Glenn Greenwald's Blog

Is the Traditional ACLU View of Free Speech Still Viable? Ira Glasser Speaks Out.

Today’s episode of SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic — with guest Ira Glasser, the Executive Director of the ACLU from 1978-2001 and subject of the new documentary “Mighty Ira” — can be viewed on The Intercept’s You Tube channel or on the player below.

That a belief in free speech is rapidly eroding in the U.S.is hardly debatable. Every relevant metric demonstrates that to be the case.

Opposition to the primacy of free speech has been commonplace on America’s most elite college campuses for years, but...

Bolivians Return Evo Morales's Party to Power One Year After a U.S.-Applauded Coup

In November 2019, Bolivia’s three-term President Evo Morales was forced under threat of police and military violence to flee to Mexico, just weeks after he was declared the winner of the October presidential election that would have sent him to his fourth term. Installed in his place was an unelected right-wing coup regime, led by self-declared “interim President” Jeanine Áñez, who promptly presided over a military massacre that killed dozens of Morales’s Indigenous supporters and then granted i...

Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor

The New York Post is one of the country’s oldest and largest newspapers. Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, only three U.S. newspapers are more widely circulated. Ever since it was purchased in 1976 by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, it has been known — like most Murdoch-owned papers — for right-wing tabloid sensationalism, albeit one that has some real reporters and editors and is capable of reliable journalism.

On Wednesday morning, the paper published on its cover what it heralded as a “block...

The New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship of Colleagues

The New York Times Guild, the union of employees of the paper of record, tweeted a condemnation on Sunday of one of their own colleagues, op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. Their denunciation was marred by humiliating typos and even more so by creepy and authoritarian censorship demands and petulant appeals to management for enforcement of company “rules” against other journalists. To say that this is bizarre behavior from a union of journalists, of all people, is to woefully understate the case.

Wh...

The New York Times Guild Once Again Demands Censorship Of Colleagues

The New York Times Guild, the union of employees of the Paper of Record, tweeted a condemnation on Sunday of one of their own colleagues, op-ed columnist Bret Stephens. Their denunciation was marred by humiliating typos and even more so by creepy and authoritarian censorship demands and petulant appeals to management for enforcement of company “rules” against other journalists. To say that this is bizarre behavior from a union of journalists, of all people, is to woefully understate the case.

Wh...

New Documents Reveal How the Animal Agriculture Industry Surveils and Punishes Critics

This week’s SYSTEM UPDATE on this topic — with Dr. Crystal Heath, one of the veterinarians targeted by these industry campaigns for retaliation — can be viewed on The Intercept’s YouTube channel, or on the player below.

Animal agriculture industry groups defending factory farms engage in campaigns of surveillance, reputation-destruction and other forms of retaliation against industry critics and animal rights activists, documents obtained through a FOIA request from the U.S. Department of Agricu...

Why Are Democrats Praying for the Speedy Recovery of a "Fascist Dictator"?

House Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), on CNN, August 2, 2020

The typical reaction to the death of a tyrant — whether by revolutionary violence or natural causes — is not one of grief and sadness but joyous celebration. It is not hard to understand why: when a nation and its oppressed citizenry are finally liberated from the suffocating, savage grip of fascist dictatorship, they feel joy for themselves, their families and the future of their nation. That is the same reason people have always hoped ...

As Joe Rogan's Platform Grows, So Does the Media and Liberal Backlash. Why?

Today’s SYSTEM UPDATE examining this topic — with guest Shant Mesrobian, former Obama 2008 strategist and author of a recent viral thread on the liberal contempt for Rogan — can be viewed on The Intercept’s YouTube channel.

Joe Rogan has amassed one of the largest and most influential media platforms in U.S. politics, if not the single most influential. The value of his program was quantified in May when the streaming service Spotify paid a reported $100 million for the exclusive rights to broad...

Journalism's New Propaganda Tool: Using "Confirmed" to Mean Its Opposite

One of the most humiliating journalism debacles of the Trump era played out on December 8, 2017, first on CNN and then on MSNBC. The spectacle kicked off on that Friday morning at 11 a.m. when CNN, deploying its most melodramatic music and graphics designed to convey that a real bombshell was about to be dropped, announced that anonymous sources had provided the network with a smoking gun proving the Trump/Russia conspiracy once and for all: During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump Jr. had receive...

Journalism's New Propaganda Tool: Using "Confirmed" to Mean its Opposite

One of the most humiliating journalism debacles of the Trump era played out on December 8, 2017, first on CNN and then on MSNBC. The spectacle kicked off on that Friday morning at 11:00 a.m. when CNN, deploying its most melodramatic music and graphics designed to convey that a real bombshell was about to be dropped, announced that anonymous sources had provided the network with a smoking gun proving the Trump/Russia conspiracy once and for all: during the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump, Jr. had rec...