Snowden (2016)

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Biography, Drama, Thriller

Release Date: 16 September 2016

CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks thousands of classified documents to the press.

Director: Oliver Stone
Writer: Kieran Fitzgerald & Oliver Stone
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo, Timothy Olyphant, Nicolas Cage, Scott Eastwood, Tom Wilkinson

Trailer #1:


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Please hold your applause till after the me.
I really want to see this movie, I love Oliver Stone's past works, but the cast doesn't look very good. The only actor that has given a really good performance in this movie is Nicolas Cage, and we all know what he's like now a days. Joseph Gordon Levitt isn't an awful actor, but he's not a good one either, I just really don't know about this.



When I saw the title of the thread, I originally thought this would be a movie about people going mountain climbing in Wales.


Like an actionless version of Vertical Limit.



Please hold your applause till after the me.
When I saw the title of the thread, I originally thought this would be a movie about people going mountain climbing in Wales.


Like an actionless version of Vertical Limit.
It does kind of sound like that.



It does kind of sound like that.
Snowden was the alternate title to Tarantino's Hateful Eight.



I think it looks pretty entertaining, and a little different than what I'd expect from Oliver Stone.
Different in what way?



I am surprised to say I found this quite interesting. I mean sure Snowden is going to be more relevant subject for an American audience with his controversial status I am still probably going to check this out.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I will have to watch the documentary next. After watching the movie, I am wondering, Snowden was in trouble for going to the media with secrets. But in the American government, is there a prosecutor or a judge or a court, he could have tried sending all the evidence to first to see what would happened, rather than contacting the media as his first choice? That way legally the secret is not out, cause you have reported it to the government court and prosecutor still, who part of that secret realm legally still, like the attorney general perhaps? Or is there no such thing in government and he pretty much had to let the secrets out, and get himself into trouble?



Snowden is a great companion piece to the excellent documentary, Citizenfour. O. Stone resisted the urge to overly embellish or romanticize the facts of the story. In that way the Snowden production puts me in mind of Stone's excellent JFK. It's simply a dramatization of the material in Citezenfour, and the other portions of the story up through 2016.

I'd love to see Stone do one on Julian Assange. It might help to get that guy released from prison.

~Doc



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I will have to watch the documentary next. After watching the movie, I am wondering, Snowden was in trouble for going to the media with secrets. But in the American government, is there a prosecutor or a judge or a court, he could have tried sending all the evidence to first to see what would happened, rather than contacting the media as his first choice? That way legally the secret is not out, cause you have reported it to the government court and prosecutor still, who part of that secret realm legally still, like the attorney general perhaps? Or is there no such thing in government and he pretty much had to let the secrets out, and get himself into trouble?
That's not how it works. He was in trouble the moment he took the material. Then giving it to someone was a second layer of illegality. The press would be more likely to investigate and publish it where a judge or lawyer would have a different set of principles and likely immediately contact federal authorities.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Oh okay thanks, that makes sense. There is one thing that got me thinking about the real story. In order for the government to be listening in people's phone conversations, would the cellphone companies have to be in on at as well, to assist the government with it? Or were the cellphone companies, completely unaware of all this? I tried looking this up, but could not find a source that says whether or not the cellphone companies were a part of it.



Oh okay thanks, that makes sense. There is one thing that got me thinking about the real story. In order for the government to be listening in people's phone conversations, would the cellphone companies have to be in on at as well, to assist the government with it? Or were the cellphone companies, completely unaware of all this? I tried looking this up, but could not find a source that says whether or not the cellphone companies were a part of it.
At the NSA Snowden discovered massive surveillance programs such as STELLARWIND and XKEYSCORE, which had been steadily gathering information on every citizen of the U.S., including Congressmen and Supreme Court justices. These secret programs had a searchable record of every Email, every key stroke, every website visited, all biographical information, all financial records, and every phone call on every single citizen, despite strict 4th Amendment prohibitions of such practices.

I don't know if they can capture land line wired phone calls that are not VOIP. If so, presumably the phone carriers would have to be complicit.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Oh okay. But if the phone companies were complicit, how come no one has tried filing lawsuits against them for being part of the conspiracy then, or no one is even trying to slander them at least for it.

Plus why would the phone companies agree, knowing that they could be either sued or charged with criminal activity? Would the President have to promise then a signed immunity for everyone involved? But even if they were given that, wouldn't the government still have to pay the phone companies a lot of money, more than their customers do?