Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 34

Nobody Knows the Identities of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It

The U.S. useddrones and manned aircraft yesterday todrop bombs and missiles on Somalia, ending the lives of atleast 150 people. As it virtually always does, the Obama administration instantly claimed that the people killed were “terrorists” and militants — membersofthe Somali group al Shabaab — butprovided no evidence to support that assertion.

Nonetheless, mostU.S. media reportscontained nothing more than quotes from U.S. officials about what happened, conveyed uncritically and with no skept...

Nobody Knows the Identity of the 150 People Killed by U.S. in Somalia, but Most Are Certain They Deserved It

The U.S. useddrones and manned aircraft yesterday todrop bombs and missiles on Somalia, ending the lives of atleast 150 people. As it virtually always does, the Obama administration instantly claimed that the people killed were “terrorists” and militants — membersofthe Somali group al Shabaab — butprovided no evidence to support that assertion.

Nonetheless, mostU.S. media reportscontained nothing more than quotes from U.S. officials about what happened, conveyed uncritically and with no skept...

Donald Trump’s Policies Are Not Anathema to U.S. Mainstream, but an Uncomfortable Reflection of It

The political and media establishments in the U.S. — whichhave jointly wrought so much destruction, decay, and decadence — recently decided to unite against Donald Trump. Their central claimis that the real estate mogul and longtime NBC reality TV staradvocates morally reprehensible positions that are far outside the bounds of decency; relatedly, they argue,he is so personally repellent that his empowerment would degrade boththe country and the presidency.

In some instances, their claim is pl...

Read the Sexist Email Exchange About Rula Jebreal With Former AIPAC Spokesman

(updated below)

Last October, Hooman Bakhtiar, a producer with the U.S. government-funded Voice of America, sent an email to Josh Block, former national spokesperson for AIPAC and now head of “The Israel Project.” Bakhtiar told Blockhe had “been tasked to put together a debate between a Palestinian advocate and one from the Israeli side,” andexplainedthat the representative for the Palestinian side — the Israeli-born Palestinian journalist and author Rula Jebreal — had already been booked. He...

The New York Times’ Strange Behavior in the Controversy Over Trump’s Off-the-Record Comments

BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, yesterday created a campaign controversy when he suggestedthat Donald Trump toldNew York Times editors — in anoff-the-record portion of his January candidate interview seeking the paper’s endorsement — that he would be willing to negotiate the more hard-line aspects of his immigration platform, including mass deportation. Trump’s rivals, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, immediately called upon Trump to demandthe release of the recording of his off-the-record di...

Apple Wins Major Court Victory Against FBI in a Case Similar to San Bernardino

Apple scored a major legal victory in its ongoing battle against the FBI on Monday when a federal magistrate judge in New York rejected the U.S. government’s request as part of a drug case to force the company to help it extract data fromalockediPhone. The rulingfrom U.S. Magistrate Judge James Orenstein was issued as part of the criminal case againstJun Feng, who pleaded guilty in October to drug charges. It is a significantboost to Apple’s well-publicized campaignto resist the FBI’s similar...

With Donald Trump Looming, Should Dems Take a Huge Electability Gamble by Nominating Hillary Clinton?

ManyDemocrats will tell you that there has rarely, if ever, been a more menacingor evil presidential candidate than Donald Trump. “Trump is the most dangerous major candidate for president in memory,” pronounced Vox‘s Ezra Klein two weeks ago. With a consensus now emerging that the real estate mogul is the likely GOP nominee, it would stand to reason that the most important factor for many Democrats in choosing their own nominee is electability: meaning, who has the best chance of defeatingth...

Georgetown Law Professors Say Students Are “Traumatized” by Criticisms of Scalia, Demand “Remedies”

On the daythe death of Justice Antonin Scalia was announced, Georgetown Law School issued an official statement and press releaseheadlined “Georgetown Law Mourns the Loss of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.” It quoted the school’s dean, William M. Treanor, heaping unqualified praise on the highly controversial justice.

“Scalia was a giant in the history of the law, a brilliant jurist whose opinions and scholarship profoundly transformed the law,” Dean Treanor pronounced. “Like count...

Hillary Clinton, With Little Notice, Vows to Embrace an Extremist Agenda on Israel

Former President Bill Clinton on Monday met in secret (no press allowed) with roughly 100 leaders of South Florida’s Jewish community, and, as theTimes of Israel reports,“He vowed that, if elected, Hillary Clinton would make it one of her top priorities to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance.” He also “stressed the close bond that he and his wife have with the State of Israel.”

It may be tempting to dismiss this as standard, vapid Clintonian politicking: adeptly telling everyone what they wan...

Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation

THE U.K. GOVERNMENTtoday announced that it is now illegal for “local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions … to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.” Thus, any entities that support or participate in the global boycott of Israeli settlements will face “severe penalties” under the criminal law.

This may sound like an extreme infringement of...