The NSA's illegal surveillance techniques are leaked to the public by one of the agency's employees, Edward Snowden, in the form of thousands of classified documents distributed to the press.
Regina King is headed back to the Emmys for her role in "Seven Seconds" and reveals what she was really thinking when she won her first Emmy for "American Crime."
The story of Chesley Sullenberger, an American pilot who became a hero after landing his damaged plane on the Hudson River in order to save the flight's passengers and crew.
In 1974, high-wire artist Philippe Petit recruits a team of people to help him realize his dream: to walk the immense void between the World Trade Center towers.
Director:
Robert Zemeckis
Stars:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
Charlotte Le Bon,
Guillaume Baillargeon
Loosely based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a three hundred million dollar contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.
SNOWDEN stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and is written and directed by Oliver Stone. The script is based on the books The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man by Luke Harding and Time of the Octopus by Anatoly Kucherena.Written by
Open Road Films
Anatoly Kucherena, credited as "Russian diplomat", is the actual Russian attorney of Edward Snowden who represented him in his political asylum claim. See more »
Goofs
A long-time Hawaii-based NSA employee advises Snowden in Oahu's Tunnel complex toward the end of his career when epilepsy was becoming problematic to take time off to travel back "the States" to visit his doctor. Hawaii is a state. Even tourists in Hawaii know that the continental US is referred to as "the Mainland."
However, military contractors are often overseas for much of their careers, and have a habit of referring to the US as "the States". Since both these characters have been contractors for years, they both would most likely have become adjusted to saying this, and not "the mainland", which is mainly a local Hawaiian saying. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Glenn Greenwald:
[sitting under a big green balloon alligator]
So?
Laura Poitras:
This is the only alligator.
Glenn Greenwald:
Four minutes past. We walk in one minute. He was clear on that.
Laura Poitras:
He's coming.
Glenn Greenwald:
No, he is too young to have that kind of access.
Glenn Greenwald:
[to Snowden as he walks up]
Uh, what time does the restaurant open?
Edward Snowden:
Noon. But the food is a bit too spicy. This way...
See more »
String Quartet No. 19 in C, K. 465, Dissonance III. Allegretto Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Performed by Emerson String Quartet
Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises See more »
Arguing about gender identity and racial issues completely misses the substance, the real issues of what happens when we let government expand it's powers under the pretext of terrorism, after a tragedy that shut down all thinking. Powered by genuine fear of terrorists created as a result of imperialistic and abusive foreign policy, the American public has ignored waste of tens of billions of tax-dollars that could've been spent on health care, infrastructure and education. Developed in secrecy, perfected on 'worthless' Muslims in Middle-East, everything from surveillance blimps to state-sponsored malware is now rapidly being deployed in homeland: US is being torn apart not just by racial issues, but by the ever increasing wealth gap, the scale of which according to a recent study, most American haven't even got a clear understanding of.
Privatized industry funded with tax-payer money without the *informed* consent of citizens has turned into legal theft. Snowden was part of that system, but in a unique way; He worked in a position where he saw far beyond the standard compartmentalization. He wasn't Alice developing metadata collection program. He wasn't Bob creating target automation. He wasn't Charlie building drones. He wasn't David confirming kills. He was Edward who saw NSA's SKYNET program, a real tool used to automate drone murders with surveillance metadata.
Saying it took guts to blow whistle on corruption within the world's largest intelligence establishment is a complete understatement.
While some people like Silas Davis here seem to think no large terrorist attacks must mean mass surveillance, works, The Intercept has done extensive reporting on how not only this is false, but that FBI has had to provide resources on troubled people just to get them arrested.
Privacy is a universal human right, but having to hand it away for the sake of security reduces it to a a mere privilege. What makes it even more ridiculous is the transparency in society has completely reversed it's state: Citizens are monitored to the point where gerrymandering strips their only power -- their vote. Meanwhile government the power of which is derived from the governed has secret court, secret laws and secret interpretations of these laws. In such situation "I have nothing to hide" is either badly placed trust or a coping mechanism.
The revelations by Snowden were made possible by decades long effort by the cypherpunk community, that has developed encryption tools from Tor-network to PGP-emails to OTR-instant messaging that Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden actually used to empower themselves during 2013. Citizenfour documentary honored these projects during credits.
Information security allowed by the law, and achieved with sophisticated technology is extremely important. Terrorism isn't the number one threat, cyber attacks are. The Snowden documents have revealed how NSA has injected back doors into hardware, bribed companies like RSA to use back doored random number generators, and weakened industry standards in an attempt to monitor everything. In reality they've made much easier for all cyber terrorists and foreign governments to hack vital systems that belong to government and companies, and that maintain the critical infrastructure.
How well the movie grasps over all this, we'll see soon. The 10 goes just for increasing the awareness. Meanwhile, I suggest the conversation be steered towards the real issues instead of feeding trolls.
153 of 218 people found this review helpful.
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Arguing about gender identity and racial issues completely misses the substance, the real issues of what happens when we let government expand it's powers under the pretext of terrorism, after a tragedy that shut down all thinking. Powered by genuine fear of terrorists created as a result of imperialistic and abusive foreign policy, the American public has ignored waste of tens of billions of tax-dollars that could've been spent on health care, infrastructure and education. Developed in secrecy, perfected on 'worthless' Muslims in Middle-East, everything from surveillance blimps to state-sponsored malware is now rapidly being deployed in homeland: US is being torn apart not just by racial issues, but by the ever increasing wealth gap, the scale of which according to a recent study, most American haven't even got a clear understanding of.
Privatized industry funded with tax-payer money without the *informed* consent of citizens has turned into legal theft. Snowden was part of that system, but in a unique way; He worked in a position where he saw far beyond the standard compartmentalization. He wasn't Alice developing metadata collection program. He wasn't Bob creating target automation. He wasn't Charlie building drones. He wasn't David confirming kills. He was Edward who saw NSA's SKYNET program, a real tool used to automate drone murders with surveillance metadata.
Saying it took guts to blow whistle on corruption within the world's largest intelligence establishment is a complete understatement.
While some people like Silas Davis here seem to think no large terrorist attacks must mean mass surveillance, works, The Intercept has done extensive reporting on how not only this is false, but that FBI has had to provide resources on troubled people just to get them arrested.
Privacy is a universal human right, but having to hand it away for the sake of security reduces it to a a mere privilege. What makes it even more ridiculous is the transparency in society has completely reversed it's state: Citizens are monitored to the point where gerrymandering strips their only power -- their vote. Meanwhile government the power of which is derived from the governed has secret court, secret laws and secret interpretations of these laws. In such situation "I have nothing to hide" is either badly placed trust or a coping mechanism.
The revelations by Snowden were made possible by decades long effort by the cypherpunk community, that has developed encryption tools from Tor-network to PGP-emails to OTR-instant messaging that Poitras, Greenwald and Snowden actually used to empower themselves during 2013. Citizenfour documentary honored these projects during credits.
Information security allowed by the law, and achieved with sophisticated technology is extremely important. Terrorism isn't the number one threat, cyber attacks are. The Snowden documents have revealed how NSA has injected back doors into hardware, bribed companies like RSA to use back doored random number generators, and weakened industry standards in an attempt to monitor everything. In reality they've made much easier for all cyber terrorists and foreign governments to hack vital systems that belong to government and companies, and that maintain the critical infrastructure.
How well the movie grasps over all this, we'll see soon. The 10 goes just for increasing the awareness. Meanwhile, I suggest the conversation be steered towards the real issues instead of feeding trolls.