In 2013, Filmmaker Laura Poitras along with reporter Glenn Greenwald from the Guardian were chosen to record and represent Edward Snowden as he was blowing the whistle on NSA's sweeping spying program. The short video image of the youthful looking whistle blower talking in some undisclosed location in Hong Kong that played over and over was that of Poitras's. Unlike Alex Gibney's Julian Assange/Brad Manning documentary, Citizenfour is a very straightforward, no nonsense filmmaking. Even though the erosion of civil liberty since 9/11 is no big news anymore, Snowden's whistleblowing reminds us in a big way that Obama broke his campaign promise of transparency in gov. The reason he decided to come out with these frightening facts is because he was so disappointed with Obama. Instead of curtailing these programs, he and his administration have been expanding them ten-folds. It's not only subversive groups and terrorists these agencies are after. They are mining 125 giga bites of data per second (and this was a couple years ago) on ordinary citizens all over the world indiscriminately, with the help of willing companies trying to cash in on information about their competitors. The doc shows Snowden taking every precautions in that Hong Kong hotel room from his computer and mobile devices (and advise others too) to the hotel phone while strategizing what comes next, marooned in there for 8 days. As Greenwald and Snowden exchanges hand written notes in front of Poitras' camera then tearing them up, you can tell there are more revelations in the near future with more whistle blowers on deck. Citizenfour is an explosive documentary. And I can't ever look at Obama the same way ever again.
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