Citizenfour producers sued 'on behalf of American public' for aiding Snowden

A private US citizen is suing the makers of an Oscar-tipped documentary about the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden for allegedly “profiteering” from the “theft and misuse” of thousands of leaked government documents.

Retired naval officer Horace Edwards says he is taking legal action “on behalf of the American public” against the producers of Citizenfour, director Laura Poitras and the Weinstein Company. The film is the first-person retelling of the encounter between Poitras, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Ewan Macaskill and CIA officer Snowden in Hong Kong, which led to the release of thousands of classified documents showing widespread abuses of power by the US National Security Administration in June 2013.

According to the suit, which was filed by Edwards at the Kansas federal court, the plaintiff hopes to hold producers responsible for “obligations owed to the American people” and “misuse [of] purloined information disclosed to foreign enemies”. The suit further reads: “This lawsuit seeks relief against those who profiteer by pretending to be journalists and whistleblowers but in effect are evading the law and betraying their country.”

It labels the actions of Snowden, who is now living in Russia after fleeing to Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June last year, “dishonourable and indefensible and not the acts of a legitimate whistleblower”. Poitras, meanwhile, is blamed for “hiding [Snowden] in her hotel room while he changes into light disguise, accepting all of the purloined information to use for her personal benefit financially and professionally, filming Defendant Snowden’s meeting with a lawyer in Hong Kong as he tries to seek asylum”.

Edwards is seeking the creation of a “constructive trust” to overturn the supposedly unjust enrichment of the film-makers, according to the Hollywood Reporter, which first detailed the legal case.