CONSCIOUSLY or coincidentally, America’s brand of democracy came under careful scrutiny du ring a screening on Saturday of Citizen Four, the documentary on whistleblower Edward Snow den’s leaks about the US nited States gov ernment’s global spying programme.July 4 is American Indepen dence Day and Citizen Four is one of the movies at on this year’s film festival, part of the National Arts Festival.
Snowden’s revelations, about how the US government spies on its own and global citizens through mass-based electronic surveillance, sent shockwaves around the world in 2013. Apart from criticism of the superpower’s policies by some of its staunchest allies whose lead ers had been the subject of spy ing, it had the effect of sending US citizen American Snowden into permanent exile in Russia.
The impetus for the film was an encrypted e-mail received by filmmaker Laura Poitras from someone who called himself Cit izen Four, offering information on the US government’s illegal elec tronic surveillance programme.
Poitras had already been con ducting research into such prac tices in the wake of the Septem ber 11 2001 attacks, and Citizen Four said he was reaching out to her as someone he could trust with the potentially life-threat ening disclosures.
The film tracks the efforts of Poitras, and investigative jour nalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill as they work to expose the spying programme. They spent four days corralled in a Hong Kong hotel room with Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room, and a big chunk of the film is devoted to this time-frame.
It is there that, painstakingly, he takes them through the intricacies of how the surveillance of phone calls, e-mails communication and any other electronic network activity, works. While the film is lumbering in moving the story forward – it could certainly do with at least an half-hour cut from its 114 minutes – there is much suspense as the group dis cusses the tactics for of releasing the story and what the US gov ernment’s response will be.
Contrary to the picture painted by US government spokesper sons, the Snowden presented in the film is anything but a loath some criminal working against the interests of his homeland.
Instead, the former employee of a private defence industry company, who also worked for the CIA, comes across as fully com mitted to the democratic ideals of liberty, accountable government, and individual rights to privacy.
Tellingly, Snowden was committed from the start to full disclosure of his identity, both as a means of protecting his loved ones and former colleagues, and to establish his credentials, thus avoiding deflecting the focus away from his government's illegal activities.
Poitras’s film won the Oscar this year for best documentary.
lCitizen Four will be shown again tomorrow at 5pm at the Monument’s the Monument’s Olive Schreiner Hall.
at the Monument.
Snowden doccie slots into Independence Day
July 4 is American Indepen dence Day and Citizen Four is one of the movies at on this year’s film festival, part of the National Arts Festival.
Snowden’s revelations, about how the US government spies on its own and global citizens through mass-based electronic surveillance, sent shockwaves around the world in 2013. Apart from criticism of the superpower’s policies by some of its staunchest allies whose lead ers had been the subject of spy ing, it had the effect of sending US citizen American Snowden into permanent exile in Russia.
The impetus for the film was an encrypted e-mail received by filmmaker Laura Poitras from someone who called himself Cit izen Four, offering information on the US government’s illegal elec tronic surveillance programme.
Poitras had already been con ducting research into such prac tices in the wake of the Septem ber 11 2001 attacks, and Citizen Four said he was reaching out to her as someone he could trust with the potentially life-threat ening disclosures.
The film tracks the efforts of Poitras, and investigative jour nalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill as they work to expose the spying programme. They spent four days corralled in a Hong Kong hotel room with Snowden in a Hong Kong hotel room, and a big chunk of the film is devoted to this time-frame.
It is there that, painstakingly, he takes them through the intricacies of how the surveillance of phone calls, e-mails communication and any other electronic network activity, works. While the film is lumbering in moving the story forward – it could certainly do with at least an half-hour cut from its 114 minutes – there is much suspense as the group dis cusses the tactics for of releasing the story and what the US gov ernment’s response will be.
Contrary to the picture painted by US government spokesper sons, the Snowden presented in the film is anything but a loath some criminal working against the interests of his homeland.
Instead, the former employee of a private defence industry company, who also worked for the CIA, comes across as fully com mitted to the democratic ideals of liberty, accountable government, and individual rights to privacy.
Tellingly, Snowden was committed from the start to full disclosure of his identity, both as a means of protecting his loved ones and former colleagues, and to establish his credentials, thus avoiding deflecting the focus away from his government's illegal activities.
Poitras’s film won the Oscar this year for best documentary.
lCitizen Four will be shown again tomorrow at 5pm at the Monument’s the Monument’s Olive Schreiner Hall.
at the Monument.
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