What do you think Sup Forums, did CITIZENFOUR change your opinion on the guy at all?

What do you think Sup Forums, did CITIZENFOUR change your opinion on the guy at all?

He's just a nerd who got bored and decided to steamroll the US government because he could.

He seems like a prick, but I appreciate what he pulled off.

Analysis. What prompted this uninformed response?

I tried to watch it on HBO go when it first came out on video. I made it about 40 minutes in and my connection stalled out, I never tried to watch it again because I'm sure THEY KNOW.

This dude had the biggest NORMIES REEEEEE meltdown in human history and basically sank the US security apparatus in a fit of autistic rage. He literally says his motivation for the leaks, his core reason for it all, was that the internet wasn't what it used to be.

I kind of admire it.

He's a hero. Give the fucker a pardon.

I dont think they have an issue with pardoning him, but they are definitely not interested in pardoing the people who assisted Snowden who carry little to no publc profile (and the protection that affords).

Snowden also likes playing international villain. Its exciting for him

Just pissed me off really. I grew up before 9/11, I remember what it was like. I remember when 1984 was just a somewhat far fetched book that never would take decades to come true, and people would always resist it.

Then everything happened and nobody gave a shit. Thats what pissed me off the most, that we had this massive expansion of surveilance and most of the population was okay with it because 3000 people died.

What was that one line in the movie? Something like "you've got the greatest tool for opression in hisotry and they only thing protecting you from it is that you think you're the good guys?

I admire his autism in ways so profound I could probably write a book about it. It's like the kid in highschool who dreams about being a big hacker who takes on world governments, except he's such a madman he actually did it. I'm not surprised at all that the US doesn't want to pardon him though, and there isn't a chance of it in the future

Wait. There's people who don't think he's a hero?

Who could possibly ever think otherwise and for what reasons?

>that the internet wasn't what it used to be

Easily spied on by """private security""" firms?

The percentage of Americans who bothered to understand even the slightest bit of what Snowden leaked is depressingly low, but I do think the ruckus he caused helped caused the ground swell of anti-establishment sentiments that manifested themselves this summer with Brexit and Trump.

I'm still a bit shocked at how the USA has kept its allies and sphere so in line after they got caught recklessly spying on not only their governments, but their private citizens and companies as well. Either the American government must be giving out some bomb puss to keep these guys in line or they've known it's been going so long that actually learning the details surprised none of them really.

>Who could possibly ever think otherwise and for what reasons?
muh terrorism, you want the terrorists to win, why do you hate freedom. 3000 people died on a signle day and that is perfect justificaiton for a complete distruction of our privacy protections prior to that point.

You can appreciate what he did without really liking the man who did it. Snowden himself has some faults, and I think some of those faults hamstrung the success of his big ol war on the US government.

Anyone who matters is trying to do the same thing or is in on the game. It may have pissed off a few loud groups but those come and go with time and eventually find other things to be loud about.

>Who could possibly ever think otherwise and for what reasons?

For decades the idea of a government that always spies on its citizens have come true with a few clicks of a button?

You never had privacy on the internet. Oh no, public sector was spying on you the whole time! Do you want to upvote a news piece about Snowden on twitter recommending updating your software to stop teh gubmint h4x0rz from invading your pc when your router is already compromised by some private sector botnet?

Money and power, user. Plus they try to do the same things

I'd like to think the general population doesn't think like that. They don't, right?

The people I see on my day to day life seem to not be like that.

>Obama has no problem pardoning Snowden
You are a liar.

Anonymity

>I'd like to think the general population doesn't think like that. They don't, right?
46.5% of the popular vote says otherwise.

Nah that's a relatively small portion of an older demographic.

The biggest complaints I would say is his avoidance of the channels for whistleblowing in place (which I understand he tried to use or was worried for his safety?) and dumping it all through the media with no real oversight or care.

I do think that he hurt his image by not staying in the US. He could have put more pressure on him to be pardoned and had majority of Americans on his side

user please this is a good discussion thread

was this kino?

>I do think that he hurt his image by not staying in the US

I'm pretty sure he would've died in a very questionable way.

That's probably true but they didn't kill Manning, and Snowden is way more confident and relatable when he speaks

>I'd like to think the general population doesn't think like that. They don't, right?

There's a good dose of terrorism fear, as well as the belief that if you done nothing wrong you have noting to hide. These are the people that annoy the fuck out of me.
I just like to tell myself that the reality of the situation is that the actual situation is so technical that the average person has no idea just how bad it is. They hear "metadata" and bulk phone intercepts and they just zone out because they don't understand what it means. They don't realize that from just a few points of data they can completely reconstruct your day and who you are meeting with. If they do get that far people will usually pass it of in their minds by saying "they'll never look at me". And for the most part they won't look at you, until they do.

Bottom line is that it comes down to people still believing that the we're the good guys, so they're okay with it.

>The biggest complaints I would say is his avoidance of the channels for whistleblowing in place (which I understand he tried to use or was worried for his safety?) and dumping it all through the media with no real oversight or care.

You see this first hand in the documentary, where all these journalists (Greenwald is the one you see, but there are more) are more concerned with getting the scoop on being on TV being the ones breaking the story and credited than delivering the news in a way most Americans can digest it. Its all just a race to be recognized by thirsty journalists who give zero fucks about the story itself compared to what the story will do for their careers and prestige. In the documentary you see them all huddled together like "I think I'm being tailed!", "very vulnerable situation" and other spy movie jargon that really never applies in the real world. I mean no shit the US government is going to be tailing you, you're dismantling their surveillance operation systematically. But for them its just more validation that what they are doing is RISKY and BRAVE, and how one day their names will go down like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

Meanwhile the stories actually being printed are indecipherable to the average American and no effort is really made into making it understandable beyond empty "BOMBSHELL, ITS YUUUGGEE" rhetoric from the same ego driven journalists. If ESPN can explain to uneducated morons the complexities of a read option offense in 3 minutes of air time, why cant the "serious" news outlets in charge of feeding crucial information to the voting public do the same for something like the Snowden leaks?

No way. Martyring him would've been the stupidest thing possible, people would be very upset.

Manning is a piece of garbage. The only info he really leaked was stuff that jeopardized the situations of men on the ground in harms way, and hardly any of it was really exposing the nefarious ways of the American government. He was just mad they wouldn't pay for his surgeries.

I agree with you about Manning, I was just using him as a comparison to Snowden's charisma and character required to handle the public scrutiny

I think most people don't give a shit simply because they do nothing wrong. Why care you're under surveillance if you have nothing to hide? So what if they know you fap to tranny porn?

>tfw Globalism means all Thomas Paine types are per standard made fugitives or prisoners

Is the Stone flick any good/accurate?

If a rip is out I'll tell you in about 2 hours.

Fucking this. He did NOT give a shit about hidden files or unleaked war crimes. He did NOT give a shit about the American's right to privacy. He clearly went for the "freedom warrior" angle only later, when he realized the government would NOT be lenient on his dumb ass, just because he was kinda-sorta important in the information industry.

He wanted power, recognition, and respect. And when his little stunt didn't even give him that, he fled, because he realized he'd just fucked up the rest of his life for a poorly thought out plan to blackmail the US into giving him a 5-minute applause for being "SO FUCKING SICK, BRO. I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU JUST DID THAT xD"

What the other two said.

You think America's the only one who likes to spy on other countries? You know who has one of the largest still-in-operation spy networks in the entire planet who NOBODY bats an eye at? The fucking British.

>I don't have anything to say, I don't need the first amendment

Dude. This isn't a movie. People don't "disappear" under mysterious circumstances. ESPECIALLY someone as public as Snowden with a loving, caring family, a wide social circle, and lots of curious people who'd ask lots of curious questions.

People don't "disappear" anymore in this day and age. What would have likely happened is he would have been indicted, presented to kangaroo court, punished severely, and conceal his sentence as much as possible, so as not to make a martyr case out of him.

You'd be mislead to think anyone would attempt to assassinate Snowden. Such a risky, needlessly foolish thing to do could be so well accomplished already with a gavel and a pair of iron bars.

>all these people calling him autistic
>they haven't seen his eloquence when he gives a speech/is interviewed
>they haven't seen his sexy dancer gf that left her life in america to go be with him in exile

No, you don't "disappear." You die in an unfortunate car "accident."

And you honestly think that wouldn't upset his parents, who have EVERY right to assume he'd been assassinated? If he was your brother, wouldn't YOU raise hell to find justice for such an obviously suspicious act of murder? You'd tear down the police department trying to find the "missing" autopsy reports, the "damaged" files on his "malfunctioning" car. No way in hell someone like Snowden would be assassinated in such an unnecessarily foolish way.

I'm sure it happens, no doubt about it, but with far less frequency, and much more discretion than Hollywood would have you believe.

We're calling him autistic in an endearing way, user.

It happened to Hastings, and he was just a journalist who fucked a little too far into military affairs.

Yeah the 48% that voted for the other candidate really gave a shit about privacy after voting for the woman who pushed for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War right?

Why did you crop out their feet?

Sorry, I didn't think anyone would miss them