I work on the internet and sometimes it's a scary place to be earning a living in. It's not always about the vulnerability one exposes himself to on that communication platform, but it's the way it is used to create things that shouldn't be like stupid memes and laughable headlines about the ethics of inane celebrities. Sometimes, it feels like it's making the world dumber. Take Edward Snowden for example, everybody knows who he is and everybody knows he's a good guy, but nobody actually bothered to learn what he actually did for his contemporaries. Fortunately for us, controversial movie director Laura Poitras has it all on tape though. It's called CITIZENFOUR and it won the Oscar, this year. I don't know about you, but I didn't know this movie existed until browsing the Playstation Store for something to watch and fortunately for you, I did.
In case you've been living under a rock for the last three years, Edward Snowden is an ex-NSA employee who blew the whistle on a widespread surveillance program they ran on entire populations without being held accountable by anybody. He's been leaking the surveillance files to the media and has been charged for stealing classified intelligence by the U.S government. Intelligence that mostly consists of selfies of you at the bar, your self-aggrandizing Facebook status updates and the most intimate, embarrassing phone conversations you've ever had with your mom. Edward Snowden willingly trapped himself into a real-life spy novel because he didn't want to be a part of that anymore and that he wanted us to know.
Edward Snowden says something very important during the first interview Laura Poitras and Glen Greenwald have with him, in a Hong Kong hotel room: he is not the story. Contemporary media is a giant cult of personality and the story he's trying to tell has very little to do with his motivations. What Edward Snowden wants you to know, is that every service provider you've ever been dealing with since you've been paying the bills is keeping tabs on you and handing everything to the U.S government under the rule of things called Presidential Policy Directive 20, National Security Presidential Directive 54 and, of course that national shame born out of 9/11 paranoia called the Patriot Act. It's something entirely unregulated so it can only get worse.
Of course it's a corny photo, but Edward Snowden's face is now a symbol of intellectual freedom.
The way CITIZENFOUR is structured, it's impossible not to be intrigued by Edward Snowden's motivations, though. Why would anybody willingly throw themselves willingly in the gauntlet and leave life as they know it behind? Fortunately, CITIZENFOUR is rather clear about that. Once you get in the NSA, you're either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Snowden couldn't live with himself and what he was doing at the NSA, so he decided to turn against the machine, knowing all too well what the consequences would be. It's simple, he is just about the most courageous computer geek you've ever met. Any attempt to read further into his actions is, I think, a reflection of our own self-satisfying obsession with ourselves. The endgame is not about him, but about what he did and what we now know.
CITIZENFOUR was a very good documentary. Given the nature of its subject, I'm not surprised that it won the Oscar, but one thing you have to know is that its organic nature makes it hard to follow at times. It's basically a series of interviews with Edward Snowden, wrapped in the proper context. Snowden sometimes stumbles upon what he's trying to say, there are real life interruptions and some discussions end up nowhere in particular. So, it's not a movie you can watch while browsing the web or cooking dinner, it deserves your complete attention and it'll reward you with a better understanding of what your life's worth in the greater scheme of international politics. If you don't feel like reading what it is exactly that Edward Snowden did, do youself a favour then and save two hours of your time for CITIZENFOUR.