Stone on Snowden
Størstedelen af den amerikanske offentlighed er ikke klar over, hvad der helt præcist blev afsløret af NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, fordi mediernes dækning forkuserer på budbringeren ikke på meddelelsen, udtalte instruktøren af den biografiske film Snowden, Oliver Stone, til RT.

"[Snowden] ønskede, at vægten skulle placeres på meddelelsen ikke budbringeren. Han tog fejl, fordi verden var mere interesseret i "dræb budbringeren, dræb meddelelsen". USA gik meget hårdt efter Snowden som en forræder, afbillede ham som en spion, eller en lavt placeret NSA ansat - det er ikke sandt," udtalte den Academy Award vindende instruktør og berømte dokumentarfilmskaber til RT's Going Underground program.

Snowden blev en verdenskendt figur efter at have lækket klassificerede dokumenter, der omhandler de amerikanske efterretningsvæsners og dets allieredes hemmelige overvågningsprogrammer i 2013. Stone mødte ham personlig i Rusland hvor han blev givet politisk assyl.

"Folk forstår ikke hvad han gjorde," sagde Stone. Den datamining, som vi udfører som land blev overset af den almindelige offentlighed. De tror det kun drejer sig om iPhone, eller deres computer. Men det er en lille del af ligningen."


What Snowden was trying to tell the public, Stone argued, is that contrary to the claims of US intelligence officials, mass surveillance is not effective or even necessary to fight terrorism, an area where targeted surveillance and human intelligence produce much better results. But the data obtained through mass surveillance is used for all sorts of "malicious circumstances."

"The reason we are doing this, and Snowden proposes this in the movie, is to have control. To have control over as much information as possible - economic, social, military, corporate information, financial information. That leads to all the difficulties you can bring to a country by making it public," Stone said.

Examples of such interference, he suggested, include the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, the troubles in Venezuelan economy and the armed coup in Ukraine, all the way up to the war in Syria.

"The datamining that we are doing on extensive level is used for drone warfare. And all suffer from cyberwarfare. Cyberwarfare is the most dangerous and insidious and is upon us now," Stone said. "We started it [in 2007 against Iran] and ever since then people have understood it. Other countries have developed forms of it. And independent hackers have come out of nowhere."