CITIZENFOUR - New Snowden Documentary

Brian4Liberty

Brian4Liberty

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New Snowden Doc CITIZENFOUR Reminds Us to Support Whistleblowers
http://www.voicesofliberty.com/arti...zenfour-reminds-us-to-support-whistleblowers/

October 23, 2014 – Opening Friday in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. is CITIZENFOUR, the documentary by Academy-Award nominated director Laura Poitras about her encounters with whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong. Poitras and investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald interviewed Snowden, a government contractor who had high-level security access within the federal government, about the massive spying efforts conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA).

From the film’s website:

"Poitras had already been working on a film about surveillance for two years when Snowden contacted her, using the name “CITIZENFOUR,” in January 2013. He reached out to her because he knew she had long been a target of government surveillance, stopped at airports numerous times, and had refused to be intimidated. When Snowden revealed he was a high-level analyst driven to expose the massive surveillance of Americans by the NSA, Poitras persuaded him to let her film.

CITIZENFOUR places you in the room with Poitras, Greenwald, and Snowden as they attempt to manage the media storm raging outside, forced to make quick decisions that will impact their lives and all of those around them."

Ever since Snowden unveiled the details of the government’s mass surveillance of American citizens to Poitras and Greenwald in 2013, Snowden has been on the run from persecution. He faces federal charges of espionage for several “offenses,” including revealing how a secret court, FISA, has the authority to sweep Americans’ phone records; the program PRISM, through which the government can request access to companies’ data; XKeyscore, the “widest reaching” tool used by the U.S. government to search Internet data; and much more. Our Contributor Curran Higgins has extensively covered the NSA’s mass spying mission and why the liberty movement needs more whistleblowers and hackers...
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More: http://www.voicesofliberty.com/arti...zenfour-reminds-us-to-support-whistleblowers/
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'What the War on Terror Actually Looks Like': Laura Poitras on Citizenfour
An interview with the filmmaker as her documentary on mass surveillance hits theaters
By Conor Friedersdorf -Oct 24 2014

The ultimate insider's exposé of the National Security Agency is about to hit theaters. When Citizenfour opens Friday in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras will have given moviegoers an unprecedented look at whistleblower Edward Snowden as he pulled back the curtain on mass surveillance in the United States and the world. This week, I spoke to Poitras about her body of work, including Citizenfour (I reviewed the film here after a press screening), The Oath, her movie on the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and My Country, My Country, her Iraq War documentary.
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More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...itras-on-citizenfour/381749/?single_page=true
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A Portrait of the Whistleblower as a Young Man
Laura Poitras's new documentary captures the moment when Edward Snowden told the world that the NSA was watching.
By Conor Friedersdorf

The world will never see Mark Felt's body language as he told Bob Woodward about the Nixon administration's illegal behavior or hear the timbre of Daniel Ellsberg's voice when he handed over the Pentagon Papers. But thanks to Citizenfour, a new documentary film by Laura Poitras, there is a digital record of the Hong Kong encounter between NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the journalists to whom he revealed mass surveillance of innocents, as well as verbatim excerpts from the encrypted notes he used to facilitate the meeting. For that reason alone, the film will endure as an important historical artifact.

Citizenfour's broader subject is the surveillance state that metastasized in the U.S. and partner countries in the years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. While the film is less thorough and detailed in explaining how the U.S. government is spying on its citizens than Frontline's vital two-part documentary, Poitras's spare portrayal of the global surveillance state is dramatic, accessible to the lay viewer, and accurate—a difficult trifecta given how complicated is the subject matter.
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More:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...lower-as-a-young-man/381388/?single_page=true
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REVIEW: Citizenfour Is This Halloween’s Scariest Chiller
By Richard Corliss - Oct. 26, 2014

Edward Snowden is both the ghost and the hero of Laura Poitras's documentary about blowing the whistle on the spooks at NSA

In Dec. 2012, a mysterious person known only as Citizenfour contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras with promises of important revelations about the U.S. government’s spy apparatus. Before they met, Citizenfour sent her this warning: “For now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone tower you pass, friend you keep, site you visit and subject line you type is...
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More:
https://time.com/3538893/review-citizenfour-laura-poitras-edward-snowden-us-government/
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I dare say, the snarky comments from the DC audience just might be more entertaining than the film. :D

Does anyone know where to find this 2 part Frontline special?

-t
 
:cool:

Snowden documentary 'Citizenfour' nominated for Oscar

​'Citizenfour,' the Laura Poitras-directed documentary about former United States government contractor Edward Snowden, is officially in the running for an Oscar.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed nominees on Thursday for its big 2015 awards show, and the acclaimed movie about Snowden’s 2013 trip to Hong Kong and his meeting there with Poitras and journalists has been named a contender in the “Best Documentary” category.

“You know the public response, and in the press, has been pretty extraordinary for us,” Poitras told the New York Times. “We didn’t know what to expect. We made a film that was unknown outside of a very small circle, and there was a lot of uncertainties. It’s been pretty incredible to see this happen.”

Citizenfour is up against 'Finding Vivian Maier'; 'Last Days in Vietnam'; 'Salt of the Earth' and 'Virunga.'

'Life Itself' – a feature-length documentary on late film critic Roger Ebert – did not make the final cut, to which Poitras called “a heartbreak.”

“I’m in shock,” she told Variety. “When his name wasn’t up there, I thought, ‘how is that possible?’ He’s a legend in our field with an incredible body of work. I assumed his film would be nominated, so it’s a bit of a heartbreak.”

Glenn Greenwald – the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is featured predominately in the film working with Snowden on reviewing a cache of classified government secrets provided by the former NSA employee – tweeted “Congrats to my brilliant colleague Laura Poitras!!!!” on Thursday.

Snowden spoke first with Poitras, then with Greenwald, through encrypted emails while working as a government contractor in early 2013. Soon after, he arranged to meet the two in Hong Kong, where much of Citizenfour is set. Snowden spent several days reviewing pilfered NSA documents with the journalists before he boarded a plane that landed in Moscow, where he has since stayed after having his US passport revoked. Snowden, 31, is wanted in the US on charges of espionage related to the theft of the NSA documents – the likes of which have revealed a startling number of the intelligence community’s secrets since first being reported by the media in June 2013.

http://rt.com/usa/223111-citizenfour-poitras-snowden-oscar/
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I saw it, was pretty interesting and will be for those who followed the original stories. This shows what was happening behind the scenes. Some highlights:

- Most of the footage is of Ed Snowden in the hotel room in HK, starting maybe a week before the video where he revealed his identity.

- The first time Glen Greenwald met him in the hotel room (Snowden met Laura Poitras first, then Greenwald a few days later because he had a hard time using PGP).

- Greenwald and another Guardian reporter from the UK when they concluded that Snowden was legit.

- Snowden explaining his reasons to them (for the first time), and why he did not just dump everything on wikileaks.

- Greenwald gets a USB drive, and Snowden shows him how to decrypt it.

- The article about Verizon is published. A day or 2 later, the PRISM article is published, and I think the Scottish guy published something about GCHQ.

- Snowden and Greenwald discuss their media strategy, and what to do once his identity is discovered/revealed. Snowden did a good job predicting what the response would be. He knew the NSA would eventually figure out who their source was.

- Snowden watches the stories when they hit CNN.

- By this time, Snowden was officially out of pocket at his day job. He talks to his GF, who says someone from NSA came to the apt with some police and wanted to look around. Also there were several construction vehicles parked on his street.

- The next day, Greenwald starts making public appearances.

- Snowden listens to a message from his GF, she says his bank account has been frozen, the automatic drafts to the landlord were failing and he was going to be evicted if he doesn't call the bank.

- Discussions about making 'the video' keep getting interrupted by the fire alarm. They are all sorta freaking out, so Snowden calls the desk and they tell him it is a routine test, which is apparently what they wanted to hear.

- 'The video' is made and posted online.

- Snowden makes an attempt to change his appearance, but mostly fails.

- Snowden's room phone starts ringing. He has to answer because he has hired a HK lawyer who is supposed to contact him via the front desk. He tells the desk to ring Laura's room if the lawyer shows up, but tell everyone else that Snowden isn't staying at the hotel. He leaves his room and moves to Laura's room.

- The lawyer arrives, and is able to secure temporary asylum in HK for Snowden via UNHRA. He leaves the hotel to go to an undisclosed location for a few days before eventually getting on the plane to Moscow.


- some months later when they reunited, Greenwald tells Snowden about a new source for the story about the US drones being operated from Ramstein AFB. Also the story about the watch list having 1.2 million people on it (in various stages), which might not be out yet. Snowden is surprised and says he hopes they are being careful.

- Snowden's GF with him in Russia, the camera is outside the window looking in.
 
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Lets just sue the piece of shit gov and subpoena snowden, he can join via skype.
 
I don't think this film is released in theaters yet is it?

There are ways to see it via the internet.. I've only seen a few minutes of it so far but it looks very good.
 
For how pertinent this documentary is to the movement, this thread should be 50 pages long.. wtf??

I still haven't watched the whole thing yet though, I queued it up last night and right after the fire alarm scene in the hotel about 30 minutes in (which is funny cause the same fire alarm in the hotel thing happened to Alex Jones one time..), my computer crashed and died a fiery death.
 
dannno said:
For how pertinent this documentary is to the movement, this thread should be 50 pages long.. wtf??
Click to expand...

I agree. If it doesn't win the Oscar it will be a travesty, but not at all surprising. The surprising bit is that it's even nominated to begin with.

Everybody needs to see it!
 
green73 said:
I agree. If it doesn't win the Oscar it will be a travesty

Everybody needs to see it!
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Waco didn't. that's worth a watch if you want to be pissed off (and informed).

i'll be waiting for Netflix to carry it - on a disc... via mail.
 
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