Reflections on CitizenFour

This is a short blog post reacting to the CitizenFour documentary.

The CitizenFour documentary is about the mass surveillance leaks that came from Edward Snowden. At the time of this information being released, the American public (if not the world) was completely shocked.

From my perspective, none of the information from the documentary surprised me, but that's because I don't remember the time before government mass surveillance was general public knowledge. I do however, think there's a lot we can still learn from what Snowden released and how he released it.

The Release Process

While we were digging into how exactly Snowden released classified information, I was mildly impressed how he went about it. There's no doubt (at least in my mind) that what Snowden did needed to happen, but while watching the documentary, you start to realize what he had to do to make it happen. He didn't simply dump a massive archive of classified NSA documents to the web; however, he very carefully explained all the information to reporters and put context around what he was sharing.

It seems Snowden felt morally obligated to share the information he did, and he obviously felt it was of great consequence. He didn't want the information to be misunderstood or taken lightly. The interactions he had with the reporters made it very obvious that he would do whatever it took to add credibility to the information but the release was always to be about the information and not the "whistle-blower".

The Information Released

As I said, the information that was release was shocking to the general public at the time. This was the first time the American public found out that the government was egregiously violating their rights performing mass surveillance. I can't speak to much more to the release of the information as I wasn't old enough to remember it; however, I don't think enough has been done about it.

As with everything, the perceived severity and danger of government surveillance has faded with time. I believe we've become dangerously acceptive of the surveillance state and while everyone was upset when Snowden leaked the information, very little has been done about it. We still have mass surveillance to varying degrees and we just excuse this problem by saying, "Yea, we know the government is watching us" or, "I've got nothing to hide." A solution needs to be made. We can't allow our freedoms to be stripped so easily.

With that, I'll end this blog post with a quote from Snowden himself:

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.

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