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Glenn Greenwald
71 quotes
“The national religion in the United States is worship of all things military. And journalists are its high priests.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: interview with Democracy Now! (November 14, 2012). Glenn Greenwald: While Petraeus Had Affair with Biographer, Corporate Media Had Affair with Petraeus. Retrieved on November 15, 2012.
“Many of the benefits from keeping Terrorism fear levels high are obvious. Private corporations suck up massive amounts of Homeland Security cash as long as that fear persists, while government officials in the National Security and Surveillance State can claim unlimited powers, and operate with unlimited secrecy and no accountability. In sum, the private and public entities that shape government policy and drive political discourse profit far too much in numerous ways to allow rational considerations of the Terror threat.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no term more potent in our political discourse and legal landscape than "Terrorism." It shuts down every rational thought process and political debate the minute it is uttered. It justifies torture (we have to get information from the Terrorists); due-process-free-assassinations even of our own citizens (Obama has to kill the Terrorists); and rampant secrecy (the Government can't disclose what it's doing or have courts rule on its legality because the Terrorists will learn of it), and it sends people to prison for decades (material supporters of Terrorism).”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more vital than enabling true transparency and adversarial journalism, and preventing further assaults on them.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Several weeks ago, I wrote about the steps taken by the US government to pressure large corporations to choke off the finances and other means of support for WikiLeaks in retaliation for the group's exposure of substantial government deceit, wrongdoing and illegality. Because WikiLeaks has never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime, I wrote: "that the US government largely succeeded in using extra-legal and extra-judicial means to cripple an adverse journalistic outlet is a truly consequential episode.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of human knowledge is nothing more than the realization that yesterday's pieties are actually shameful errors.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: France's censorship demands to Twitter are more dangerous than 'hate speech'", The Guardian (January 2, 2013).
“The NSA and GCHQ … are obsessed with searching out any small little crevice on the planet where some forms of communication may be taking place without them being able to invade it. … They are obsessed with finding ways to invade the systems of online, onboard internet services and mobile phone services, because the very idea that human beings can communicate even for a few moments without them being able to collect and store and analyze and monitor what it is that we're saying is simply intolerable.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: CCC 2013 keynote, December 2013
“No matter the specific techniques involved, historically mass surveillance has had several constant attributes. [...] A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition , p. 3
“Over the pasty decades, the fear of terrorism—stoked by consistent exaggerations of the actual threat—has been exploited by US leaders to justify a weird array of extremist policies.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 5
“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 (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 6
“Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, we discovered, its enabling force. Transparency is the only antidote.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 12
“But when it became clear that Obama was not just continuing, but in many cases expanding these abuses", he said. "I realized then that I couldn't wait for a leader to fix these things. Leadership is about acting first and serving as an example for others, not waiting for others to act.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 43
“[The first article about NSA surveillance] "It's everywhere," Snowden said, clearly excited. "I watched all your interviews. Everyone seemed to get it.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 72
“History leaves no doubt that collective coercion and control is both the intent and effect of state surveillance.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 78.
“Through a carefully cultivated display of intimidation to anyone who contemplated a meaningful challenge, the [United States] government had striven to show people around the world that its power was constrained by neither law nor ethics, neither morality nor the Constitution: look what we can do and will do to those who impede our agenda.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Penguin Books 2015 edition , pp. 83-84.
“Thus, for all the government's denials, the NSA has no substantial constraints on whom it can spy and how. [...] The NSA is the definitive rogue agency: empowered to do whatever it wants with very little control, transparency, or accountability.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 131
“More remarkable is the fact that in country after country, revelations that the NSA was spying on hundreds of millions of their citizens produced little more than muted objections from their political leadership. True indignation came gushing forward only once those leaders understood that they, and not just their citizens, had been targeted as well.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 141
“But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers [by Huawei], foreign organizations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 148
“Companies like Booz Allen Hamilton and AT&T employ hordes of former top government officials, while hordes of current top defense officials are past (and likely future) employees of those same corporations. Constantly growing the surveillance state is a way to ensure that the government funds keep flowing, that the revolving door stays greased.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 168
“Mass surveillance by the state is therefore inherently repressive, even in the unlikely case that it is not abused. [...] In Discipline and Punish, Foucault further explained that ubiquitous surveillance not only empowers authorities and compel compliance but also induces individuals to internalize their watchers. [...] Merely organizing movements of dissent becomes difficult when the government is watching everything people are doing.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, pp. 174-7
“An essential deceit: that dissent from institutional authority involves a moral or ideological choice, while obedience does not. With that false premise in place, society pays great attention to the motives of dissenters, but none to those who submit to our institutions. [...] The only leaks that Washington media condemns are those that contain information officials would prefer to hide.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, pp. 228-9
“Nobody needed the US Constitution to guarantee press freedom so that journalists could befriend, amplify and glorify political leaders; the guarantee was necessary so that journalists could do the opposite.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 230
“Bush DOJ lawyer Jack Goldsmith hailed what he called "an underappreciated phenomenon: the patriotism of the American press". [...] The revolvind door moves the media figures into high-level Washington jobs, jut as government officials often leave office to the reward of a lucrative media contract.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 234-5
“Today, for many in the profession, praise from the government for "responsible" reporting—for taking its direction about what should and should not be published—is a badge of honor. That this is the case is the true measure of how far adversarial journalism in the United States has fallen.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Picador 2015 edition, p. 247
“What is lost when the private realm is abolished are many of the attributes typically associated with quality of life. Most people have experienced how privacy enables liberation from constraint. And we’ve all, conversely, had the experience of engaging in private behavior when we thought we were alone – dancing, confessing, exploring sexual expression, sharing untested ideas – only to feel shame at having been seen by others.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Penguin Books 2015 edition, pp. 173-174.
“Democracy requires accountability and consent of the governed, which is only possible if citizens know what is being done in their name. [...] Conversely, the presumption is that the government, with rare exceptions, will not know anything that law-abiding citizens are doing. [...] Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Penguin Books 2015 edition, page 209.
“Those who reveal information the law makes it a crime to reveal, when doing so is the only way to demonstrate to the public that powerful officials are acting wrongfully or deceitfully.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Leakers Who Exposed Gen. Flynn’s Lie Committed Serious — and Wholly Justified — Felonies", The Intecept (February 14, 2017).
“Imposing or propping up dictators subservient to the U.S. has long been, and continues to be, the preferred means for U.S. policymakers to ensure that those inconvenient popular beliefs are suppressed. None of this is remotely controversial or even debatable. U.S. support for tyrants has largely been conducted out in the open, and has been expressly defended and affirmed for decades by the most mainstream and influential U.S. policy experts and media outlets.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In sum, the post-World War II — independent of its massive human rights violations committed over and over around the world — has been predicated on and, even more so, . This policy has been applied all over the world, on multiple continents and by every administration. It is impossible to understand even the most basic aspects of the U.S. role in the world without knowing that.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the odd aspects of animal mistreatment in the U.S. is that species regarded as more intelligent and emotionally complex — dogs, dolphins, cats, primates — generally receive more public concern and more legal protection. Yet pigs – among the planet’s most intelligent, social, and emotionally complicated species, capable of great joy, play, love, connection, suffering and pain, at least on a par with dogs — receive almost no protections, and are subject to savage systematic abuse by U.S. factory farms.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In sum, with industry insiders dominating the sole agency (USDA) with the authority to regulate factory farms, animals that are captive, abused, tortured, and slaughtered en masse have little chance, even when it comes to just applying existing laws with a minimal amount of diligence. The politics of the U.S. — including the fact that a key farm state, Iowa, plays such a central role in presidential elections — means there are massive forces arrayed behind factory farms, and very few in support of animal welfare.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a temptation to turn away from and ignore this mass suffering and cruelty because it’s so painful to confront, so much more pleasant to remain unaware of it. Animal rights activists are determined to prevent us from doing so, and we should all feel gratitude for their increasing success in making us see what we are enabling when we consume the products of this barbaric and sociopathic industry.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Don't even try that pathetic tactic. Huge numbers of people are disgusted by what you're doing. She's a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors & half-Mexican. And maybe as a gay Jew, I also have a personal stake in who is and isn't an actual Nazi. You don't own this discourse.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: September 4, 2018 tweet
“Last week, the New York Times reported that the FBI, in 2017, launched an investigation of President Trump “to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security” and specifically “whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.” ...As usual – this melodrama was accomplished by steadfastly ignoring the now-standard, always-buried paragraph pointing out the boring fact that no actual evidence of guilt has yet emerged.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Obviously, if there is reason to suspect that actual crimes have been committed... then it’s not just permissible but vital that the FBI investigate such allegations... But the FBI investigation... clearly based, at least in part, on the FBI’s disagreements with Trump’s foreign policy views and the agency’s assessment that such policies fail to safeguard “U.S. interests” as the FBI defines them. The NYT notes that among the events that prompted the investigation were that Trump “refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail...”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“MSNBC IS A dishonest political operation, not a news outlet. It systematically and deliberately refuses to adopt a defining attribute of a news outlet: a willingness to acknowledge factual errors, correct them, and apologize. That they not only allow their lies to stand uncorrected but reward their employees who do it most frequently — especially when those lies are directed at adversaries of the Democratic Party — proves that they are, first and foremost, a political arm of the Democratic establishment.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most recent example is as glaring as it is malicious. On Saturday in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders delivered his first speech for his 2020 presidential campaign in front of thousands of people. MSNBC broadcast the speech live, and anyone can watch the full two-hour event, or just Sanders’s full 35-minute speech, on YouTube. As a result, there’s no confusion possible about what was said. Everyone can see it with their own eyes.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“News outlets correct lies. Slimy political operations deliberately use lies to advance their agenda and smear their adversaries. MSNBC has proven over and over again that they are decisively in the latter category. This is just the latest but by no means the only or even worst example.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On Saturday night, the New York Times published a detailed video and accompanying article proving that this entire story was a lie. The humanitarian trucks were not set on fire by Maduro’s forces. They were set on fire by anti-Maduro protesters who threw a molotov cocktail that hit one of the trucks. And the NYT’s video traces how the lie spread: from U.S. officials who baselessly announced that Maduro burned them to media outlets that mindlessly repeated the lie...”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Other media outlets endorsed the lie while at least avoiding what CNN did by personally vouching for it. “Humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela was set on fire, seemingly by troops loyal to Mr Maduro,” The Telegraph claimed. The BBC uncritically printed: “There have also been reports of several aid trucks being burned – something Mr Guaidó said was a violation of the Geneva Convention.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That lie – supported by incredibly powerful video images – changed everything. Ever since, that Maduro burned trucks filled with humanitarian aid was repeated over and over as proven fact on U.S. news outlets. Immediately after it was claimed, politicians...U.S. news stars and think tank luminaries...took a leading role in beating the war drums...”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything the New York Times so proudly reported last night has been known for weeks, and was already reported in great detail, using extensive evidence, by a large number of people... While the NYT’s article and video are perfectly good and necessary journalism, the credit they are implicitly claiming for themselves for exposing this lie is totally undeserved.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That’s because the U.S. media, by design, does not permit dissent on U.S. foreign policy, particularly when it comes to false claims about U.S. adversaries. That’s why skeptics of U.S. regime change in Venezuela, or dissenters on the prevailing orthodoxies about Russia, have largely been disappeared from mainstream media outlets...”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As has been true since President Harry Truman’s creation of the CIA after World War II, interfering in other countries and dictating or changing their governments — through campaigns of mass murder, military coups, arming guerrilla groups, the abolition of democracy, systemic disinformation, and the imposition of savage despots — is regarded as a divine right, inherent to American exceptionalism. Anyone who questions that or, worse, opposes it and seeks to impede it (as the CIA perceived Trump was) is of suspect loyalties at best.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The all-consuming Russiagate narrative that dominated the first three years of Trump’s presidency further served to elevate the CIA as a noble and admirable institution while whitewashing its grotesque history. Liberal conventional wisdom held that Russian Facebook ads, Twitter bots and the hacking and release of authentic, incriminating DNC emails was some sort of unprecedented, off-the-charts, out-of-the-ordinary crime-of-the-century attack, with several leading Democrats (including Hillary Clinton) actually comparing it to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a remotely healthy society, one that provides basic emotional needs to its population, suicide and serious suicidal ideation are rare events. It is anathema to the most basic human instinct: the will to live. A society in which such a vast swath of the population is seriously considering it as an option is one which is anything but healthy, one which is plainly failing to provide its citizens the basic necessities for a fulfilling life.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But what makes these trends all the more disturbing is that they long predated the arrival of the coronavirus crisis, to say nothing of the left in its wake and the . Indeed, since at least the , when first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration acted to protect the interests of the tycoons who caused it while allowing everyone else to wallow in debt and , the indicia of collective mental health in the U.S. have been blinking red.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After. .. news outlets have published ... emails and texts purportedly written to and from Hunter reflecting his efforts to induce his father to take actions as Vice President beneficial to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board of directors Hunter sat for a monthly payment of $50,000...”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to the Intercept’s questions, they have not done so.Much of this controversy centers on Biden's aggressive efforts while Vice President in late 2015 to force the Ukrainian government to fire its Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, and replace him with someone acceptable to the U.S... These events are undisputed by virtue of a video of Biden boasting in front of an audience of how he flew to Kiev and forced the Ukrainians to fire Shokhin, upon pain of losing $1 billion in aid.”
Glenn Greenwald (born 1967) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source