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

[E. W. Johnson]

Security is always an excuse for tyranny.

On 02/24/2015 09:08 AM, Bay, Michael via Peace-discuss wrote:
> 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
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20150224/42845fd9/attachment.html>