Citizenfour Snowden seemed paranoid and a bit full of himself. While I agree that the NSA surveillence state is something that needs to be brought to public awareness, I also think he was a low level nobody who wanted to become famous. The existence of PRISM was already widely known and wasn't much of a revelation, and many of his other revelations seem like exaggerations or outright tall tales. He spends half the film trying to look like some suave secret agent, gelling back his hair and wearing all black. The part where he takes the journalist's laptop under a blanket so no one can see the super duper top secret stuff he's doing is lol-worthy. I was also amused that his stripper girlfriend relocated to Russia to be with him. I guess she just couldn't resist being with this international man of mystery. Also, considering how many people on both the right (evil Obama!) and left (evil Republicans and their Patriot Act!) consider Snowden to be some kind of hero, I'm not sure the US has much interest in actually apprehending him. A trial would be unpopular and would probably just make him seem like even more of a hero.
I can't believe that film was actually admitted as a documentary for the Academy Awards. Pure propaganda. It's basically a group of pathological liars who wanted to turn a buck pretending to be patriots and/or journalists.
I actually think the biggest problem with the film was that it was incredibly boring. Other than Snowden looking like a huge dork while pretending to be a super spy, there wasn't much entertainment value. It was just a paranoid guy getting interviewed in a hotel room, and some footage of press conferences. Nothing terribly interesting and definitely not Oscar worthy. And I agree with you. I don't think Snowden is a patriot or a hero. I think he's a loser and a nobody who wanted to become famous and saw his chance for his 15 minutes in the spotlight. And now he's a Russian puppet who will probably have asylum as long as he can find new ways to make the US look bad.
Watching this made me realize I was doubly trolled. Once by this bad movie and once by the original Snowden hype. The movie is super boring, I quit watching my first attempt. HBO repeating it ad nauseam allowed me to piece together a complete viewing. Snowden exuded the pretentious wannabe cmdrmonkey called. Attempting to create danger about imminent capture, death, need to stay mobile, change appearances, go into hiding.... The threat never seemed real, the opposite seemed clear. The US government gave precisely zero fucks about this guy. The journalists own statements confirm: - Scope was largely outside USA - Scope was limited inside USA; required permission/warrants - No US government interference with their story/research - Beyond obligatory condemnation US govt made no attempts to stop him Not sure why this dude martyred himself over this, it looks legal domestically. Intelligence agencies are supposed to collect data on foreign nationals. I used to be sympathetic to him, but have firmly joined the other camp. He fucked over our intelligence agencies for no good reason. Pretty sure this movie was trying to paint him in a positive light, but failed hard. There was so much unintentional comedy... it's worth watching for the lols. 4/10.
Exactly. If they really wanted him, he would be at some black site with his dick hooked up to electrodes. They never gave a crap about catching him. Snowden is a legend in his own mind.
Apparently he's been talking with the government about returning. I guess life on the run in Russia is more boring that he imagined. Maybe he thinks he'll come back a hero but I think he'll just be jailed for 10 years and everyone will forget about him. In the end he didn't change anything except security procedures for moving classified information.
Given the choice between being Putin's puppet and returning to the states to stand trial and probably do a decade or so in federal prison, I'd give serious consideration to just standing trial. Putin is scary. He just had his biggest political rival shot in the street in Moscow. It's the kind of thing that would be the equivalent of Obama deciding to hire a hitman to take care of Boehner. Snowden fled from a totalitarian regime that mostly existed in his own mind to a very real totalitarian regime.
This interview is supposedly blacked out by US media in the USA... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f93_1390833151
I doubt it's blacked out. Looks to me like it's just a rehash of Edward Snowden's greatest non-expert generalizations on topics he knows next to nothing about.