Digital Dissidents

Digital Dissidents are the warriors of the digital age: Republican patriots, radical anarchists and cyber-hippies fight side by side for transparency and privacy in the digital world. For that, they are in prison, live in exile or have lost their careers and families. While many people celebrate them as heroes, critics, intelligence services and companies condemn their actions as an assault on our security. Why are they doing it? What are their motives?

The film focuses on people, who became dissidents out of different motivations: NSA-whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake or William Binney, the journalist Daniel Ellsberg, who is said to be the prime father of whistleblowers since he published the „Pentagon Papers“ in the 1970s, or the former British MI5-agent Annie Machon. They have worked in the system for years and finally attacked it from within by disclosing sensitive information. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, published secret information in his fight for radical transparency and uncovered US war crimes in Iraq.