Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Sunday October 12 2014, @04:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the watching-the-watchmen-watchers dept.

This past Friday Laura Poitras screened her documentary, Citizenfour, about Edward Snowden and NSA whistleblowing. Revelations in the film include official confirmation of a long speculated second NSA leaker who remains with the NSA and is higher ranking than Snowden. We also learn that the girlfriend of ten years that Snowden left behind on Oahu has managed to travel to Russia and they are once again living together.

Related Stories

Berlin, Where Tech Activists go to Escape the NSA 8 comments

Now that Laura Poitras's film about the Edward Snowden affair (previously mentioned on SN a month ago) is out in cinemas, the Observer/Guardian has an article in which she and other people in Berlin (including Andy Müller-Maguhn of the Chaos Computer Club) talk about state surveillance.

With its strict privacy laws, Germany is the refuge of choice for those hounded by the security services. Carole Cadwalladr visits Berlin to meet Laura Poitras, the director of Edward Snowden film Citizenfour, and a growing community of surveillance refuseniks.

"I can't help thinking that Berlin, the city that found itself at the frontline of so much of the 20th century's history, has found itself, once again, on the fracture point between two opposing world orders."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by g2 In The Desert on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:19PM

    by g2 In The Desert (3773) on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:19PM (#105103)

    Who was a Sysadmin. Does the SN editor sideline a /. ?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:33PM (#105110)

      The point is she/he potentially has access to even more shit than Snowden did.

    • (Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:37PM

      by tynin (2013) on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:37PM (#105112) Journal

      Come again? I don't follow what one has to do with the other nor understand the need for your snide remark.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @09:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @09:00PM (#105262)

      Snowden was employed by a private sector contractor.
      That's the way it works in the current realm of neoliberal government.
      The "higher than" seems to be a false characterization.
      Perhaps "with more access to even more sensitive information" would be apt.

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @09:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @09:28PM (#105276)

        Contractors slot right into the org chart just like employees. Even parts of management are contracted out. Their badges might be a different color, but for nearly all intents and purposes they are indistinguishable, except the contractors take home more money at the end of the day. I'm speaking as a former DoD contractor.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @05:24PM (#105106)

    In the movie, of course, she will turn out to be Barack Obama's high school flame.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @06:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @06:29PM (#105168)

    If there's any documentary filmmaker out there looking for something interesting to investigate, I'd suggest the Debian/systemd debacle.

    From what I've heard about it so far, there are lots of dirty politics involved. People are getting seriously fucked over by systemd, too. And all of this makes for a very controversial situation. There are probably many damning revelations that could be dug up with some investigation.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @06:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @06:52PM (#105183)

      2soon

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @08:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @08:42PM (#105254)

      let's get a #GamerGate documentary going ayy lmao

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @10:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @10:01PM (#105290)

      that's what's so great about Open Source: if you're unhappy with systemd, you can always build your own distro!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @10:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @10:26PM (#105307)

        I've been using one particular Linux distro for over 20 years now. It has worked perfectly fine without systemd that entire time. That distro is named Debian.

        There should be no need for anyone to change distros. Debian has been a great distro without systemd for decades now. The solution to this problem is for Debian to never include systemd. That's the only solution.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Pav on Monday October 13 2014, @04:40AM

          by Pav (114) on Monday October 13 2014, @04:40AM (#105433)

          The correct way to do things is always define standard/s! Systemd shouldn't have become the default anywhere until this happened, ESPECIALLY since Init affects so many developers. With no standard Lennart is the replacement for a standards process, and we need to go along with him and his bosses. It's like Windows vs Samba before standards were drafted... even if someone wants to compete the bar can move and they're not-quite-compatible again. Moreover, noone has foreknowledge of new shiny features except RH, so they get a head start plugging into them... it's not hard to keep certain alpha/beta developments private.

          tl:dr : In the absence of a standard the vendor that controls the defacto implementation has too much power.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by wonkey_monkey on Monday October 13 2014, @11:28AM

          by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday October 13 2014, @11:28AM (#105488) Homepage

          The solution to this problem is for Debian to never include systemd. That's the only solution.

          Heaven forbid other people should have their own opinion...

          --
          systemd is Roko's Basilisk
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 13 2014, @12:23PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 13 2014, @12:23PM (#105504)

            They can have their own opinion. Now, in the case of systemd, anyone who supports it is inherently wrong. And if they want systemd on their Debian system, then they should be forking Debian and infecting this fork with systemd. It's atrocious that the Debian that everyone else uses is getting infected with systemd, instead of just an isolated fork of it.

            • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by wonkey_monkey on Monday October 13 2014, @03:12PM

              by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday October 13 2014, @03:12PM (#105573) Homepage

              anyone who supports it is inherently wrong

              What a wonderful attitude. What could possibly go wrong with that kind of thinking?

              It's not your distro. It's Debian's distro. If Debian want to change it, it's Debian's choice. If their users want to express dissatisfaction, that's their choice. They've changed things before and they'll change things again. They might even change back again. Up to them.

              Get over it. Or at least, go and compose a rational argument and send it to Debian instead of whining about it on unrelated stories here.

              --
              systemd is Roko's Basilisk
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @11:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 12 2014, @11:01PM (#105323)

        Wait, are you suggesting that we create forks that don't use systemd? What kind of insane madness are you suggesting? Bitching nonstop is the only path to success!

  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday October 13 2014, @03:56PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday October 13 2014, @03:56PM (#105599) Journal

    What the hell? This is a very interesting topic totally hijacked by some gripe about editing and then systemd. If the NSA wanted to bury interest in this movie, it couldn't have done better.

    This is a perfect example of how I think the prejudice against downmodding needs to be overcome. With the exception of the thread on how contractors fit into the org chart, everything else should be -1 offtopic or troll.

    Now, as for my own substantive contribution, I'm very interested in this movie and I'm wondering if there are any hints about whether it will be released in a manner that will allow people far from LA or NY to actually see it. In my view, topical documentaries should be released right away -- it sort of blows to have to wait a year for it to eventually appear on netflix when they could easily publish it on iTunes or Amazon Video (I understand that documentarians need to support themselves and I don't have a problem kicking in a few bucks -- but being in a small town, I don't even get a chance to).