Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 143

CNN anchors attack the scourge of anonymity

CNN's Kyra Phillips and John Roberts spent a good five minutes yesterday expressing serious concern over what they called "the dark side" of the Internet:  the plague of "anonymous bloggers" who are "a bunch of cowards" for not putting their names on what they say, and who use this anonymity to spread "conspiracy," "lunacy," "extremism" and false accusations (video below).   The segment included excerpts from an interview with Andrew Keene, author of Cult of the Amateur:  How Today's...

Why has the Post series created so little reaction?

Remember how The Washington Post spent three days documenting on its front page that we basically live under a vast Secret Government -- composed of military and intelligence agencies and the largest corporations -- so sprawling and unaccountable that nobody even knows what it does.  This public/private Secret Government spies, detains, interrogates, and even wages wars in the dark, while sucking up untold hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the private corporations which run it.  ...

The heroism of Shirley Sherrod

(updated below)

Everyone is presumably aware by now of the facts surrounding the disgusting fraud perpetrated on Shirley Sherrod, engineered by Andrew Breitbart, amplified by Fox News, and meekly submitted to by the Obama administration.  Those who aren't can read excellent commentary from , Joan Walsh, and Chris Martinez.  Much has been written about the incomparable sleaze of Breitbart, the standard propaganda boost from Fox News, and the typical cowardice of the...

Steny Hoyer: Then and now

(updated below)

Letter signed by Steny Hoyer to George Bush, June 29, 2007, demanding closing of Guantanamo:

Holding prisoners for an indefinite period of time, without charging them with a crime goes against our values, ideals and principles as a nation governed by the rule of law. Further, Guantanamo Bay has a become a liability in the broader global war on terror, as allegations of torture, the indefinite detention of innocent men, and international objections to the...

The secret private-sector government

Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey, The Washington Post, today, arguing against civilian trials for Guantanamo detainees:

The civilized world has tried over several hundred years to establish rules of warfare so that those who wear uniforms, follow a recognized chain of command, carry their arms openly and do not target civilians are treated as prisoners of war when captured. Those who follow none of these rules are treated as war criminals, not as ordinary defendants...

Cause and effect in the War on Terror

Britain, unlike the U.S., is currently in the process of Looking Backward, Not Forward, as they investigate both the events that led them to the attack on Iraq as well as their involvement in America's torture regime.  Here is testimony provided as part of the Iraq investigation from Ron Paul Noam Chomsky the former head of MI5, the U.K.'s domestic intelligence agency:

Britain's support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan radicalized many Muslims and triggered a big rise in terrorism...

The Real U.S. Government

The Washington Post's Dana Priest demonstrates once again why she's easily one of the best investigative journalists in the nation -- if not the best -- with the publication of Part I of her series, co-written with William Arkin, detailing the sprawling, unaccountable, inexorably growing secret U.S. Government:  what the article calls "Top Secret America."  To the extent the series receives much substantive attention (and I doubt it will), the focus will likely be on the bureaucratic...

The NYT's nationalistic double standard

Here's a particularly illustrative example of how The New York Times' editorial policy -- it cannot be "torture" if the United States does it -- obfuscates the truth and actively bolsters government propaganda.  There are countless examples like this, but this one is unusually stark, especially since these two episodes occur within one day of each other:

From today's article on how the CIA used tactics never authorized by the DOJ:

A former Bush Justice Department official who...

Jay Bybee's sociopathic self-absorption

The New York Times has an article today on Jay Bybee, the torture-authorizing Bush OLC lawyer and current judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  The focus of the article is Bybee's recent Congressional testimony that several of the torture tactics used by the CIA were never approved by the Justice Department -- which means they should fall outside the scope of the Obama DOJ's immunity shield from prosecution -- but it was the last passage that I think is most noteworthy (h/t reader rg):

...

Obama-era mysteries

(updated below - Update II)

John Harris and Jim VandeHei yesterday wrote a long, prototypical Politico article packed full of the trite, adolescent features that make it the lowly D.C. gossip rag it is:   quoting anonymous White House functionaries sniping at the Left, petulant attacks on Unserious bloggers, obsessions with substance-free, trivial horse-race chatter, etc. etc.  I don't want to give the article much attention, both because it's plainly designed to provoke anger...