Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 156

The criminal NSA eavesdropping program

While torture and aggressive war may have been the most serious crimes which the Bush administration committed, its warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens was its clearest and most undeniable lawbreaking.  Federal District Judge Vaughn Walker yesterday became the third federal judge -- out of three who have considered the question -- to find that Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program was illegal (the other two are District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor and 6th Circuit Appellate Judge...

Robert Gibbs endorses denial of civilian trials

Virtually everyone I know who regularly works on civil liberties issues believes it's a fait accompli that Obama will reverse Eric Holder's decision and deny civilian trials to the 9/11 defendants, sending them instead to military commissions (just as George Bush did).  Today, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs provided the clearest on-the-record signal yet that this would happen, when he went on MSNBC and said that justice would be served by sending Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to "either a...

White House access is a jackpot for reporters

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports that "the White House has practically been overrun by journalists pumping top officials for behind-the-scenes details for a growing roster of behind-the-scenes books."  He lists numerous Beltway reporters who are working on such books (The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, NBC's Chuck Todd, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, MSNBC's Richard Wolffe, The Washington Post's Bob Woodward), all of whom desperately need access to top White House officials and viciously...

"Reporting" on Iran should seem familiar

Fox News currently has an article at the top of its website that is headlined:  "CIA: Iran Moving Closer to Nuclear Weapon."  The report, by DOD and State Department correspondent Justin Fishel, begins with this alarming claim:

A recently published report by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iran is still working on building a nuclear weapon despite some technical setbacks and international resistance -- and the Pentagon say it's still concerned about Iran's ambitions.

But...

Mike McConnell, the WashPost & the dangers of sleazy corporatism

In a political culture drowning in hidden conflicts of interests, exploitation of political office for profit, and a rapidly eroding wall separating the public and private spheres, Mike McConnell stands out as the perfect embodiment of all those afflictions.  Few people have blurred the line between public office and private profit more egregiously and shamelessly than he.  McConnell's behavior is the classic never-ending "revolving door" syndrome:  public officials serve private interests...

The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters

A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan.  The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible d...

Salon Radio: Rep. Alan Grayson

Rep. Alan Grayson has been declared to be the Number One target for defeat in November by various official GOP groups. Grayson has been able to maintain an unorthodox stance, and to publicly attack powerful interests that are normally shielded from attack, because he has attempted to rely upon individual citizens and the netroots for funding, rather than lobbyists and the interests that control Washington.  Toward that end, Grayson has a "money bomb" for today, and those who are interested...

The right-wing need for victimization and Israel

As rabid and unhinged as the American Right generally has become of late, the right-wing blogosphere is, as usual, several degrees more twisted.  Here is Powerline's Paul Mirengoff, a lawyer, protesting Obama's treatment this week of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and comparing it to how a small African country would -- and should -- be treated:

One Israeli newspaper summarized the encounter this way:

"There is no humiliation exercise that the Americans did not...

The horrible prospect of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein

A media consensus has emerged that the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the 90-year-old Ford-appointee who became the leader of the Court's so-called "liberal wing," is now imminent.  The New York Times' Peter Baker has an article today on Obama's leading candidates to replace Stevens, in which one finds this strange passage:

The president's base hopes he will name a full-throated champion to counter Justice Antonin Scalia, the most forceful conservative on the...

When presidential sermons collide

President Obama gave an interview earlier this week to an Indonesian television station in lieu of the scheduled trip to that country which was canceled due to the health care vote.  In 2008, Indonesia empowered a national commission to investigate human rights abuses committed by its own government under the U.S.-backed Suharto regime "in an attempt to finally bring the perpetrators to justice," and Obama was asked in this interview:  "Is your administration satisfied with the resolution of ...