Rent Citizenfour (2014)

An utterly fascinating and rather scary documentary on the surveillance society - Citizenfour review by Philip in Paradiso

This documentary film, very well made and captivating from start to finish, is a must-see. It is about Edward Snowden and what he revealed regarding the wholesale electronic surveillance that we -- all of us -- are the target of. It focuses more particularly on the activities of the NSA spying agency in the USA (E Snowden worked for them after working for the CIA) and its British counterpart, GCHQ.

We knew about it but, when you see the film, it really hits you; it is the secrecy around it and the scale of it. After 9/11, the intelligence community started collecting data pre-emptively on a huge -- absolutely huge -- scale. The idea is to store zillions of pieces of data (including the content of emails, allegedly) and, when the moment comes, with the right algorithms, an intelligence officer can pull up 10 years of a person's phone calls, text messages, Google searches, emails, etc., thanks to data mining. In other words, the agencies do not target 'suspects' but everyone, pre-emptively, in case it may be useful later. There is no privacy. They can access almost anything and everything, including SIM cards made by a company such as Gemalto.

What is interesting is that the film claims that GCHQ does even more of this than the NSA, and is a leader in this field: good for our security, no doubt, but rather worrying in terms of the average person's privacy. The Guardian reported on E Snowden's statements and the documents he gave them, as you may remember, but was threatened with a D-notice from the government. Basically, they only divulged a tiny proportion of the documents and, then, the whole matter was suppressed in the UK, which is revealing of how things are handled in Britain. The risk is, of course, that the country may become a police state in due course. It also depends on who is in power. I can think of a few dangerous political leaders on the Right and the Left right now, in Britain, who may not play by any rules once in power...

Having seen the film, you wonder whether anything has changed: I doubt it. Of course some surveillance is needed, but where are the safeguards and the checks & balances? Another thought crossed my mind: what about E Snowden? It is clear he was not 'a traitor' and acted out of a sense of indignation at what he saw as shocking practices. On the other hand, it is claimed what he did damaged Western intelligence services. One claim is that China and Russia managed to access 1 million documents collected by E Snowden (and it may have been without his involvement as such: they may have managed to hack into a cache of data).

Also, it is impossible to imagine that Russia did not 'debrief' him. It is hard to imagine that he would have been able to stay in Russia without giving them any information at all (he has been given temporary residency rights there). Given the nature of the Russian State, there must have been a quid pro quo. One last point: what E Snowden denounces was put in place on a big scale under B Obama, who was never the squeaky-clean liberal that so many people like to believe he was.

Next time you send a text message or write an email, remember to greet the NSA/ GCHQ operative who is reading it! :-)

Scary, sad, brave, important - Citizenfour review by CW

This excellent documentary was conceived, filmed and produced by Laura Poitras. Edward Snowden had contacted her letting her know that he was going to be leaking secret information about NSA spying on American citizens as well as othe countries. Watching it, I wished it were just a scary sci fi and not a true story. At the beginning, Edward Snowden and the NSA whistleblower William Binney look fresh, energetic and hopeful. It is heartbreaking to see their transformation by the end of the documentary. Both are now pale, flabby, have dark circles beneath their eyes and havea haunted almost dead look. Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian broke the story. Before seeing the documentary I didn’t know what to think, now I see Snowden, Binney, Poitras and Grrenwald as heroes. I cannot see that Snowden will ever be a free man. He gave his life to inform and educate the American public.

The special features are well worth seeing.

Captures the events perfectly - Citizenfour review by LG

Ok so I personally do not have much of an opinion on this subject matter but was drawn into the film due to the events being captured as they happened to such great effect and the tensions that built as the scandal unfolded... expertly put together documentary, well worth a watch even if you are like me not terribly interested in the whole films take on the thorny issue of privacy...