Earlier this year, when Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie laid out his former employer’s modus operandi, the mind jogged back in time to remember the likes of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and even Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame. Wylie had revealed that Cambridge Analytica had been able to micro-target voters on Facebook using data it had sourced from a third-party application. India aside, the ramifications hit Kenya, Mexico, the United Kingdom and, most importantly, the United States of America.
Speaking of Ellsberg, the most recent portrayal of him on the big screen was in The Post (2017). In the scene where Matthew Rhys as Ellsberg hands over the papers to The Washington Post’s Ben Bagdikian, played by Bob Odenkirk, the former asks the latter a pointed question: “You are gonna publish these documents?”
The reporter will say yes. Definitely in this case, you’d argue, with the US government having handed an injunction to the NYT (who Ellsberg had approached first) forbidding them...
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