Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 36

Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France Spent the Last Year Crushing Free Speech?

It’s been almost one year since millions of people — led by the world’s most repressive tyrants — marched in Paris ostensibly in favor of free speech. Since then, the French government — which led the way trumpetingthe vital importance of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdokillings — has repeatedly prosecuted people for the political views they expressed, and otherwise exploited terrorism fears to crush civil liberties generally. It hasdone so with barely a peep of protest from most...

The Deceptive Debate Over What Causes Terrorism Against the West

Ever since members of the U.K. Labour Party in September elected Jeremy Corbyn as party leader by a landslide, British political and mediaelites have acted as though their stately manors have been invaded by hordes of gauche, marauding serfs. They have waged a relentless and undisguised war to undermine Corbynin every way possible, and that includes — first and foremost — the Blairite wing of hisparty, who have viciously maligned him in ways they would never darefor David Cameron and his Tory...

A Redaction Re-Visited: NSA Targeted “The Two Leading” Encryption Chips

On September 5, 2013,The Guardian, theNew York Timesand ProPublicajointly reported — based on documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden — that the National Security Agency had compromisedsome of the encryption that is most commonly used to secure internet transactions. The NYTexplainedthat NSA “has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and...

Spying on Congress and Israel: NSA Cheerleaders Discover Value of Privacy Only When Their Own Is Violated

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the NSA under President Obama targeted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his top aides for surveillance. In the process, the agency ended up eavesdropping on “the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups” about how to sabotage the Iran Deal. All sorts of people who spent many years cheering for and defending the NSA and its programs of mass surveillance are suddenlyindignant now t...

Those Demanding Free Speech Limits to Fight ISIS Pose a Greater Threat to U.S. Than ISIS

In 2006– years before ISIS replaced Al Qaeda as the Newand UnprecedentedlyEvilVillain –Newt Gingrich gave a speech in New Hampshire in which, as he put it afterward, he “called for a serious debate about the First Amendment and how terrorists are abusing our rights–using them as they once used passenger jets–to threaten and kill Americans.” In that speech, Gingrich argued:

Either before we lose a city, or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that us...

NSA Helped British Spies Find Security Holes In Juniper Firewalls

A TOP-SECRETdocument dated February 2011 reveals that British spy agency GCHQ, with the knowledge and apparent cooperation of the NSA, acquired the capability to covertly exploit security vulnerabilities in 13 different models of firewalls made by Juniper Networks, a leading providerof networking and Internet security gear.

The six-page document, titled “Assessment of Intelligence Opportunity – Juniper,” raises questions aboutwhether the intelligence agencies were responsible for or culpable...

When the State Department Tries to Choose Muslim Thought Leaders to Win “Hearts and Minds”

Few things produce darker and more warped comedythan when the U.S. government launches new propaganda campaigns to “win the hearts and minds of Muslims.” Remember when George W. Bush dispatched his longtime political aide, Texas’ Karen Hughes, to the Middle East as a State Department official to change Muslim perceptions of the U.S. andthat promptly (and predictably) resulted, asSlateput it, in a “jaw-dropping display of ignorance and malapropism that made her the laughing stock of the region...

Threats and Violent Attacks Against Muslims in the U.S., Just From This Week

This week in the United States:

Arson at a Palm Springs mosque:

Two hijab-wearing Muslim women attacked in Tampa:

Far-right “patriot” group protesting a mosque in Dallas:

The Ku Klux Klan vows to “fight the spread of Islam” in the U.S.:

Muslim hijab-wearing middle school student asked by teacher if she has a bomb:

Woman hurls slurs and hot coffee at Muslims praying in a California park:

Phoenix mosque vandalized:

White powder and “Die, Muslims, Die” message sent to CAI...

A Muslim American Veteran Was Widely Smeared With a Fabricated Story About ISIS Charges

A RIGHT-WING BLOG called “Pajamas Media” published an article on November 24 claiming that Saadiq Long, a Muslim American veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was arrested in Turkey for being anISIS operative. Written byPatrick Poole, a professional anti-Muslim activistandclose associateof Frank Gaffney, the article assertedthat Long “finds himself and several family members sitting in a Turkish prison — arrested earlier this month near the Turkey-Syria border as members of an ISIS cell.” Its only...

Freedom of Press Launches Fundraiser to Aid Heroic Journalists in Police Brutality Investigations

A major scandal is currently engulfing the Chicago Police Department and the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel. It was all triggered by disclosure of a horrific video showing what appears to be the cold-blooded murder by a police officer of 17-year-old African-American Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times. That video shocked the nation and led to the arrest of the police officer as well as a Justice Departmentinvestigationof the department.

For more than a year, the city fought to suppress that vi...