Friday, April 10, 2015

Citizenfour - Synopsis

Laura Poitras is an American documentary filmmaker who lives in Berlin.  Her previous work includes My Country, My Country [2006] and The Oath [2010].  My Country, My Country shows life in Iraq for average Iraqis during the US occupation.  According to Poitras, this film earned her a place on Homeland Security’s watch list.  This film was the first of a trilogy about America post-9/11.  The second film, The Oath, is a family drama about Al Qaeda and Guantanamo Bay Prison.  It revolves around Abu Jandal, a Yemeni taxi driver and Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard for four years, and Salim Ahmed Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver who was the first person tried by a U.S. military tribunal post-9/11.  I haven’t seen either work, so I can’t say if they’re good, bad, sympathetic, or inflammatory [but I can guess…].  Citizenfour is the third film of the trilogy, the focus of which was intended to be on domestic surveillance.


In December 2012, journalist Glenn Greenwald was contacted by an anonymous source, but since they were unable to establish “secure communications” that is as far as the contact went.  A month later, Laura Poitras started receiving anonymous encrypted emails from that same source.  Edward Snowden, under the pseudonym Citizenfour, described himself to Laura Poitras as a “senior government employee in the intelligence community” [Editor’s note – he’s not a senior official – he was a slimy, dirtbag contractor.].  He offered to share information with her provided she take some computer security precautions.  Then she received this:

“You asked why I picked you.  I didn’t.  You did.  The surveillance you’ve experienced means you’ve been “selected” – a term which will mean more to you as you learn about how the modern SIGINT system works.  For now, know that every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cellphone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit, subject line you type – and packet you route is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are not.  Your victimization by the NSA system means that you are well aware of the threat that unrestricted secret police pose to democracies.  This is a story few but you can tell.”

Poitras subsequently moved to Berlin so she can avoid the possibility of having her film footage seized by the US government. 


The first interviewee in the film is William Binney, a former NSA employee [approximately 33 years].  He was a crypto-mathematician who analyzed nuclear threats during the Cold War.  After the Cold War he turned his attention to the Internet and began to develop methods of mass data analysis.  He claimed that just a few days after 9/11, NSA decided to “begin spying on everyone in this country.”  He says that AT&T provided NSA with over 300 million records every day.  This program was re-authorized every 45 days by what he called the “Yes Committee  - Hayden, Tenant, the Department of Justice.”  He told a staffer he knew on the House Intelligence Committee, who in turn told the chairman of the committee. Nancy Pelosi was the ranking Democrat on the committee.  Pelosi and all the others on the House Intelligence Committee were briefed into various and sundry programs like Stellar Wind [and including CIA programs].  Binney stated that he and four other NSA employees worked within the government to try to get those in charge to make sure that Stellar Wind passed Constitutional muster, to get it into federal judicial oversight.  Binney claims NSA raided him and his co-workers in order to scare them, to keep them quiet.


In another email from Citizenfour to Poitras –

“Disturbingly, the amount of US communication ingested by NSA is still increasing.  Publicly, we complain that things are ‘going dark,’ but in fact our accesses are improving.  The truth is the NSA has never in its history collected more than it does now.  I know the location of most domestic interception points, and that the largest telecommunication companies in the US are betraying the trust of their customers, which I can prove.  We are building the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man, yet its directors exempt themselves from accountability.  NSA Director Keith Alexander lied to Congress, which I can prove.  Billions of US communications are being intercepted.  In gathering evidence of wrongdoing I focused on the wronging of the American people.  But believe when I say that the surveillance that we live under is the highest privilege compared to how we treat the rest of the world.  This I can also prove.  On cyber operations the government’s public position is that we still lack a policy framework.  This too is a lie – there is a detailed policy framework, a kind of ‘martial law’ for cyber operations created by the White House.  It’s called Presidential Policy Directive 20 and was re-authorized at the end of last year.  This I can also prove.  I appreciate your concern for my safety, but I already know how this will end for me, and I accept the risk.  If I have luck and you are careful you will have everything you need.  I ask only that you ensure his information makes it home to the American public.”

Excerpts from Congressional hearings are presented.  Here is what was said –
Congressional Hearing, 2012
Congressman Johnson:  Does the NSA routinely intercept American citizens’ email?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  Does the NSA intercept Americans’ cellphone conversations?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  Googled searches?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  Text messages?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  Amazon.com orders?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  Bank records?
Gen Alexander:  No.
Congressman Johnson:  What judicial consent is required for NSA to intercept communications and information involving American citizens?
Gen Alexander:  Within the United States that would be the FBI lead.  If it was a foreign actor in the United States the FBI would still have to lead and could work with the NSA or other intelligence agencies as authorized.  But to conduct that kind of collection in the United States it would have to go through a court order, and the court would have to authorize it.  We are not authorized to do it, nor do we do it.

Senate hearing with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, 2013 -
Sen. Wyden:  This is for you Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front and I hope we can do this in a just “yes or no” answer because I know Senator Feinstein wants to move on.  So, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?
Lt Gen Clapper:  No sir…
Sen. Wyden:    It does not? 
Lt Gen Clapper:  Not wittingly.  There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, uh…collect, but not wittingly.

[Editor's Note:  Why aren't these men in jail for lying to Congress?]

After months of encrypted communications with Citizenfour, Poitras traveled to New York to await further instructions.

April 2013 email- “The encrypted archives should be available to you within seven days.  The key will follow when everything else is done.  The material I provide and investigative effort required will be too much for any one person.  I recommend at a very minimum you involve Glenn Greenwald.  I believe you know him.  The plain text of the payload will include my true name details for the record.  Though it will be your decision as to whether or how declare my involvement.  My personal desire is that you paint the target directly on my back.  No one, not even my most trusted confidant, is aware of my intentions, and it would not be fair for them to fall under suspicion for my actions.  You may be the only one who can prevent that, and that is by immediately nailing me to the cross rather than trying to protect me as a source.  On timing, regarding meeting up in Hong Kong, the first rendezvous attempt will be at 10 AM local time on Monday.  We will meet in the hallway outside of a restaurant in the Mira Hotel.  I’ll be working on a Rubik’s Cube so you can identify me.  Approach me and ask if I know the hours of the restaurant.  I’ll respond by stating that I’m not sure, and suggest you try the lounge instead.  I’ll offer to show you where it is, and at that point we’re good.  You simply need to follow naturally.” 


On June 3, 2013 they finally get Edward Snowden on film.  As recommended, Glenn Greenwald joined Poitras in Hong Kong to meet Snowden.  What we see afterward is the leaking of secrets as it happens.  Greenwald asked Snowden why he’s doing what he is doing.  Snowden’s answer is about “state power” and the peoples’ ability to meaningfully oppose that power.  He had a bad feeling about getting paid well to amplify that state power.

His method was to leak information first, get the story out about the actions taken by the intelligence community against everybody in order to get people to talk about the issue.  When the first two stories hit the streets, nobody had a clue about who leaked them.  So after the stories hit the airwaves, we see Edward Snowden watching TV – people like Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Wolf Blitzer – having the public discussion about the issue [government need for information to “connect dots” vs. personal privacy].  And who do we see Piers Morgan talking to?  Glenn Greenwald. Meanwhile, Snowden is in contact with his girlfriend who lives in Hawaii.  She was paid a visit by an HR person from NSA [not Booz Allen], and she was asked questions about Snowden’s “illness.”  Apparently he called in sick when he fled to Hong Kong.  His girlfriend has no idea where he is.  He told her that he went TDY for NSA [which he apparently did frequently, so it wasn’t a surprise to her].  She hasn’t a clue about what he’s doing or where he is, so she has plausible deniability [the way Snowden wanted it].  Apparently his rent checks mysteriously “stopped” going to his landlord [he had an automatic payment system set up], so evidently NSA was on to him - they just hadn't made anything public.

After MacAskill asks Snowden about when he’ll go public, he says “As soon as they try to make this about me, which should be any day now, I’ll come out just to go ‘hey, you know, this is, uh, this is not a question of somebody skulking around in the shadows.  These are public issues, these are not my issues you know. These are everybody’s issues, and I’m not afraid of you.  You know, you’re not going to bully me into silence like you’ve done to everybody else.  And if nobody else is gonna do it, I will.  And hopefully when I’m gone, whatever you do to me, there will be somebody else who’ll do the same thing.  It’ll be sort of the Internet principle of the hydra:  you know, you can stomp one person but there’s gonna be seven more of us…I don’t want to hide on this and skulk around.  I don’t think I should have to…I think it is powerful to come out and be like ‘look, I’m not afraid, you know, and I don’t think other people should, either.  You know, I was sitting in the office right next to you last week.  You know, we all have a stake in this this is our country, and the balance of power between the citizenry and the government is becoming that of the ruling and the ruled.  As opposed to actually, the elected and the electorate.”  Snowden believes that his detection was inevitable, but he wants to get the jump on NSA.  Here’s what I have a hard time reconciling – he’s saying he’s not afraid, he doesn’t care what happens to him, yet he’s saying this with the knowledge that he’s already safely out of the country where US law enforcement can’t touch him [not without an extradition effort, anyway].  It’s the “safety of being out of range.”      

On June 13, 2013, Snowden came in from the cold [virtually, anyway].  Everybody knows who he is.  That same day the Wall Street Journal tracked him down to his hotel.  They tried calling him, but he told whomever called him that they reached a wrong number.  Then he gets another call from the front desk – another party is looking for him.  He tells the front desk to hold all calls for him.  To escape the media, Snowden relocates to Poitras’ room.  There he meets with Jonathan Man, a human rights lawyer.  Man makes arrangements for Snowden to go to the UN High Commissioner of Refugees in Hong Kong for protection.  Snowden asks Man if there is any precedent for Hong Kong to extradite anyone for exercising political speech.  He seemed very worried for a man who professed to being ‘unafraid.’ Snowden then applied for refugee status through the UN and went underground.  Poitras stayed in Hong Kong with the intent to keep filming, but after six days she went back to Berlin.

Then the fallout began.  At the offices of O Globo in Rio de Janiero, the headline of a newspaper says “The US Spied on Millions of Brazilian Emails and Phone Calls.”  At those same offices, Glenn Greenwald [who lives in Brazil] shares some of the documents he got from Snowden to Brazilian journalists.  At the London offices of The Guardian, editors pour over the same documents and are discussing what to disclose and what to redact.  As the editors of The Guardian go to press about a specific GCHQ program, they’re nervous.  They fear an injuction from the British government.  Snowden contacts Poitras, who is in London filming this as it   happens.  Snowden tells Poitras that NSA loves the program under discussion because they can do things with that program that they’re not allowed to do in the US.   On June 21, 2013 the US government charged Edward Snowden with three felonies, two of them under the Espionage Act, and asks Hong Kong to extradite him.  Two days later, WikiLeaks made arrangements for Snowden to leave Hong Kong to seek political asylum elsewhere.  His destination was Moscow, where he was stuck in the transit lounge because the State Department canceled his passport.  Snowden became a ‘stateless person.’  After 40 days, Snowden was granted one year of political asylum in Russia.  He's still there...

In Brasilia, Brazil, Greenwald tells a Brazilian Senate investigation into NSA spying that the US uses terrorism and the 9/11 attacks as justification for everything they do.  Everything is in the name of national security to protect the American people.  Greenwald claims the opposite is true, that what NSA is doing has nothing to do with national security or terrorism.  He claims that intelligence collection on other countries is due to industrial, financial and economic issues.  He describes the gathering of metadata from the phone companies.  The data includes where you called from, who you called, the duration of your calls, and the same information about all the people you call.  In aggregate all of this metadata [not the content of the calls] can form a picture about you, which he characterizes as a major invasion of privacy.  He also goes into details about other information the US government is capable of collecting and to what extent to how much that government can keep tabs on you.

In Brussels, the European Union began hearings to investigate NSA surveillance of EU citizens and companies.  In March 2014, he German Bundestag began its own investigation into NSA spying.  William Binney was called as an expert witness.  He told the Germans that he sees the programs used by NSA and other spy agencies as the most major threat to democracies around the world. 


On July 20, 2013, the UK government ‘convinced’ The Guardian to destroy the GCHQ archive given to Ewen MacAskill by Edward Snowden, which they did.  On his return from the meeting in Berlin, Glenn Greenwald finds out that his partner was detained at Heathrow Airport for approximately nine hours under the UK’s Terrorism Act. 


In Berlin, an international group of lawyers representing Edward Snowden meet to discuss his legal status.   These lawyers, including one from the ACLU, are working pro bono.  They discuss the Espionage Act, a World War I-era law that does not distinguish between leaks to the press in the ‘public interest’ and selling secrets to foreign powers for personal profit.  The problem the lawyers have is that the government doesn’t have to defend why a certain piece of information is classified [whether anything was improperly classified], the government doesn’t have to demonstrate harm resulting from leakage of government secrets.


At the end of the film, it’s July 2014 and we see Edward Snowden and his girlfriend living comfortably in Moscow.  Glenn Greenwald has another meeting with Snowden.  Greenwald passes a note to Snowden that reveals approximately 1.2 million people are on the “watch list.”  

As a postscript, I saw a very interesting and compelling thing on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.  He interviewed Edward Snowden.  Not only did he interview Snowden, he made him squirm.  I think this is the first time that Edward Snowden has been challenged by anybody about what he’s done.  Up until this interview, nobody had dared to challenge Snowden’s assertions about NSA surveillance.  What a shame a real journalist wouldn’t do this…  Our own press is crap.

Oliver:  How many of those documents have you actually read?
Snowden:  I have evaluated all of the documents in the archive.
Oliver:  You've read every single one?
Snowden:  Well, I do understand what I turned over.
Oliver:  There's a difference between understanding what's in the documents and reading what's in the documents.  When you’re handing over thousands of NSA documents, the last thing you want to do is read them.

Remember where I said that Snowden places a great amount of faith in journalists to do the right thing?  Oliver hit Snowden with this rhetorical 2x4:

Oliver:  So The New York Times took a slide, didn’t redact it properly, and in the end it was possible for people to see that something was being used in Mosul on al Qaeda.
Snowden:  That is a problem.
Oliver:  Well, that’s a fuckup!
Snowden:  It is a fuckup, and those things do happen in reporting. In journalism, we have to accept that some mistakes will be made. This is a fundamental concept of liberty.
Oliver:  Right. But you have to own that then.  You’re giving documents with information you know could be harmful, which could get out there.

Oliver stunned Snowden into silence.  He knew Oliver had him by the cojones and there was nothing he could do, because deep down he knew that Oliver was right.  With this one segment, John Oliver just made it to the top of my “must-see TV” list.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert probably wish they could have this much impact.




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