Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
― Edward Snowden




Director: Oliver Stone
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Nicolas Cage, Timothy Olyphant

Based on Luke Harding's book... "The Snowden Files"

Disillusioned with the intelligence community, top contractor Edward Snowden leaves his job at the National Security Agency. He now knows that a virtual mountain of data is being assembled to track all forms of digital communication -- not just from foreign governments and terrorist groups, but from ordinary Americans.
When Snowden decides to leak this classified information, he becomes a traitor to some, a hero to others and a fugitive from the law.
—plot author Jwelch5742

Oliver Stone met Edward Snowden three times in Moscow before the start of this film and once afterward, before the public screening of the finished film, at which time Snowden was the first to view the film.
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In 2014 an award winning documentary which preceded this movie, was released.
'Citizenfour'
-In January 2013, Laura Poitras started receiving anonymous encrypted e-mails from "CITIZENFOUR," who claimed to have evidence of illegal covert surveillance programs run by the NSA in collaboration with other intelligence agencies worldwide. Five months later, she and reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill flew to Hong Kong for the first of many meetings with the man who turned out to be Edward Snowden. She brought her camera with her.

Before coming out as a whistle-blower, Edward Snowden had researched previous cases of leaks in NSA by Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe extensively to try and avoid being silenced and having his life destroyed for even considering speaking out.

Edward Snowden decided to make contact with Laura Poitras after seeing a short film that Poitras had done for The New York Times about William Binney, an NSA whistle-blower.

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I am sure by now we all know who Edward Snowden is.
You can still find Snowden online often in various podcasts and lectures and those type of things.




“These programs were never about terrorism: they're about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.”
― Edward Snowden

“The reason you're reading this is because I did a dangerous thing for a man in my position: I decided to tell the truth.”
― Edward Snowden

“Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.”
― Edward Snowden

“Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American.”
― Edward Snowden

“The freedom of a country can only be measured by its respect for the rights of its citizens.”
― Edward Snowden

“In an authoritarian state, rights derive from the state and are granted to the people. In a free state, rights derive from the people and are granted to the state.”
― Edward Snowden

“I was right outside the NSA [on 9/11], so I remember the tension on that day. I take the threat of terrorism seriously, and I think we all do. And I think it's really disingenuous for the government to invoke and sort-of scandalize our memories to sort-of exploit the national trauma that we all suffered together and worked so hard to come through -- and to justify programs that have never been shown to keep us safe, but cost us liberties and freedoms that we don't need to give up, and that our Constitution says we should not give up.”
― Edward Snowden