The WikiLeaks lawyers Margaret Ratner Kunstler, Deborah Hrbek, Renata Avila and Melinda Taylor published an 'opinion piece' in Newsweek on May 17, 2017; WikiLeaks announced on the same day on Twitter that they may sue Laura Poitras: "We are lawyers for WikiLeaks. We are speaking out because we believe that Laura Poitras's film Risk (2016), released in U.S. theaters on May 5 this year, places our clients in legal jeopardy. (...) Our first issue with "Risk" is that the film was edited in New York, where the raw footage can more easily be seized by the U.S. government. By moving the editing location from Berlin to the U.S., Poitras has endangered our clients and reneged on written agreements with WikiLeaks that explicitly forbid her from editing the footage in the United States. (...) Poitras has also violated her unambiguous promise to the subjects of the film that they would have an opportunity to review the film in advance and request changes, and that they could decline to appear if they or their lawyers felt that the movie put them at risk. Had the filmmaker not agreed to these express conditions, WikiLeaks' staff would not have allowed themselves to be filmed in the first place. Despite repeated requests, neither the subjects of the film nor their attorneys were granted a prior viewing of the film that Poitras intended to release in the U.S.. When, along with the general public, we were finally able to view "Risk", we were dismayed to discover that the film released in theaters is a different version, not only from that which premiered at Cannes the year before, but also from the version screened for Julian Assange and his UK counsel at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The film viewed in the Embassy just one month prior to its U.S. release was shorn of all narration and omitted numerous new scenes, significantly changing its tenor. That the 'real' film contained these elements was concealed, preventing Assange from exercising his contractual rights. Prior to its initial U.S. release, seven of the participants submitted non-consent forms to the producers advising Poitras and her team that they did not want to appear in the film. Regardless, Poitras went ahead and released it. (...) To convince the audience of her point about the prevalence of sexism, Poitras has marginalized and demeaned a number of women who work for WikiLeaks, choosing instead to give men most of the airtime and leaving scenes depicting the significant contributions of the women WikiLeaks journalists on the cutting room floor. In their place, we now see an intense focus on women taking instructions and throwing off adoring looks. Sarah Harrison, for example, a brilliant journalist and winner of the Willy Brandt prize for "exceptional political courage," who at considerable personal risk helped Edward Snowden obtain political asylum, and who was accurately portrayed as having a central role in WikiLeaks work in the Cannes version, is now depicted as little more than a minion. Exactly what caused this pivot is not entirely clear. (...) The reason for the shift seems to be contained in the newly added voiceover, in which Poitras divulges that she was involved in an intimate relationship with one of the film's primary subjects, award-winning journalist Jacob Appelbaum. Appelbaum appears prominently in Poitras' Citizenfour (2014) as well as in "Risk". Although he does not work for WikiLeaks, Poitras conflates WikiLeaks with the organization he did work for, Tor, and makes him a central focus of the current version of "Risk". The Cannes premiere of "Risk" portrayed Appelbaum in a flattering light and Poitras did not disclose the nature of their relationship at that time. (...) Poitras was criticized after Cannes for appearing to be overly sympathetic to WikiLeaks. Instead of providing us with a more objective portrayal of her subject matter, she has re-framed her story to turn "Risk" into a film by Laura Poitras about Laura Poitras; a rather late coming-of-age story about the filmmaker discovering that there is sexism in her social and professional circles. Instead of a documentary about the abuse of state power and WikiLeaks' important role in exposing it, the emphasis of the film is now to highlight hotly disputed claims about an ex-boyfriend. We have to ask: Why choose this moment in history, when First Amendment and other fundamental rights are under attack, to undermine the credibility of an organization dedicated to government transparency and freedom of the press? (...) "Risk" might win attention for Poitras by pandering to tabloid narratives about its subjects, but it has done a great disservice to her fellow documentarians, and has profoundly betrayed her friends, her colleagues and her journalistic integrity."

The version of Risk (2016) presented at the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes International Film Festival in May 2016 was reportedly generally favorable towards WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange and contributor Jacob Appelbaum. However, Julian Assange did not think so, as director Laura Poitras has revealed in interviews about the film. It's now known that right before the Cannes screening, Assange and Poitras had a long phone call. During that call, he was furious about the film and demanded changes, and in particular he was upset over the inclusion of scenes in which he discusses two women's accusations that he committed sexual assault against them. Despite Assange's anger, WikiLeaks staff members Sarah Harrison, WikiLeaks contributor Jacob Appelbaum, WikiLeaks lawyer Renata Avila, and other WikiLeaks associates reportedly attended the film's screening and a post-screening reception in Cannes to celebrate the film. The released version of May 2017 was re-cut. Julian Assange disapproves of the 2017 version as well, and has reportedly stopped speaking to Laura Poitras.

Director Laura Poitras was romantically involved with activist, journalist, computer security researcher and artist Jacob Appelbaum, who at the same time was a subject of her documentary film project about WikiLeaks. She often mentions Appelbaum in her book "Astro Noise" using only the affectionate form 'Jake'. The opening photo in "Astro Noise" shows Poitras stretched out on a daybed in the sunlight and is credited to Appelbaum.

Right after the film was released, WikiLeaks' lawyers published an op-ed saying the film put WikiLeaks in danger, and tried to pressure the film's distributors not to release the film. In response, the film's producers wrote an op-ed saying WikiLeaks was attempting to censor the film. Director Laura Poitras and producers Brenda Coughlin and Yoni Golijov published an 'opinion piece' in Newsweek on June 16, 2017. We are the producers of Risk , a documentary film about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. We unequivocally defend WikiLeaks' journalistic right to publish true and newsworthy information. The Trump administration's threats against WikiLeaks and attacks on press freedom are chilling. As Margaret Sullivan recently argued in the Washington Post, prosecuting WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act would set a dangerous precedent for all journalists. We were disturbed, however, to learn that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks sent cease and desist letters to our distributors demanding they stop the release of Risk: "We therefore demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of all images of the Named Participants and that you desist from this or any other infringement of the rights of the Named Participants in the future." In WikiLeaks' efforts to prevent the distribution of Risk , they are using the very tactics often used against them - legal threats, false security claims, underhanded personal attacks, misdirection - and with the same intentions: to suppress information and silence speech. Since 2016, Assange and his lawyers have repeatedly demanded that we remove scenes from the film in which Assange speaks about the two women who made sexual assault allegations against him in 2010 and Sweden's investigation which has since been discontinued. In response to our refusal to remove these scenes, Assange and his lawyers are now claiming that Risk threatens the safety of the staff who consented to being filmed, and furthermore, that we are being sexist by including Assange's own comments about women in the film. These arguments are not only false, they are a deliberate effort at misdirection. Risk was filmed over the course of many years, beginning in 2011. Assange and WikiLeaks freely consented to participating in the film, knowing we were making an independent documentary. Neither WikiLeaks nor Assange have any editorial control of Risk. There were individuals who requested from the beginning not to appear in the film, and those requests were respected. Wikileaks and their lawyers were shown the film before each public screening, most recently inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London on April 1, 2017. Each time, we invited their responses. WikiLeaks' comments have consistently been about image management, including: demands to remove scenes from the film where Assange discusses sexual assault allegations against him; requests to remove images of alcohol bottles in the embassy because Ecuador is a Catholic country and it looks bad; requests to include mentions of WikiLeaks in the 2016 U.S. presidential debates; and, requests to add more scenes with attorney Amal Clooney because she makes WikiLeaks look good. It is only after we declined to make the changes they tried to impose that WikiLeaks raised objections to Risk . Their attempts to censor the content of the film are an effort to prevent reporting on Assange's own words. They also constitute a saddening break with WikiLeaks' own ideals. Last month, WikiLeaks' lawyers published an op-ed saying they object to our editing in the United States. However, Assange has known since 2015 that we were editing in the U.S. In 2016, he signed an agreement to license WikiLeaks' own footage to us and raised no objection to mailing a hard drive with footage directly to our editing room in New York City. WikiLeaks has also repeatedly publicized their participation in Risk , most recently re-tweeting a link to the film's trailer on April 10, 2017 (a tweet that has since been deleted), without raising any concerns. In their cease and desist letter, lawyers for WikiLeaks and Assange state: "The unauthorized release of the Film has caused our clients to suffer ongoing irreparable harm, and exponentially increasing damages every time a new viewer sees the Film." All the participants in Risk agreed for years to be in the film. We have no obligation to seek WikiLeaks' or Assange's authorization to release the film. In fact, our rights under the First Amendment are protected precisely because we are engaging in independent journalism. Assange himself has criticized the media for seeking permission from public figures before releasing stories. Like WikiLeaks, our journalism has been the target of U.S. government investigation, secret grand jury, and threats by elected officials. We fully understand and empathize with the dangers WikiLeaks is facing, and we stand in solidarity with all journalists and publishers around the world currently under attack.