Glenn Greenwald Quotes & Sayings

'Terrorism' itself is not an objective term or legitimate object of study, but was conceived of as a highly politicized instrument and has been used that way ever since. — Glenn Greenwald

Fearlessness can be its own form of power. — Glenn Greenwald

being debated by the UN that involved imposing new sanctions on Iran. A similar surveillance document from August 2010 reveals that the United States spied on eight members of — Glenn Greenwald

Technology has now enabled a type of ubiquitous surveillance that had previously been the province of only the most imaginative science fiction writers. — Glenn Greenwald

US journalists, for years overwhelmingly enamored of Barack Obama, were now commonly speaking of him in these terms: as some sort of grave menace to press freedoms, the most repressive leader in this regard since Richard Nixon. That was quite a remarkable turn for a politician who was ushered into power vowing the most transparent administration in US history. — Glenn Greenwald

Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chat and social media messages and emails, what you're really talking about is the full extent of human communication. — Glenn Greenwald

It's just simply the fact that the NSA does not think anybody should be able to communicate anywhere on the Earth without them being able to invade it. — Glenn Greenwald

The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes. — Glenn Greenwald

[H]aving the career of the beloved CIA Director and the commanding general in Afghanistan instantly destroyed due to highly invasive and unwarranted electronic surveillance is almost enough to make one believe not only that there is a god, but that he is an ardent civil libertarian. — Glenn Greenwald

I have nothing but the highest regard for 'Salon' and its commitment to independent and provocative journalism. — Glenn Greenwald

American political culture quickly and always outpaces any attempt to satirize it. — Glenn Greenwald

Of all the views that are detached from reality, the most delusional is that Christians are persecuted in the U.S. — Glenn Greenwald

But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic - and in some cases clearly false - statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard. — Glenn Greenwald

Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law
the supreme law
was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so. — Glenn Greenwald

Years earlier, I might have scoffed, but I'd come to accept that, for Snowden's generation, they played no less serious a role in molding political consciousness, moral reasoning, and an understanding of one's place in the world than literature, television, and film. They, too, often present complex moral dilemmas and provoke contemplation, especially for people beginning to question what they've been taught. — Glenn Greenwald

I think Dianne Feinstein may be the most Orwellian political official in Washington. — Glenn Greenwald

adviser, repeatedly requested that the NSA spy on the internal discussions of key member states to learn their negotiation strategies. A May 2010 SSO report — Glenn Greenwald

There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States, but around the world. — Glenn Greenwald

You can offer the ability to citizens to choose from one of the two parties and elect their leaders as much as you want. But "democracy" is an illusion - a sham - if the most significant acts taken by those leaders are kept concealed from the citizenry. — Glenn Greenwald

We know that U.S. voters, and world leaders, allow Obama extraordinary leeway when it comes to deadly drone strikes, precisely because of his politics, character and background. (We are talking about a man, after all, who won the Nobel Peace Prize while ordering the automated killing of suspected Muslim terrorists around the world). — Glenn Greenwald

There's a huge dichotomy between people who grow up with alienation, which, for me, was invaluable, and people who grow up so completely privileged that it breeds this complacency and lack of desire to question or challenge or do anything significant. Those are the types of people who become partners at the corporate law firms. — Glenn Greenwald

There's a perennial debate about whether the propagandistic tripe produced by establishment media outlets is shaped more by evil or by stupidity. Personally, I think it's both: a healthy dose of each is needed. The system design is malicious, while those who serve as its public face are generally vacant. — Glenn Greenwald

Virtually every one of the most far-right neocon Bush officials - including Dick Cheney himself - has spent years now praising Obama for continuing their terrorism policies which Obama the Senator and Presidential Candidate once so harshly denounced. — Glenn Greenwald

I do not want to live in a world where we have no privacy and no freedom, where the unique value of the Internet is snuffed out, — Glenn Greenwald

But even when the principle of equal treatment was betrayed, American leaders in every era have emphatically affirmed it, not so much out of hypocrisy as out of aspiration. Indeed, for those who were devoted to justice, the persistence of inequality was precisely what made equality before the law so imperative. — Glenn Greenwald

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting. — Glenn Greenwald

The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist. — Glenn Greenwald

You can't cheer when political officials punish the expression of views you dislike and then expect to be taken seriously when you wrap yourself in the banner of free speech in order to protest state punishment of views you like and share. — Glenn Greenwald

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were 'militants' - even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. — Glenn Greenwald

A number I'd love to know: the % of those now saying 'we have to vote Obama to stop an attack on Iran' who will support one if Obama does it. — Glenn Greenwald

Edward Snowden made an audacious claim: I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email. — Glenn Greenwald

Courage is contagious. — Glenn Greenwald

The American national security state is totally bipartisan. My biggest problem is with the Democrats, like Feinstein and Pelosi, who are defending it because there is a Democrat in the White House, and they are party loyalists and hacks before they are public servants. — Glenn Greenwald

History shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. — Glenn Greenwald

As part of these programs, the NSA exploits the access that certain telecom companies have to international systems, having entered into contracts with foreign telecoms to build, maintain, and upgrade their networks. The US companies then redirect the target country's communications data to NSA repositories. — Glenn Greenwald

The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. — Glenn Greenwald

I absolutely believe that another 9/11 is possible. — Glenn Greenwald

An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power. — Glenn Greenwald

For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other Internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in precisely the activity that the United States accused the Chinese of doing. — Glenn Greenwald

The War on Terror has been and continues to be, above all, a war on the most basic liberties and political safeguards that we're all taught are what distinguishes the US and keeps it free. — Glenn Greenwald

The domestic NSA-led Surveillance State which Frank Church so stridently warned about has obviously come to fruition. The way to avoid its grip is simply to acquiesce to the nation's most powerful factions, to obediently remain within the permitted boundaries of political discourse and activism. Accepting that bargain enables one to maintain the delusion of freedom - "he who does not move does not notice his chains," observed Rosa Luxemburg - but the true measure of political liberty is whether one is free to make a different choice. — Glenn Greenwald

When poor and ordinary Americans who commit crimes are prosecuted and imprisoned, that is Justice. When the same thing is done to Washington elites, that is Ugly Retribution. — Glenn Greenwald

Many American pundits and foreign policy experts love to depict themselves as crusaders for human rights, but it almost always takes the form of condemning other governments, never their own. — Glenn Greenwald

There's nothing "grown-up" about wanting the State to punish people without evidence of guilt so that you can feel safe. It's actually a deeply childish need at the heart of all authoritarianism - the desire for a big daddy figure to keep you safe from the Bad People even it means there are no legal constraints, due process, or transparency.
Children growing up learn that their Daddy is omnipotent and omniscient and exercises his unchecked power for benevolent ends - it's a nice, safe feeling, and many continue to cling to it in adulthood, hoping the Security State will provide that. Many adjectives can and should be used to describe that need - "grown-up" definitely is not among them. — Glenn Greenwald

The drumbeat of American accusations against Chinese Internet device manufacturers was unrelenting. In 2012, for example, a report from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Mike Rogers, claimed that Huawei and ZTE, the top two Chinese telecommunications equipment companies, "may be violating United States laws" and have "not followed United States legal obligations or international standards of business behavior." The committee recommended that "the — Glenn Greenwald

There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous. — Glenn Greenwald

The powerful and the powerless. — Glenn Greenwald

[I]f you want instant, reflexive support for the US government's police and military powers, MSNBC is the place to turn these days. — Glenn Greenwald

To me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it, not when it's easy, not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate. — Glenn Greenwald

Government and businesses cannot function without enormous amounts of data, and many people have to have access to that data. — Glenn Greenwald

In the face of severe injustice, a refusal to dissent is the sign of a character flaw or moral failure. — Glenn Greenwald

Radical expansions of power are often introduced in this way, by persuading people that they affect just a specific, discrete group. — Glenn Greenwald

In essence, I see the value of journalism as resting in a twofold mission: informing the public of accurate and vital information, and its unique ability to provide a truly adversarial check on those in power. — Glenn Greenwald

It is simply an invariable truth in the history of politics, in the history of government, that whenever a new power is acquired in the name of some threat, it always - not sometimes, not often, not usually -it always extends beyond its original application, beyond its original justification. — Glenn Greenwald

To permit surveillance to take root on the Internet would mean subjecting virtually all forms of human interaction, planning, and even thought itself to comprehensive state examination. — Glenn Greenwald

The primary theory embraced by the Bush administration to justify its War on Terror policies was that the 'battlefield' is no longer confined to identifiable geographical areas, but instead, the entire globe is now one big, unlimited 'battlefield.' — Glenn Greenwald

The single most remarkable (and revealing) fact of the Obama presidency may very well be the lack of a single prosecution of Wall Street executives for the massive fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. — Glenn Greenwald

That's what makes Snowden's revelations so stunning and so vitally important. By daring to expose the NSA's astonishing surveillance capabilities and its even more astounding ambitions, he has made it clear, with these disclosures, that we stand at a historic crossroads. Will the digital age usher in the individual liberation and political freedoms that the Internet is uniquely capable of unleashing? Or will it bring about a system of omnipresent monitoring and control, beyond the dreams of even the greatest tyrants of the past? Right now, either path is possible. Our actions will determine where we end up. — Glenn Greenwald

We shouldn't have to be faithful loyalists of the powerful to feel safe from state surveillance. Nor should the price of immunity be refraining from controversial or provocative dissent. — Glenn Greenwald

[N]othing is less reliable than unchecked claims from political officials that their secret conduct is justified by National Security Threats and the desire to Keep Us Safe. — Glenn Greenwald

Not only was all this collaboration conducted with no transparency, but it contradicted public statements made by Skype. ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype customers. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google. — Glenn Greenwald

Contrary to repeated claims from President Obama and the NSA, it is already clear that a substantial number of the agency's activities have nothing to do with antiterrorism efforts or even with national security. — Glenn Greenwald

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations — Glenn Greenwald

The email began: The security of people's communications is very important to me, — Glenn Greenwald

To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime? — Glenn Greenwald

When someone who wields political power does something you dislike or disagree with, it's incumbent upon you to object, criticize, and demand a different course. Those who refuse to do so are abdicating the most basic duty of citizenship and rendering themselves impotent. — Glenn Greenwald

The second covered the history of the Bush warrantless eavesdropping program, based on a top secret 2009 internal report from the NSA's inspector general; another detailed the BOUNDLESS INFORMANT program that I had read about on the plane; — Glenn Greenwald

Objectivity means nothing more than reflecting the biases and serving the interests of entrenched Washington. Opinions are problematic only when they deviate from the acceptable range of Washington orthodoxy. — Glenn Greenwald

Even when influential political and media figures vehemently complained about the criticisms I wrote, Salon's editors unfailingly stood behind my work. — Glenn Greenwald

The United States government in Washington constantly gives amnesty to its highest officials, even when they commit the most egregious crimes. And yet the idea of amnesty for a whistleblower is considered radical and extreme. — Glenn Greenwald

I'd like to vote for the candidate similar to the one the Right absurdly claims Obama is. — Glenn Greenwald

The lesson for me was clear: national security officials do not like the light. They act abusively and thuggishly only when they believe they are safe, in the dark. Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, we discovered, its enabling force. Transparency is the only real antidote. — Glenn Greenwald

Embedded in 'The New York Times' institutional perspective and reporting methodologies are all sorts of quite debatable and subjective political and cultural assumptions about the world. And with some noble exceptions, 'The Times,' by design or otherwise, has long served the interests of the same set of elite and powerful factions. — Glenn Greenwald

What I do know is that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have been converted into the closest thing the West has to religious-like martyrs in the war against radical Islam, which means that anything short of pure reverence for them generates tribal rage and vilification. — Glenn Greenwald

What we revealed is that this spying system is devoted not to terrorists, but is directed to innocent people around the world. None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Is Angela Merkel a terrorist? — Glenn Greenwald

It's so much easier to debate people when you can pretend that they hold moronic position that they don't actually believe. — Glenn Greenwald

I know it's a really hard concept to process, but the fact that Govt accuses someone of being a Terrorist doesn't mean they are. — Glenn Greenwald

Free speech rights means that government officials are barred from creating lists of approved and disapproved political ideas and then using the power of the state to enforce those preferences. — Glenn Greenwald

Bush violated FISA [ ... ] because he wanted to violate the law in order to establish the general 'principle' that he was not bound by the law, to show that he has the power to break the law, that he is more powerful than the law. — Glenn Greenwald

The hacking practice is quite widespread in its own right: one NSA document indicates that the agency has succeeded in infecting at least fifty thousand individual computers with a type of malware called "Quantum Insertion." One map shows the places where such operations have been performed and the number of successful insertions: — Glenn Greenwald

Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention - the defining injustice of Guantanamo - as his own policy. — Glenn Greenwald

The point of asylum is not to declare to the world what country you think is the pinnacle of civilization. The point of asylum is to find a country that's both willing and able to protect you from political persecution. In no way is asylum an endorsement of a country's politics, laws, or values. — Glenn Greenwald

Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else. — Glenn Greenwald

Promoting the human capacity to reason and make decisions: that is the purpose of whistle-blowing, of activism, of political journalism. — Glenn Greenwald

I don't have a 'side' - I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else. — Glenn Greenwald

The job of the press is to disprove the falsehoods that power invariably disseminates to protect itself. — Glenn Greenwald

Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else. — Glenn Greenwald

NSA has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet. — Glenn Greenwald

A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts. — Glenn Greenwald

As for the claim that drone 'pilots' are not engaged in the extinguishing of human life via video games, the military's own term for its drone kills - 'bug splat,' which happens to be the name of a children's video game - and other evidence negates that. — Glenn Greenwald

The Obama administration does not hate unauthorized leaks of classified information. They are more responsible for such leaks than anyone. What they hate are leaks that embarrass them or expose their wrongdoing. Those are the only kinds of leaks that are prosecuted. — Glenn Greenwald

My nature is that when I see abuses of power, I want to expose those abuses. — Glenn Greenwald

When journalists are 'accused' of being 'advocates', that means: challenging and deviating from DC orthodoxies. — Glenn Greenwald

No matter the specific techniques involved, historically mass surveillance has had several constant attributes. Initially, it is always the country's dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of the surveillance, leading those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe they are immune. And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one. — Glenn Greenwald

All of the evidence highlights the implicit bargain that is offered to citizens: pose no challenge and you have nothing to worry about. Mind your own business, and support or at least tolerate what we do, and you'll be fine. Put differently, you must refrain from provoking the authority that wields surveillance powers if you wish to be deemed free of wrongdoing. This is a deal that invites passivity, obedience, and conformity. The safest course, the way to ensure being "left alone," is to remain quiet, unthreatening, and compliant. — Glenn Greenwald

The ultimate test of a society's freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it's how it treats its dissidents. — Glenn Greenwald

The Obama administration leaks classified information continuously. They do it to glorify the President, or manipulate public opinion, or even to help produce a pre-election propaganda film about the Osama bin Laden raid. — Glenn Greenwald

The Obama administration already claims the power to wage endless and boundless war, in virtually total secrecy, and without a single meaningful check or constraint. No institution with any power disputes this. To the contrary, the only ones which exert real influence - Congress, the courts, the establishment media, the plutocratic class - clearly favor its continuation and only think about how further to enable it. — Glenn Greenwald

[I]t's impossible to evade the fact that Endless War will inevitably degrade the citizenry of the country that engages in it. A country which venerates its military above all other institutions, which demands that its soldiers be spoken of only with religious-like worship, and which continuously indoctrinates its population to believe that endless violence against numerous countries is necessary and just - all by instilling intense fear of the minorities who are the target of that endless violence - will be a country filled with citizens convinced of the virtues and nobility of aggression. — Glenn Greenwald

The ability to eavesdrop on people's communications vests immense power in those who do it. And unless such power is held in check by rigorous oversight and accountability, it is almost certain to be abused. Expecting the US government to operate a massive surveillance machine in complete secrecy without falling prey to its temptations runs counter to every historical example and all available evidence about human nature. — Glenn Greenwald