Oliver Stone Interview: ‘Snowden’ Movie, Cyberwarfare & Govt Secrets (Oh My)

Despite Edward Snowden’s notoriety, rarely mentioned is how he became one of the biggest whistleblowers in US history. “Snowden” director Oliver Stone offers insight into who the former NSA contractor is, as well as what to expect in the age of cyberwarfare.

The Academy Award-winning director researched his film “Snowden” by meeting with the best source: Snowden himself.

“I had the opportunity to visit Snowden in Moscow, I was invited by his lawyer and I got to know him,” Stone told RT in an exclusive interview.

“Over the course of nine different trips and two years, my co-writer and I got a lot of inside information as to what happened,” he said. “Which makes it a very compelling story, and at the same time an exciting one, because it’s going on, in a sense, right now in this world.”

Indeed, the debate over Snowden continues to rage in Congress, where the House Intelligence Committee recently wrote a letter to President Barack Obama, urging him not to pardon the exiled whistleblower. Meanwhile, numerous human rights groups have joined in a campaign to put pressure on the Obama administration in favor of pardoning Snowden.

“One of the most surprising things is his relationship, his human relationship to his girlfriend,” Stone said, “which was never mentioned really by the press. It was marginalized by them in a tough way.”

Understanding what Snowden gave up is necessary to seeing how grave the issue was to him, according to Stone.

“It’s important to realize that he had a love in his life and he had a relationship to somebody who mattered to him,” Stone said. “Keeping that relationship was crucial but he had to sacrifice it for this story that he wanted to get out to the world.”

“Certainly it shows why he did it, his motivation,” Stone said.

“He’s one of the few people who spoke up. There’s only three, four, five people have spoken up about the NSA. They’ve all gotten into some degree of trouble, so this is a very secret government issue.”

“He’s had a lot of guts,” Stone said of Snowden. “One can never predict the outcome of revealing secrets.”

The problems facing the US are not limited to the surveillance state that Snowden exposed in the NSA leak, however. According to Stone, “It’s also the cyberwarfare state.”