Citizen Four

Citizen Four Response 

On May 14, 2015 my classmates and I had the opportunity to watch the Academy award winning documentary, Citizen Four. The documentary, directed by Laura Poitras, follows famed whistleblower Edward Snowden, and the steps he and his interviewees took in order to expose the NSA’s illegal activities. 

The documentary starts with Laura Poitras receiving an encrypted e-mail from Edward Snowden which contained information about illegal wiretapping practices which were being conducted by the NSA. The film then continues with Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill interviewing Edward Snowden about the different types of illegal practices that the NSA conducts on United States Citizens.

It’s quite interesting the way the US government chooses to illegally spy on it’s own citizens without their knowledge. They deny ever conducting such practices, and yet, there is direct proof that show otherwise. Edward Snowden, an ex-NSA employee saw these illegal activities being done on US citizens and chose to act upon them. Because of the decisions he made, he now lives in Russia and is not allowed to return to American soil. Snowden, in my opinion, made a great decision in exposing the spying practices conducted by the NSA. Because of his sacrifice, Americans now know what kind of government they live under, and the lack of privacy they now have. 

Because of Snowden, US citizens are able to realize that the term privacy is no longer a common thing that Americans get to enjoy on a daily bases. The documentary provides information about how the NSA collects data on American citizens and how they use it to record every habit about that person. The US government now has the ability to see everything we watch on our smartphone, every phone call we make, any google search we do, and see all the places we travel because of the data collected. Because of this, it is now safe to assume that true privacy is now dead.