Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 51

Live Coverage of the Senate Torture Report

One of the worst myths official Washington and its establishment media have told itself about the torture debate is that the controversy is limited to three cases of waterboarding at Guantánamo and a handful of bad Republican actors. In fact, a wide array of torture techniques were approved at the highest levels of the U.S. Government and then systematically employed in lawless US prisons around the world- at Bagram(including during the Obama presidency), CIA black sites, even to US citizens...

What Bad, Shameful, Dirty Behavior is U.S. Judge Richard Posner Hiding? Demand to Know.

(updated below)

Richard Posner has been a federal appellate judge for 34 years, having been nominated by President Reagan in 1981. At a conference last week in Washington, Posner saidthe NSA should have theunlimited ability to collect whatever communications and other information it wants: “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine.” The NSA should have “carte blanche” to collect what it...

Release of Six Detainees After Twelve Years Highlights the Historic Evil of Guantánamo

The U.S. military overnighttransferred six Guantánamo detainees to Uruguay. All of them had been imprisoned since 2002 – more than 12 years. None has ever been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of any wrongdoing. They had all been cleared for release years ago by the Pentagon itself, but nonetheless remained in cages until today.

Amongthe released detainees is Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Lebanese-born Syrian national and father of four who was seized by the Pakistani police and turned over to t...

The New Pentagon Chief, Ashton Carter, and the Beauty of DC Bipartisanship

At a White House ceremony, President Obama today introduced his nominee to head the Pentagon, Ashton Carter. The first paragraph of theNew York Times article on this eventdescribes Carter as someone “who may advocate a stronger use of American power.” For a country at war for 13 straight years with no end in sight, and which more or less continuouslybombs multiple countries simultaneously, what would a “stronger use of American power” look like?

Carter’s recent past provides some clues, as he...

The Intercept Welcomes Our New Editor-in-Chief, Betsy Reed

We are ecstatic that Betsy Reed, the Executive Editor of the Nation since 2006, will be our new editor-in-chief, beginning January 5.

When, several weeks ago, we sat down to create a list of potential new editors, we placed only one name on it: Reed’s. That’s because we knew she is the ideal editor to lead us into our next phase of development. That she was so excited about the prospect of coming to the Intercept was great news, and the fact that we were all able to make this happen so quickl...

In US-Supported Egypt, 188 Protesters Are Sentenced to Die Days After Mubarak is Effectively Freed

Ever sincethen-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led a coup against the country’s elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the coup regime has become increasingly repressive, brutaland lawless. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, the Obama administration has become increasingly supportive of the despotin Cairo, plyinghis regimewith massive amounts ofmoneyand weaponsand praising him (in the words of John Kerry) for “restoring democracy.” Following recent meetings with Sisi by Bill and Hillary Clint...

Glenn Greenwald: from Martin Luther King to Anonymous, the state targets dissenters not just "bad guys"

Don't believe the argument that mass surveillance is only a problem for wrongdoers. Governments have repeatedly spied on anyone who challenges their power, says Glenn Greenwald in an extract from his book about Edward Snowden and the NSA, No Place to Hide


The explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden's identity
How the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers
Glenn Greenwald: 'I don't trust the UK not to arrest me'

A prime justification for surveillance that it's for the benefit of the populat...

Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers

The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas even though the US government has warned against using Chinese technology for the same reasons, says Glenn Greenwald, in an extract from his new book about the Snowden affair, No Place to Hide

The explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden's identity
Glenn Greenwald: 'I don't trust the UK not to arrest me'

For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other internet devices pose...

Glenn Greenwald: the explosive day we revealed Edward Snowden's identity to the world

In the hours after his name became known, the entire world was searching for the NSA whistleblower, and it became vital that his whereabouts in Hong Kong remained secret. In an extract from a new book, No Place to Hide, Glenn Greenwald recalls the dramatic events surrounding the moment Snowden revealed himself in June 2013

On Thursday 6 June 2013, our fifth day in Hong Kong, I went to Edward Snowden's hotel room and he immediately said he had news that was "a bit alarming". An intern...

Brian Williams' Iran propaganda

The NBC star tells his viewers that Iranian leaders are 'suddenly claiming they don't want nuclear weapons', even though they've been saying it for years

There is ample reason for skepticism that anything substantial will change in Iran-US relations, beginning with the fact that numerous US political and media figures are vested in the narrative that Iran is an evil threat whose desire for a peaceful resolution must not be trusted (and some hard-line factions in Iran are similarly vested in on...