I just returned from the West End Cinema on 23rd St NW in Washington DC where I watched Citizen Four, the film by Laura Poitras about Edward Snowden. If you get a chance to see the film, you absolutely should.
It includes extensive footage of Snowden in Hong Kong, where Glenn Greenwald, Ewen Macaskill of the Guardian, and Poitras interviewed Snowden in his hotel room. It also includes footage of the huge NSA facility under construction in Bluffdale UT, the newsroom and editors at both The Guardian in the UK and Der Spiegel in Germany. It includes William Binney, including his testimony to the German Parliament. And much more.
Seeing and hearing Snowden removed any doubts about why he did what we did. He makes clear he expected to become a target, even as he hoped that he would not become the story. Near the end there was video of President Obama in the press conference where he criticized Snowden.
You see testimony before Congress by both James Clapper and Keith Alexander that is patently false, yet neither man has been charged with lying to Congress.
You are reminded of the scope of what the NSA is doing, including through its partnerships with intelligence agencies of other nations, especially their partner in the UK.
It was interesting to hear the founder of Lavabit, Ladar Levinson, and Jacob Appelbaum talking about privacy and liberty. Appelbaum says bluntly that if we have no privacy we have no liberty.
Methinks we have little time left to reclaim the ideal of what our government is supposed to be, a servant of We the People, and not its master.
See the film.
It may well win the Oscar for best long-form documentary. It is that good.
Of greater importance, it reminds us forcefully of a major truth about what our government is doing.