We are all Snowden

In a Hong Kong hotel room, American documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras recorded Edward Snowden telling his story and handing over documents to Guardian journalist Glenn Grennwald. Snowden contacted Poitras in December 2012. The film impressively shows how the young IT specialist, with a careful selection of two journalists, tells a story to the world public that concerns us all.

His motives ultimately remain personal: He sees his integrity and that of his fellow citizens violated by the U.S. government's surveillance tools. The focus here is not on the surveillance procedure per se, but on the concealment and deception of citizens. Adults expect reliability of procedures and rules of the game. If these are not adhered to by governments and companies, they forfeit trust. Citizens and consumers react with uncertainty. Sooner or later, they expect not to be left in the dark and to face unexpected unpleasant consequences when they use digital technologies for their communications.

Now that digitization, with its invaluable blessings for communication, has become an integral part of our everyday lives, all parties involved must agree on a binding code of conduct and clear contracts. Edward Snowden has set a ball rolling in this regard. The question is how long this stone will retain its energy.

Edward Snowden's disclosures have changed the perception of a large part of the US population. His revelations have had a major impact, not only on the governments concerned, but also on the men and women who feel insecure as citizens and consumers. Here, security means having a private framework in which physical and psychological integrity is guaranteed.

On November 12, 2014, the Pew Research Center published the first in a series of studies explicitly examining U.S. adults' perceptions and approaches to privacy in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations (www.pewinternet.org). Only 5 percent of respondents said they had not heard about the surveillance programs. They are significantly more distrustful of communication channels that are monitored by the government. 91 percent believe consumers have lost control over the way companies collect and use their data. 88 percent fear that incorrect information about them can only be deleted with great difficulty. Nearly one in two assume that people they meet are gathering information about them online. 11 percent have already had unpleasant experiences because humiliating or false reports have been posted about them online. 16 percent have requested that relevant information be removed. 81 percent do not feel very or at all safe communicating on social media. And concern about U.S. government surveillance of phone calls and the Internet is high among 80 percent.

Laura Poitras' film is an intimate document of the birth of a story that goes around the world. It requires a narrator who is both courageous and fearful. Edward Snowden turned to journalists, whom he chose specifically. Based on their previous publications, he trusted them to handle the information appropriately and carefully. He delegated the selection and preparation of the data to the professionals. During the eight days in the hotel room, they become a team. The informant and the journalists form a community of fate. They know that after the publication they will no longer be able to live their lives as before. Poitras and Greenwald limit their travels, Edward Snowden lives in isolation in Russia with his partner. The critical distance is lost in the process, of course. Instead, they open up a debate that no one can escape.

Josefa Haas, media expert from Zurich