[Peace-discuss] Edward Snowden Documentary, CitizenFour Wins Oscar

[David Johnson]

Edward Snowden Documentary, CitizenFour Wins Oscar

Description: Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald receive an award for national security reporting for their stories on the spy programmes. 

Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald receive an award for national security reporting for their stories on the spy programmes. | Photo: Reuters

Published 23 February 2015 (11 hours 1 minutes ago) 

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Description: Coments

The documentary received the award while the U.S. administration is still considering the whistleblower’s revelations as “treason.”

CitizenFour won the Oscar for best documentary on Sunday, an award that its director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald collected, later joined on stage by Edward Snowden's partner Lindsay Mills. 

“The disclosures of Edward Snowden don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” said Poitras when receiving the Oscar. 

“When the decisions that rule us are taken in secret we lose the power to control and govern ourselves,” she said. 

Thanking Snowden for his “sacrifices,” she added “I share this award with Glenn Greenwald and the many other journalists who are taking risks to expose the truth.” 

Responding to the award, Snowden, currently in exile in Moscow, wrote a note to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thanking Poitras for a “brilliant” documentary. “My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world.” 

The documentary tells the story of former NSA contractor Snowden who revealed how the U.S. agency spied on citizens of the world in June 2013. CitizenFour refers to the pseudonym Snowden used when he entered in contact with Poitras. Poitras had already been nominated in the 2007 Oscars for her film My Country, My Country, describing the lives of Iraqis under the occupation of the U.S. army. 

Among other things, Poitras' documentary depicts how whistle blowers are poorly protected and how Snowden's rescue by Wikileaks was difficult when he was judicially persecuted in Hong Kong by the U.S. government. 

Even if Snowden focuses on his revelations rather than his personal life in the film, "The fact that he is now living in domestic bliss as well, with his long-term girlfriend whom he loves, should forever put to rest the absurd campaign to depict his life as grim and dank," stated Greenwald when the film was first released, in New York in October.  

See more:  <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Linked-Spyware-Widespread-Impossible-to-Remove-20150217-0001.html> NSA-Linked Spyware Widespread, Impossible to Remove 

​ <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Snowden-Says-Canada-Spy-Agency-Runs-a-Global-Snooping-Program--20150129-0009.html> Snowden Says Canada Spy Agency Runs a Global Snooping Program

 

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