Snowden gives support to Oliver Stone film after screening

In an interview, Edward Snowden emphasized that the new gadget is not just to safeguard journalists in the field, but also to shed public light on government’s surveillance methods to spy on people through their smartphones.

“Snowden”, which tells the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), will hit theaters on September 16. “And that’s what I think his movies have done for decades, and I was really proud to be invited into one of his films”.

However, he did endorse the film, and admitted that it’s a fairly accurate portrayal of events.

Of Oliver’s comments, Zachary added: “I tried to make light of it”. Taking note of the issue, former National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden has collaborated with a researcher from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab to create a special mobile phone case which will protect smartphone users from government surveillance. Without spoiling how the filmmakers chose to dramatize that scene, Stone did reveal that it was actually Snowden’s idea.

Before the private screening, the cast and creator sat down for a panel discussion in Hall H, where Gordon-Levitt talked about traveling to Moscow to meet Snowden face-to-face. He’s like an old-fashioned gentleman in that way.

Edward Snowden speaks from Russian Federation to an audience via live video webcast at the Forbidden Research conference, held by the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Mass., July 21, 2016.

ET caught up with Woodley on the red carpet at SDCC where she opened up about playing Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Mills. Stone, best known for directing films like Natural Born Killers, Platoon and Wall Street, recently put out 2012’s Savages starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively and John Travolta.

The core principle is simple: “if the reporter expects radios to be off, alert the user when they are turned on”, Snowden and Huang said in a technical write-up released Thursday.