[Peace-discuss] links: Poitras' Citizenfour wins Oscar for best documentary

[Bay, Michael]

I do not the remember either the film or Snowden himself respresent Snowden as a high level NSA official. He worked as an infrastructure analyst and as Karen stated, had superior access to the NSA database.

I doubt that Snowden's publications have resulted in damage to the United States security. Conversely, the NSA has damaged the freedom of a number of citizens both from the US and foreign countries. The fact, that PRISM with secret court approval allows to collect metadata of any American citizen and that the same information can be acquired of any foreigner even without court approval is an outrageous abuse of power and a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

The widely claimed justification of "self defense against terrorism" is refutable. There does not exist evidence for any single terror attack that has been prevented as a result of the widespread spying. On the contrary, the NSA has used its superior knowledge to spy on non-terrorist peaceful organizations. There exists evidence<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_center#Criticism> that the NSA also spies on anti-war and peace activists as well as anarchists.


The extent of espionage has become so overwhelming that the US government forces providers of encrypted e-mail services to shut down if they do not agree to share their data. In August 2013, Lavabit and Silent Circle closed as a result of US governmental pressure. The owner of Lavabit service declared that he had preferred to terminate his 10-year-old business, rather than to violate the rights of his 400,000 users. He recommended against trusting private data to any company with physical ties to the US. Silent circle founder Phil Zimmermann expressed “If privacy becomes unlawful, then only outlaws maintain privacy.”

Regardless of whether Snowden tells the truth or not, what he published needed to be published and helped in disclosing severe espionage by the NSA on the Americans and foreigners, terrorists and peace activists. The question is, how much security do we need to protect our freedom and at which point is freedom sacrificed to achieve an unnecessary degree of security?


________________________________
From: Peace-discuss [peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] on behalf of Karen Aram via Peace-discuss [peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net]
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 5:30 PM
To: Roger Helbig; Robert Naiman; peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] links: Poitras' Citizenfour wins Oscar for best documentary

Roger, I haven't seen the film, but I do remember from interviews with Snowden when he first made headlines, not those on the corporate owned media, but with DemocracyNow, and Snowden never claimed to be a high level NSA official. He worked for Booz Allen, a government contractor, along with many others. One of the points he made was that he wasn't "high level" and yet he had access to all the information that he did, and found this very disturbing.

> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:06:48 -0800
> To: naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> CC: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] links: Poitras' Citizenfour wins Oscar for best documentary
> From: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
> I wonder how many winning documentaries open with a lie - Snowden
> claiming to be high level NSA official, something that he never was,
> never examine the lie to see what else is a lie, or include outright
> lie by one of the film maker participants - the conference in Brazil
> speech - this selection is a travesty - you do not award an Oscar to
> what is in effect a PR flack - Snowden played the media, still is - he
> is a thief who makes grandilose claims, many of which are not true in
> the least - the only thing true is the damage that he has done to our
> security by making groups like ISIS aware - I am sure that none of you
> agree, but if you actually watch this with a critical eye instead of
> fauning all over your hero, you will realize that he never was what he
> claims that he is and he personally never could do things like listen
> to your phone calls like he has claimed to be able to do. I wonder if
> a campaign can undo an Oscar and result in a public revocation.
>
> Roger
>
> PS - who paid for the room in the hotel in Hong Kong - was the phone
> call sequence faked - the only thing real is the stolen documents and
> we don't see very many of those -
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 6:13 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss
> <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> > http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/is-citizenfour-worth-celebrating
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/23/edward-snowden-documentary-citizenfour-wins-oscar
> >
> >
> >
> > https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/22/poitras-wins-oscar-for-citizenfour/
> >
> >
> >
> > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/22/citizen-four-best-documentary_n_6716094.html
> >
> >
> >
> > (the last has video of Poitras' acceptance speech.)
> >
> > It will be quite interesting to see the impact of this on the debate over
> > the re-authorization of the Patriot Act in June. Will Hollywood move
> > Congress...?
> >
> > ===
> >
> > Robert Naiman
> > Policy Director
> > Just Foreign Policy
> > www.justforeignpolicy.org
> > naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> > (202) 448-2898 x1
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
> >
>
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