Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 154

The White House seeks out Kagan defenders

(udpated below - Update II)

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported yesterday that the White House this week "reached out to progressive allies" and asked them "to dismiss" the column I wrote on Tuesday arguing against the selection of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court.  I have no idea if there is a causal connection, but there quickly emerged three pieces criticizing my argument and offering ringing endorsements of Kagan:  this piece at Slate by former Clinton Solicitor General ...

What the whistleblower prosecution says about the Obama DOJ

(updated below)

The more I think and read about the Obama DOJ's prosecution of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, the more I think this might actually be one of the worst steps the Obama administration has taken yet, if not the single worst step -- and that's obviously saying a lot.  During the Bush years, in the wake of the NSA scandal, I used to write post after post about how warped and dangerous it was that the Bush DOJ was protecting the people who criminally spied on Americans ...

What happened to "look forward, not backward"?

(updated below)

The Obama Justice Department today announced that it has secured a ten-felony-count indictment against Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency during the Bush years.  Drake's indictment, of course, has nothing to do with the criminal surveillance undertaken by the NSA.  Rather, the DOJ alleges "that between approximately February 2006 and November 2007, a newspaper reporter published a series of articles about the NSA," and it claims "Drake...

The Obama DOJ's warrantless demands for e-mails

(updated below)

A very significant case involving core privacy protections is now being litigated, where the Obama Justice Department is seeking to obtain from Yahoo "all emails" sent and received by multiple Yahoo email accounts, despite the fact that DOJ has never sought, let alone obtained, a search warrant, and despite there being no notice of any kind to the email account holders:

In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a...

The Obama DOJ's warrantless demands for emails

A very significant case involving core privacy protections is now being litigated, where the Obama Justice Department is seeking to obtain from Yahoo "all emails" sent and received by multiple Yahoo email accounts, despite the fact that DOJ has never sought, let alone obtained, a search warrant, and despite there being no notice of any kind to the email account holders:

In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the...

Blog news

Ever since I began writing about political matters, reader support has been a vital means of enabling me to maintain independence and devote the vast bulk of my time and energy to what I do here.  As I noted during last year's blog fund-raiser, this model of readership support for journalism and commentary is, in my view, very healthy.  It permits one to remain accountable only to one's readers, which in turn means that no external agendas or interests can influence what is written, and the o...

The case against Elena Kagan

It is far from clear who Obama will chose to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, but Elena Kagan, his current Solicitor General and former Dean of Harvard Law School, is on every list of the most likely replacements.  Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog has declared her "the prohibitive front-runner" and predicts:  "On October 4, 2010, Elena Kagan Will Ask Her First Question As A Supreme Court Justice."  The New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin made the same prediction. 

The prospect that...

More cause and effect in the War against Terrorists

(updated below)

The extreme paradox of our actions in the Muslim world is now well-documented: namely, the very policies justified in the name of fighting Terrorism (invasions, occupations, bombings, lawless detentions, etc.) are the precise ones that most inflame and exacerbate that threat.  With the news this morning that "American troops raked a large passenger bus with gunfire near the southern [Afghan:] city of Kandahar on Monday morning, killing as many as five civilians and ...

The death of Dawn Johnsen's nomination

After waiting 14 months for a confirmation vote that never came, Dawn Johnsen withdrew today as President Obama's nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel.  As I documented at length when the nomination was first announced in January, 2009, Johnsen was an absolutely superb pick to head an office that plays as vital a role as any in determining the President's record on civil liberties and adherence to the rule of law.  With 59 and then 60 Democratic votes in the Senate all year...

Salon Radio: Spc. Josh Stieber on WikiLeaks video

Josh Stieber is a former solider in the U.S. Army deployed to Iraq in 2007 and 2008, achieving the rank of Specialist.  While deployed in Baghdad, he was in the very same Company -- Bravo Company 2-16 -- as the soldiers involved in the Apache helicopter attack depicted on the video released by WikiLeaks earlier this week. 

I spoke with him today for Salon Radio about the video, and Stieber compellingly explains how the incident depicted there -- from the initial killing of the Reuters...