Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 14

The DNC’S Lawsuit Against WikiLeaks Poses a Serious Threat to Press Freedom

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a lawsuit this afternoon in a Manhattan federal court against the Russian Government, the Trump campaign and various individuals it alleges participated in the plot to hack its email servers and disseminate the contents as part of the 2016 election. The DNC also sued WikiLeaks for its role in publishing the hacked materials, though it does not allege that WikiLeaks participated in the hacking or even knew in advance about it; its sole role, accord...

How Shoddy Reporting and Anti-Russian Propaganda Coerced Ecuador to Silence Julian Assange

Julian Assange has been barred from communicating with the outside world for more than three weeks. On March 27, the government of Ecuador blocked Assange’s internet access and barred him from receiving visitors other than his lawyers. Assange has been in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, when Ecuador granted him asylum due to fears that his extradition to Sweden as part of a sexual assault investigation would result in his being sent to the U.S. for prosecution for his work with W...

With Latest Syria Threats, Trump Continues to Be More Confrontational Toward Russia Than Obama Was

The civil war in Syria began in 2011 and escalated for five years during the Obama presidency, yet Barack Obama — despite demands from leaders of both parties and think tanks across the spectrum — never once bombed Syrian government targets. Although the CIA under Obama spent $1 billion per year to covertly train and fund Bashar al-Assad’s enemies, it was never close to enough to topple him: just enough to keep the war going.

But Obama never bombed Assad or his military assets: a decision whi...

Guaranteed Safety by the U.S., Former Guantánamo Detainee Now Faces Deportation to War-Torn Libya and Likely Death

For over 14 years, Libyan citizen Omar Khalifa Mohammed Abu Bakr was imprisoned without due process by the U.S. at Guantánamo Bay. He was never charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes. After suffering years of torture and mistreatment, Khalifa was released to Senegal in 2016.

His release was the by-product of a deal negotiated by his attorneys with the U.S. government. Khalifa’s lawyer, CUNY School of Law professor Ramzi Kassem, told the Intercept that the agreement expressly guarant...

The $500,000 GoFundMe Charity Campaign for Wealthy Ex-FBI Official Andrew McCabe Is Obscene

In 2017, more than a half-million human beings — 553,742 of them to be exact — were homeless in the U.S. for at least some time. Last year was the first since the 2008 financial crisis that America’s homeless population grew. The 2016 U.S. census found that 12.7 percent of Americans — which translates to just over 43 million human beings — live below the poverty line. Millions of American children live in hunger: according to a 2015 U.S. Department of Agriculture study, the U.S. has “13.1 mil...

Noor Salman, Widow of Pulse Killer Omar Mateen, Is Found Not Guilty of All Charges

In an Orlando courtroom this morning, a 12-person jury, after three days of deliberation, found Noor Salman, the widow of Pulse attacker Omar Mateen, not guilty on all charges. Salman had been accused of providing material support of terrorism, based on the accusation that she aided her deceased husband in the 2016 Pulse attack, as well as obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the FBI. She will now be a free woman.

As The Intercept has been reporting, the prosecution of Salman was biz...

At Trial of Omar Mateen’s Wife, Judge’s Questioning Reveals a Huge Hole in Prosecution’s Case and Deceit by Prosecutors

In a federal courtroom in Orlando this afternoon, the prosecution of Noor Salman, the wife of Pulse shooter Omar Mateen, suffered a major setback. In front of the jury, a glaring hole in the prosecutors’ case was exposed by the questioning of FBI Special Agent Richard Fennern directly from U.S. District Judge Paul Byron. Outside the presence of the jury, the judge, in angry tones, made clear that he believed he had been misled for months by prosecutors about a key part of the government’s evi...

Não deixe que a política radical de Marielle seja explorada ou apagada, como o Fantástico tentou fazer ontem à noite

Ontem à noite, a Rede Globo dedicou 45 minutos de seu popular programa “Fantástico” à execução de Marielle Franco e ao assassinato de seu motorista, Anderson Gomes. Essa história vem dominando as manchetes no Brasil durante a última semana, e continua recebendo destaque em órgãos de imprensa do mundo todo.

Esse não foi um caso em que a cobertura da Globo elevou uma história à proeminência nacional. Muito pelo contrário: O que nós vimos foi a Globo tentando assumir o controle de uma história q...

Just as U.S. Media Does With MLK, Brazil’s Media Is Trying to Whitewash and Exploit Marielle Franco’s Political Radicalism

On Sunday night, Brazil’s most powerful television outlet, Rede Globo, devoted 45 minutes of its highly watched “Fantastico” program to the assassination of Rio City Council Member Marielle Franco and the killing of her driver, Anderson Gomes. This story has dominated headlines in Brazil for a full week, and, as protests proliferate around the country, it continues to be covered as a major story by news outlets around the world.

This was not a case in which Globo has elevated a story to major...

NYT’s Bari Weiss Falsely Denies Her Years of Attacks on the Academic Freedom of Arab Scholars Who Criticize Israel

After the New York Times last April hired Bari Weiss to write for and edit its op-ed page, I wrote a long article detailing her history of pro-Israel activism and, especially, her involvement in numerous campaigns to vilify and ruin the careers of several Arab and Muslim professors due to their criticisms of Israel. I chose to profile Weiss’s history because (a) the simultaneous hiring of Bret Stephens generated so much controversy that Weiss’s hiring was ignored, even though it was clear her...