19 room at the Mira hotel from June 3 to June 9", 2013, as the event was actually unfolding. Snowden, speaking for the camera, describes himself as a civilian contractor for the National Security Agency. He took full responsibility for the theft of classified documents, saying that he had acted alone. He said that he had been forced to take these documents to expose a crime that threatened the freedom of Americans: the US government’s illegal surveillance of US citizens. He said that he had a duty to bring this secret activity to the attention of the American people. “Sitting on his unmade bed—white sheets and covers, white headboard, white bathrobe, white skin—Snowden seems like a figure in some obscure ritual, being readied for sacrifice,” George Packer wrote about the film in a widely-read article in The New Yorker. He said repeatedly he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, by allowing himself to go to prison, so that Americans could live in freedom. A large part of the public, who viewed this powerful film, including many of my colleagues in journalism whose writing I greatly respect, came to accept Snowden’s whistle- blowing narrative. This powerful narrative, as lucidly articulated by Poitras, Greenwald and other Snowden supporters, described the NSA activities exposed by Snowden as part of a vast criminal conspiracy involving, among others, President Obama, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence and both Democrat and Republican members of the Congressional oversight committees. It further derided claims that there was evidence that Snowden’s theft of NSA secrets went beyond exposing government misdeeds as part of an orchestrated effort to demonize Snowden. The purpose of this demonization was to divert away from the government’s crimes. For example, this narrative asserted as if it was established fact, that US government officials had deliberately “trapped” Snowden in Russia. According to Snowden, the purpose of this government ploy wa