Ironically, the outrage generated by Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations comes at a time when many people are increasingly relinquishing their privacy. Of course, voluntarily “sharing” is quite a different matter than finding the government has secretly rummaged through your email and social networks.
Advocacy filmmaker Laura Poitras does not have time for such cultural observations. Unfortunately, she is not inclined to ask her subject any challenging questions either. As a result, she does Edward Snowden and her audience a disservice in “Citizenfour.”
Using the alias Citizenfour, Edward Snowden reached out to Poitras through a series of encrypted emails before he ever went public. She was in Snowden’s fateful Hong Kong hotel room with The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill from day one, documenting each bombshell revelation, practically in real time—except not really.
William Binney, whom “Citizenfour” also celebrates as a whistle-blowing hero, once flat-out suggested (and subsequently walked back) Snowden “is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor” by leaking detailed information regarding American cyberespionage in China to the South China Morning Post. Obviously, that is an inconvenient episode for Poitras’s narrative, so she makes it un-happen.
Frankly, that is exactly the sort of thing she should have called out Snowden on. Many Americans have conflicted feelings on Snowden. They are concerned about the scope and pervasiveness of NSA snooping, but they are also alarmed by Snowden’s document dumps, such as the SCMP affair. It would help his personal standing and engender confidence in his and Poitras’s cause if he would address such concerns head-on and perhaps admit some mistakes were made.
