The Report Episode 90 | Part 3/4 (09/10/14) - Malala Yousafzai: Nobel Laureate
The fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden, former US President Bill Clinton and a Russian newspaper are all in the running for this year #39;s Nobel Peace Prize. Also on the list, and for a...
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The Report Episode 90 | Part 3/4 (09/10/14) - Malala Yousafzai: Nobel Laureate - Video
ABTech - Rvlations de Snowden #28 NSA
Abdallah EL Fakir nous explique rapidement Les Rvlations d #39;Edward Snowden et Les documents sortis par l #39;ex-consultant de la NSA. ...
By: ABTech
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ABTech - Révélations de Snowden #28 NSA فضيحة برنامج - Video
Edward Snowden Pt. 2: The N.S.A. Leak #39;s Game Plan The New Yorker Festival
With all the planning that went into leaking the N.S.A. files to reporters, New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer asks Snowden why it seems as if he neglected to set an end plan for himself, and...
By: The New Yorker
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Edward Snowden Pt. 2: The N.S.A. Leak's Game Plan – The New Yorker Festival - Video
If you didnt know better, youd think that Laura Poitrass "Meet Edward Snowden" documentary Citizenfour was an avant-garde paranoid conspiracy thriller. Hold on, it is an avant-garde paranoid conspiracy thriller. It opens with a blurry tunnel; winking monitors scrolling metadata plucked from Americans emails; images of huge, futuristic, otherworldy government surveillance centers; encrypted communications flurries of characters that resolve into edgy cyberdialogues between the National Security Agency whistleblower and the filmmaker; and, finally, exacting exchanges between Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald high up in a blankly modern Hong Kong hotel, which might or might not be bugged. The music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is like malignantly buzzing wires that eat into your cerebral cortex.
The narrative is relatively straightforward. Poitras explains in voice-over that in the summer of 2013, she received a communiqu from a man calling himself Citizenfour, who also asked her to alert Greenwald of Britains Guardian newspaper. (Poitras doesnt tell us that Greenwald initially blew citizenfour off for whatever cranky reasons, but came into the fold when contacted by the documentarian.) What follows is an introduction (some of it via former metadata collector William Binney, who hobbles around on an impressive metallic leg) to all the ways in which the NSA intercepts hundreds of millions of communications from ordinary Americans and lies about it. Here is NSA head General James Clapper before Congress.
Senator Ron Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans? Clapper: No, sir. Wyden: It does not? Clapper: Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly.
On the evidence, he is witting as hell. And congresspersons among them the Dems own Nancy Pelosi allegedly knew the full extent of the NSAs reach.
A password is established for Poitras to contact a person playing with a Rubiks Cube. Then were in a Hong Kong hotel room with the man himself: I am Edward Snowden Ed, he says. He is an employee of Booz Allen on loan to the NSA. He can no longer, he avers, bear the lying of his government. (Poitras does not explore his motives more deeply than that.) He explains the breadth of the classified documents he has stolen, most from the NSA, some from a possibly even more invasive British program with the cute name Tempora. (It would have been even cuter as Yack-a-Tory.) Snowden gives The Guardian and other papers everything because, he says, he doesnt want to be the person to make the judgment on what should be released. Poitras doesnt probe that cosmic shrug, either.
The hotel scenes go on a tad long, but what holds us is that were right in the room as history is being made with the guy, the actual guy, soon to be notorious all over the world. Poitrass penetrating docs My Country, My Country and The Oath earned her a place in this room (she now lives in Berlin in an attempt to evade scrutiny), although she doesnt turn the camera on herself or talk much. Greenwald, for his part, isnt a particularly endearing interlocutor, though hes a fluid and effective spokesman in news programs that Poitras excerpts. Hes humanized when his partner, David Miranda, is detained by agents for nine hours at an airport, ironically without Miranda rights. When Miranda is finally released, Greenwalds relief is very moving.
We watch Snowden watch CNN break news of his massive document dump. Snowdens name is released immediately he knew secrecy would be impossible. U.S. agents dont waylay him, in part because he makes a beeline for the Russian embassy. Poitras doesnt quote his public testimonial to H.K.s spirited commitment to free speech and the right of public dissent, which would, at the moment, be cringeworthy. She really is very protective.
Citizenfour ends with a teasing scene in which Greenwald informs Snowden via scribbled notes the camera mostly doesnt see of another high-up whistle-blower. Snowden expresses concern for his or her safety. His eyebrows go up when he learns the extent of the revelations. The word POTUS is floated in a pointed peekaboo. Perhaps said revelations will be tied to the release of citizenfour, which will be the best kind of advertisement imaginable. You should see this movie if youre nave enough to think you have a right to privacy. But dont buy your ticket online or with a credit card.
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The Edward Snowden Documentary Citizenfour Puts You Right in the Room As History Is Made
Mon Oct 20 11:59:28 EDT 2014
In the first of a two-part interview, the director of this year's most daring non-fiction achievement explains how she pulled it off.
Daniel Bergeron "Citizenfour" director Laura Poitras
In "Citizenfour," documentarian Laura Poitras chronicles the Edward Snowden story from the inside out: Poitras was secretly contacted by the former NSA contractor in 2012 and met him in Hong Kong. Along with journalist Glenn Greenwald, she played a key role in announcing his revelations about the U.S. government's surveillance techniques to the world. Poitras' movie unfolds like a real-time thriller, tracking Snowden's anxieties on the brink of his global celebrity, as well as the aftermath. Now living with his girlfriend with a one-year work permit in Russia, Snowden remains an object of media scrutiny, but the story surrounding the materials he leaked to the public has grown much bigger than him. Poitras' movie tracks every beat of these historical events with a mixture of shock and excitement that has garnered rave reviews.
A few days after the movie's premiere at the New York Film Festival, the director sat down with Indiewire to discuss the challenges of developing her project in secret and developing a narrative that reflected her experiences. Stay tuned for the second half of our interview tomorrow, in which Poitras addresses the ramifications of Snowden's decision.
READ MORE: 'Citizenfour' is a Bracing Look at Former NSA Whistleblower's Impact
This movie makes you scared to record a conversation. But here we are.
It's actually funny, because literally every journalist has been like, "Do you mind if I turn this on?" Like it's not a given. That's why we're here! It's cool. Don't worry about it.
But did this project make you more paranoid about surveillance methods?
I don't call it that. I don't think being careful is being paranoid. I have good reason to believe my phone prints might be targeted. So I don't carry it with me in the editing room. That just seems like common sense, not paranoia.
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Laura Poitras Explains How She Made Edward Snowden Doc 'Citizenfour' in Secret (Part 1)
Exclusive: Laura Poitras on the Edward Snowden documentary | Channel 4 News
Subscribe to Channel 4 News: http://bit.ly/1sF6pOJ Laura Poitras #39; movie CITIZENFOUR captures the man at the centre of today #39;s Watergate moment - Edward Snowden - in a compelling story of ...
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Exclusive: Laura Poitras on the Edward Snowden documentary | Channel 4 News - Video
Snowden Attacks Anything Goes Privacy Intrusions Of British Spy Agencies
In what amounts to a wake up call directed at a British public generally considered apathetic on privacy issues, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned that U.K. spy agencies are using...
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Snowden Attacks “Anything Goes” Privacy Intrusions Of British Spy Agencies - Video
Laura Poitras advised by lawyers to avoid UK premiere of her new film Instead she spoke from Berlin via patchy Skype videolink to audience U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald also given same advice by legal team
Published: 20:11 EST, 17 October 2014 | Updated: 06:55 EST, 18 October 2014
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The maker of Edward Snowden documentary CITIZENFOUR refused to travel to the films UK premiere last night because she fears arrest under the Official Secrets Act.
Laura Poitras said she had been advised by lawyers to avoid travelling to Britain because her work with the fugitive former contractor with the National Security Agency.
Snowden is living in Moscow with his girlfriend Lindsay Mills after he was granted asylum by Russia to escape charges of espionage in the U.S.
Laura Poitras (left), the director of new film CITIZENFOUR about Edward Snowden (right) avoided the London premiere of the movie today because she feared arrest under the official secrets act
Poitras spoke from Berlin via patchy Skype videolink to the packed first public showing in Britain of CITIZENFOUR at the Curzon cinema in Chelsea, west London.
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Edward Snowden filmmaker Laura Poitras avoids UK because she fears arrest
A new documentary has captured Edward Snowden's leak of National Security Agency documents as it unfolded in a Hong Kong hotel room.
Laura Poitras' highly anticipated documentary Citizenfour, which premiered at the New York Film Festival, presents a remarkably intimate portrait of Mr Snowden, including his first meetings with the journalists with whom he shared thousands of documents revealing the collection of Americans' phone and email records.
Initially communicating under the alias "citizenfour", Mr Snowden reached out to Ms Poitras, a hybrid journalist-documentarian, and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald. The film shows their first meeting with Mr Snowden and the days that followed as his revelations made international news.
From the beginning, Mr Snowden is seen as highly aware that such a leak would mean sacrificing his own freedom.
"I already know how this will end for me," he says. "And I accept the risk."
Mr Snowden was charged with three felony offences under the Espionage Act: unauthorised communication of national defence information; theft of government property; and wllful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorised person.
He is currently living in asylum in Russia, where he fled from Hong Kong with the aid of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Ms Poitras said she showed the film to Mr Snowden two or three weeks ago, during which she shot footage (used in the film) of him and his long-time girlfriend Lindsay Mills cooking dinner at their Moscow home.
Members of Mr Snowden's family attended the screening, which was received with an emotional standing ovation. His father, Lonnie Snowden, told the crowd: "The truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."
Citizenfour, which the Weinstein Co's boutique label Radius will release on October 24, had been shrouded in mystery.
Excerpt from:
UK & World
Review There is no subtlety in the political stance of Laura Poitras, which makes Citizenfour a completely one-sided documentary. Yet oddly enough, this bias doesnt detract from the power of the film that covers a week in a Hong Kong hotel bedroom, during which Edward Snowden reveals himself and the extent of the NSAs cyber-surveillance to Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and fellow Guardian journalist Ewen MacAskill.
This is not a documentary that interrogates either Edward Snowden or his motives. Poitras is clearly on his side the film is dedicated to those who make great sacrifices to expose injustice - so her movie is less an examination of why this came about than a chronicling of how.
We open in a car in the dark of a tunnel, with faint lights overhead, as Poitras, never seen on-camera, reads from the emails that Snowden first sent her about his NSA information, signed "Citizenfour". Rather than have talking heads tell us about the state of high alert America has been in since 9/11, Poitras outlines her own experiences of being constantly stopped at US border control following her earlier critical films about the Iraq War and Guantanamo My Country, My Country and The Oath - documentaries she considers a trilogy with this one.
This surveillance and her films were some of the reasons that Snowden reached out to her. The NSA sysadmin had originally attempted to contact Greenwald, but was unable to persuade him to use security precautions. Poitras peppers the slow building of trust between the two with scenes from US government hearings where the NSA denies monitoring electronic communications in the country. A talk from former intelligence official turned whistleblower William Binney outlines some of the activities of the NSA he was privy to before leaving in 2001.
These tactics are also used to highlight the scope of what Snowden reveals, once Poitras, Macaskill and Greenwald meet him in Hong Kong. Its in an Occupy Wall Street talk on surveillance that she neatly hamstrings the idea that metadata, as opposed to content, is in any way a harmless kind of information about someone. Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum illustrates how metadata locates you and how just a few more links, such as between your debit card and your travel pass, can fill in all the details of your life and place you where a crime occurred or a meeting was held, putting you under suspicion.
Its tempting to dismiss many of the elaborate precautions required to evade such surveillance as paranoia and its clear that Macaskill and Greenwald initially do when they first meet Snowden. A complex series of tells and passwords are given to them by Snowden - that hell be working on a Rubiks cube, theyll ask about a restaurant, hell reply, theyll reply, all in set responses before hell trust they are who they say they are.
Once in the room, Snowden uses his magic mantle of power, a red blanket, to hide what hes typing, to the bemused smirk of Greenwald. When he scolds Greenwald for having too short a password on his computer, Greenwald tries to brush it off with a joke, I just type fast, but Snowden is not amused. Even a fire alarm going off in the hotel shortly after Snowden unplugs a VoIP phone he feels can be used to listen in on them is treated with the utmost suspicion. Yet as the evidence of what the NSA, GCHQ and other intelligence agencies have been doing piles up, it becomes harder to imagine any level of paranoia being enough to stop government surveillance. By the end of the film, Greenwald wont even say half the things he wants to say in the same room as Snowden, he writes them down and then tears up and discards the pieces of paper when theyre done.
Aside from his occasional bouts of paranoia, Snowden comes across as almost frighteningly calm about what hes about to do. His passionate idealism and determined commitment make him appear young and almost nave, but his position is calmly and intelligently argued, so that you begin to wonder if its your own cynicism that greets such apparent sincerity with scepticism.
That jaded reaction to Snowden and to the leaks - that we all knew something like this was probably going on and what of it - is taken to task by Appelbaum in another talk later in the film. He says that the fatalistic reaction of his generation to their own loss of privacy, which he sees as really a loss of liberty, is frightening. By the end of Citizenfour, youll be frightened too.
Despite the wealth of media hours devoted to Snowden and the NSA, Citizenfour does make the whole thing fresh again, with its tight thriller-like filming and the claustrophobic images of the same four walls around him as Snowden systematically dismantles his life for the sake of disclosing what he knows. It also throws in the occasional unknown tidbit, that the NSA loves Britiains GCHQs Tempora programme, for example, because they can query it all day long, something that the US doesnt allow.
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Citizenfour : Poitras' doco is about NSA and GCHQ – NOT Snowden