.

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'Citizenfour's' Berlin premiere puts new spin on Edward Snowden

EXCLUSIVE: Open Road Films has acquired U.S.distribution rights to the untitled Oliver Stone-directed film that will star Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Edward Snowden, the American who fled to Russia seeking asylum after making public more classified documents than anyone since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Im told that Stone and producing partner Moritz Borman will make this deal as soon as today, partly because of the job that Open Road head Tom Ortenberg did in championing the release of the Stone-directed George W. Bush film W while he was at Lionsgate.

The deal follows one earlier today in which French sales agent-distributor-producer Wild Bunch acquired international rights to sell on a film that Stone begins shooting late January in Munich. Snowden has been a hot-button topic in town the documentary Citizenfour premiered at the New York Film Festival. Right around then, studio heads began reading a script by Stone that Ive heard is one of his stronger efforts, about a leaker some call gutsy while others call a traitor. Borman produces with Eric Kopeloff.

Deadline revealed in September that Gordon-Levitt would play Snowden. He most recently completed playing Philippe Petit in the Robert Zemeckis-directed The Long Walk for TriStar and he is now shooting Xmas with Seth Rogen at Sony.

Stone and Borman got into the Snowden film by making a deal with his Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, for film rights to his novel Time Of The Octopus. That is the basis for the story of an American whistleblower who heads to Russia and the back and forth between the leaker and his lawyer as he waits while that country considers his request for asylum. Stone and Borman also bought the screen rights to The Snowden Files: The Inside Story Of The Worlds Most Wanted Man, a book by Guardian journalist Luke Harding thats published by Guardian Faber. It is unknown at this point whether Snowden himself has any direct input.

CAA brokered the deal.

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Edward Snowden Film By Oliver Stone Acquired By Open Road

French sales agent-distributor-producer Wild Bunch has acquired international rights to sell Oliver Stones untitled Edward Snowden pic starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the title role.The project, currently in pre-production, starts principal photography in January in Munich.

As previously reported by Deadline,Snowdens Russian lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, sold film rights to his upcoming novel Time Of The Octopus to Stone and longtime producing partner Moritz Borman. Stone is using the novel as well asLuke Hardings The Snowden Files: The Inside Story OfThe Worlds Most Wanted Manas sources for the screenplay.

Stone is pipping Sonys rival Snowden pic to the starting line. That studioacquired film rights to Pulitzer-winning journalist Glenn Greenwaldsupcoming bookNo Place To Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA, And The U.S. Surveillance State. The movieis set tobe produced by Michael G Wilsonand Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bondspy franchise.

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Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden Film Acquired By Wild Bunch

Isil is the first terrorist group whose members have grown up using computers, and the group has demonstrated a high level of sophistication both in the way it produces its propaganda videos and in how it expertly exploits social media networks to ensure they attract a large following.

For example, the gruesome execution videos of Western hostages such as the US journalist James Foley are carefully stage-managed, in order to capture the full horror of the crime without explicitly showing the exact moment when the captive is decapitated thereby staying within the social media guidelines that ban the dissemination of acts of extreme violence.

Isil has also proved adept at making sure its cheap, home-made videos reach the widest possible audience. One successful tactic is to hijack popular Twitter hashtags, such as those relating to the recent referendum on Scottish independence or last summers World Cup in Brazil, which enables its hateful message to reach a far wider audience than its traditional following within the radicalised Islamist community.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, renegade groups are tech-savvy (REUTERS)

Preventing Isil, as well as other criminal organisations such as paedophile rings, from exploiting the internet in this manner would be perfectly feasible if the intelligence agencies still retained the ability to track the location where the material originated. But thanks to Snowden, renegade groups are now well-acquainted with the techniques that organisations such as the NSA and GCHQ have employed in the past to identify potential terrorist cells including accessing social media websites and private emails alongside the more traditional interception of phone calls.

In the post-Snowden world, this has become immeasurably more difficult not least because the whistle-blowers revelations prompted many of the worlds leading social media companies to tighten up their security arrangements, primarily to reassure customers that their private activities were safe from the activities of intelligence-seeking eavesdroppers.

Both Apple and Google have recently changed their default settings to make encryption an opt-out rather than an opt-in feature. Moreover, the cosy relationship that existed pre-Snowden between the service providers and the spooks, which meant the agencies were given details of the access codes, is now dead: it ended the moment Snowdens revelations provoked a public outcry on both sides of the Atlantic about the alleged mass surveillance this allowed.

Subsequent attempts to heal the rift have foundered over the internet firms erroneous belief that their interests are best served by putting a higher priority on protecting their customers than on preventing acts of terrorism.

But if, as Mr Hannigan contends, these companies have become the unwitting command and control networks for groups such as Isil, it is very much in their interests to cooperate. Otherwise, when the next bomb goes off in London or New York, they could have some difficult questions to answer.

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How social media is helping Islamic State to spread its poison

A few days ago, I found myself in a crowded Manhattan office watching Laura Poitras sign posters for her new documentary. Each signature appeared above the film's titleCitizenfourand below the film's subjectEdward Snowden. She didn't think she had time, but her handler insisted. It's taken me a while, but only now do I realize what a powerful metaphor that moment was. In a way, it revealed what Poitras thinks about the future of whistleblowers: We shouldn't need them any more.

I didn't know what to expect from my chat with Poitras, just like Poitras didn't know what to expect out of the stories that would come from what they learned in that hotel room. Here was a rogue intelligence analyst exposing some of the United States government's deepest darkest secrets. This could change everything! All of the evils of the Patriot Act could be cured! This could be our generation's Watergate!

Except it wasn't, and it isn't. Poitras introduced one of the world's greatest whistleblowers to the public, and it's hard to imagine the story that followed to get any bigger. Many expect more whistleblowers to step forward, but the whistle's already loud enough. Shy as he may seem, Snowden's the one who was supposed to change everything.

Immediately after we exited the office building a few minutes later, Poitras and I ducked into the backseat of a black Mercedes sedan. It smelled like new leather, and she looked tired. This was no surprise. Flanked by glowing reviews, Citizenfour opened in theaters that day, and everybody wanted to talk to the director. She also happened to be the woman who found Edward Snowden.

Well, the more accurate thing to say would be that Edward Snowden found her. In classic whistleblower fashion, he reached out to carefully selected journalists, including Glenn Greenwald, and offered up the leaked documents. Poitras followed up and within a few months was in a hotel room in Hong Kong, sitting with Snowden, Greenwald, and The Guardian's Ewan MacAskill.

"[My first impression] was shock because both Glenn and I both thought he was going to be much older," Poitras said of Snowden, as we headed uptown. "But then I was just completely blown away by the kind of resolve, the calm. He just sort of had made this decision and he was in this place of just like, 'I'm here what do you guys need.' And it was a sense of incredible trust."

Again, this sounds like a prototypical whistleblower: someone who quietly hides in the background, risking their own freedom in order to expose the truth. This doesn't really sound like the Edward Snowden we know, though. Whether he wanted to or not, the 31-year-old former NSA contractor is now an international celebrity who's living in exile, where he can trust no one. Meanwhile, just a couple of months ago, the Electronic Frontier Foundation hailed Snowden and proclaimed: "The World Needs More Whistleblowers."

I asked Poitras what she thought of this idea. At the end of Citizenfour (sorry for the spoiler) we learn that another whistleblower had stepped forward and offered more documents about the U.S. government's misbehavior. Did she hope Citizenfour would inspire even more?

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Why the Woman Who Found Snowden Doesn't Want More Whistleblowers

The new documentary Citizenfour peels back the curtain on what life was like for Edward Snowden and the journalists who risked all to reveal some unsettling government secrets.

In May 2013 Laura Poitras, award winning director, producer and cinematographer, began receiving encrypted anonymous emails from someone calling himself Citizenfour. She became intriguedby allegations that theNSA along with other government entities were monitoring communications worldwide. US communications giants like Verizon and AT&T were also involved by giving access to their customer records. Was there risk in finding out the truth to these allegations? Yes there was. Was Laura Poitras willing to take these risks? Hell Yes.

Citizenfour tells the incredible true story of Edward Snowden, the infamous whistleblower who blew the lid off of the United States covert monitoring operations, and the journalists, including Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill, who risked everything to verify and report the story even as Snowden was being labeled an enemy of the United States.

The film follows the journalists as they travel the world to obtain the proof of Snowdens monumental allegations, and while some viewers may find these moments tedious, I found it fascinating to see what someone on the run does (the same every day things we do but with a large target drawn squarely on each of their backs), the nearparanoia of thinking at any moment someone will burst in the door with guns drawn. I could feel the intensity of it all.

These people were willing to put their lives on the line to stand up for what they believed in.

We also learn that government of the United States had publicly supported a policy of transparency all the while carrying out various covert and dangerous activities in the name of national security. When Snowden leaked classified NSA documents, Poitras, Greenwald and fellow journalist Jeremy Scahill were instrumental in getting many of them published on their on-line media venture called The Intercept. I found it interesting that these people were willing to put their lives on the line to stand up for what they believed in. Their perfect use of mass and social media made sure that they could not be silenced nor discredited.

Citizenfourisstrong, gritty, andin your face.

I liked the way the director laid out the movie. It was strong, it was gritty, it was in your face. This man had to make a life changing decision to report to the world the secret surveillance of the American public and the rest of the world. Poitras had to comb through hundreds of hours of footage to get it just right without taking away the real nature of what it was like to be on the run from the United States of America while trying to pursue truth and justice. She achieved that goal.

I saw strength of purpose and integrity in the man they called a traitor.

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Citizenfour asks is Edward Snowden a hero or traitor ...

A daily roundup of terrorism and security issues.

In the latest warning from European officials concerned with online recruiting of fighters for extremist groups like Islamic State, the new director of Britains surveillance agency said social media have become the command and control networks of choice for terrorists. He also said that US-based technology companies must work more closely with security and law enforcement agencies worldwide.

GCHQ director Robert Hannigans comments highlight the tension between government intelligence and Internet privacy more than a year after US contractor Edward Snowden leaked evidence of US and British government surveillance.

Mr. Hannigan wrote in the Financial Times that the skills of the so-called Islamic State in usingthe Internet for recruitment have exceeded those from any previous terrorist group. It relies on social media, mobile technology, and apps like Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to spread its message in a language their peers understand, he wrote.

GCHQ and its sister agencies, MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, cannot tackle these challenges at scale without greater support from the private sector, including the largest US technology companies which dominate the web. I understand why they have an uneasy relationship with governments. They aspire to be neutral conduits of data and to sit outside or above politics. But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism. However much they may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals, who find their services as transformational as the rest of us.

Social media companies including Twitter and Facebook have not publicly commented on Hannigans statements. According to the Financial Times, many US Internet companies have complied in the past with Western government requests for information. However, in the past 18 months US technology companies have become less co-operative with foreign intelligence agencies.

Intelligence leaks by Edward Snowden, whose findings like US spying on world leaders and foreign citizens were published in newspapers internationally, caused global uproar. According to the FT:

Three UK security officials said that US technology companies such as Google and Facebook have curbed the ability of UK intelligence to tap valuable electronic data in the wake of the Snowden leaks. The UK has had the most to lose [from Snowden], said one.

This isnt Britains first foray into Internet surveillance. Over the summer, the government passed emergency legislation to ensure communications companies kept records of e-mails, texts and phone calls for a year to help law-enforcement agencies track and catch terrorists and other criminals, Bloomberg reports.

The role of the Internet and social media in recruitment has becoming increasingly obvious with the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria. The Christian Science Monitors Sara Miller Llana writes about their utility in drawing young Europeans to fight in Syria:

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Top UK spy: Twitter, Facebook are jihadi 'command and control networks'

DJ tzi - Burger Dance (Uncensored/Official)
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By: Edward Snowden

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DJ Ötzi - Burger Dance (Uncensored/Official) - Video

His story has popped up in advertisements for lingerie and a travel agency. His face appears on merchandise ranging from T-shirts to skateboards. His deeds are celebrated in works by artists and musicians.

Meet Edward Snowden, Germanys latest pop culture icon.

Unlike in the United States, where Mr. Snowden is a more divisive figure, Germans have embraced his historic acts as a whistleblower. For many, his revelations about the long reach of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) make him a hero with the iconography to match.

Martin Keune, founder of Zitrusblau, an advertising agency in Berlin, created an image of Mr. Snowden based on the famous 2008 poster depicting Barack Obama by artist Shepard Fairey. Instead of the word hope at the bottom, it reads asyl, the German word for asylum.

Mr. Keune developed the image for a non-profit group that aimed to pressure the German government to shelter Mr. Snowden. (It has refused.) The group, called Campact, has sold thousands of T-shirts bearing the image at the equivalent of $28 a pop. Earlier this spring, a million stickers were printed with it and can now be spotted on walls and lampposts in German cities. Entrepreneurs have approached Mr. Keune asking to feature the motif on bags and skateboards. (He said yes.)

That a single person can do such a big thing is very moving to us, said Mr. Keune, explaining Mr. Snowdens appeal in Germany. During the Cold War, East Germans lived in the shadow of the secret police and an all-seeing but anonymous state, he said.

To see one person lift his mask and say, Here I am, I made a decision. I have a face and I can show their faces too, was kind of overwhelming for us.Germans were also shocked by the revelations that the NSA had been eavesdropping on cellphone calls made by Chancellor Angela Merkel, prompting a crisis in U.S.-Germany relations.

Artists have taken up Mr. Snowdens cause. Last year, Joerg Janzer papered over existing Berlin street signs to rename them Snowden Street and Snowden Avenue. In July, Oliver Bienkowski briefly projected images onto a wall of the U.S. embassy, including the words United Stasi of America, a reference to the former East German secret police. In both cases, police quickly put an end to the stunts.

Mr. Snowden, 31, faces criminal charges in the United States and currently lives in Moscow, where he has been given a three-year residency permit. A documentary about Mr. Snowden, called Citizenfour, was recently released in theatres. Its director, Laura Poitras, played a pivotal role in bringing Mr. Snowden's documents to light. An American citizen, Ms. Poitras moved to Berlin in 2012 after being repeatedly detained and questioned when entering the U.S., according to news reports.

To find parallels for Mr. Snowdens current cult-hero status in Germany, you have to go back to Che Guevara or Ho Chi Minh, said Johannes Krempl, an advertising executive in Berlin. Unlike the two revolutionaries, Mr. Snowden didnt harm anybody, he said, though he might have caused a little damage to U.S. institutions.

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Adoring Germans embrace Edward Snowden as a pop culture icon

MOSCOW, August 14 (RIA Novosti) During his interview with Wired, Edward Snowden explained that the NSA has a secret program called Monstermind capable of autonomously detecting and responding to foreign cyberattacks.

Snowden explained that in order for the program to operate, the NSA would have to monitor all inbound private communications from abroad. The argument is that the only way we can identify these malicious traffic flows and respond to them is if we're analyzing all traffic flows, Snowden told Wired. And if we're analyzing all traffic flows, that means we have to be intercepting all traffic flows.

Aside from the obvious privacy concerns, the program is a significant risk for the American international diplomacy as attacks launched by Monstermind are usually routed through computers located in foreign countries.

These attacks can be spoofed, Snowden told Wired. You could have someone sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital. What happens next?

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden fled the United States in 2013 having leaked information about a global electronic surveillance programs conducted by the US government. His revelations have dealt a serious blow to the US diplomatic relations with its allies.

After the US charged him with espionage and revoked his passport, Snowden received temporary asylum in Russia.

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NSA Program Capable of Launching Attacks Without Human Input – Snowden