Category: 1984

The Fifth Estate, the Movie

“It may be decades before we understand the full impact of WikiLeaks and how it’s revolutionized the spread of information. So this film won’t claim any long view authority on its subject, or attempt any final judgment. We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven […]

How Laura Poitras helped Edward Snowden

How Laura Poitras, who responded to an anonymous email from Edward Snowden, helped him reveal secret NSA documents By Peter Maass “”Last January, Laura Poitras received an anonymous email asking her to send her her public encryption key. Laura had been working on a documentary about surveillance and espionage for nearly two years now, and […]

Netflix: The Big Brother and the Entertainment Manipulation

by Kate Epstein The Snowden leaks and ensuing debates about our government, big data, and privacy have led to more Orwell allusions than I’ve heard in all of my (admittedly post-1984) life. It’s hard not to compare the constant surveillance of twenty-first-century America to the ubiquitous presence of Big Brother in the prescient 1949 novel. […]