Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 67

US media yet again conceals newsworthy government secrets | Glenn Greenwald

The collective self-censorship over a US drone base in Saudi Arabia is but the latest act of government-subservient 'journalism'

The US media, over the last decade (at least), has repeatedly acted to conceal newsworthy information it obtains about the actions of the US government. In each instance, the self-proclaimed adversarial press corps conceals these facts at the behest of the US government, based on patently absurd claims that reporting them will harm US national security. In each insta...

Chilling legal memo from Obama DOJ justifies assassination of US citizens | Glenn Greenwald

The president's partisan lawyers purport to vest him with the most extreme power a political leader can seize

The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. In September 2011, it killed US citizen Anwar Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, along with US citizen S...

NYC officials threaten funding of Brooklyn College over Israel event | Glenn Greenwald

In defense of Israel, liberal officials are copying Giuliani's 1999 termination of funding for a museum exhibiting "offensive" art

(updated below)

On Saturday, I wrote about the numerous New York City officials (including multiple members of the US House of Representatives) who have predictably signed onto the Alan-Derwshowitz-led attack on academic freedom at Brooklyn College. This group of Israel advocates and elected officials is demanding that the college's Political Science department resc...

Brooklyn College's academic freedom increasingly threatened over Israel event | Glenn Greenwald

New York politicians join the Alan Dershowitz-led campaign to dictate to colleges what academic events they can hold

On Tuesday, I wrote about a brewing controversy that was threatening the academic freedom of Brooklyn College (see Item 7). The controversy was triggered by the sponsorship of the school's Political Science department of an event, scheduled for 7 February, featuring two advocates of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) aimed at stopping Israeli oppression of the...

Cameron's attack on George Galloway reflects the west's self-delusions | Glenn Greenwald

In an act of supreme projection, the British PM accuses a critic of lending support "wherever there is a brutal Arab dictator": the core policy of the US and UK

On Wednesday afternoon in the British Parliament, near the end of question time for British Prime Minister David Cameron, a short though incredibly revealing exchange occurred between Cameron and Respect Party MP George Galloway. Whatever one's preexisting views might be of either of these two polarizing figures is entirely irrelevant...

Obama's non-closing of GITMO, kind NYT headlines, and US government irony | Glenn Greenwald

The excuse used to justify Obama's failure to close GITMO is incomplete and misleading. Plus: multiple other items

A few (relatively) brief items worthy of note today:

(1) The New York Times' Charlie Savage reported yesterday that the State Department "reassigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy for closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and will not replace him". That move obviously confirms what has long been assumed: that the camp will remain open indefinitely and Obama's flamboyant firs...

Pentagon's new massive expansion of 'cyber-security' unit is about everything except defense | Glenn Greenwald

Cyber-threats are the new pretext to justify expansion of power and profit for the public-private National Security State

As the US government depicts the Defense Department as shrinking due to budgetary constraints, the Washington Post this morning announces "a major expansion of [the Pentagon's] cybersecurity force over the next several years, increasing its size more than fivefold." Specifically, says the New York Times this morning, "the expansion would increase the Defense Department's Cy...

Kiriakou and Stuxnet: the danger of the still-escalating Obama whistleblower war | Glenn Greenwald

The only official punished for the illegal NSA program was the one who discussed it. The same is now true of torture

(updated below - Update II)

The permanent US national security state has used extreme secrecy to shield its actions from democratic accountability ever since its creation after World War II. But those secrecy powers were dramatically escalated in the name of 9/11 and the War on Terror, such that most of what the US government now does of any significance is completely hidden from...

Glenn Greenwald's reader Q&A: the highlights

On Thursday, Glenn Greenwald took questions from his readers in a live Q&A. Here are some of the highlights

We have formatted some of the questions and answers from Thursday's Q&A with Glenn Greenwald. In some cases the questions have been paraphrased. Click the link through to the question to join the discussion, or jump into the comments below...

On torture

In your research, have you ever come across a single instance of torture working to avoid a terrorist attack or secure an actual convicti...

Glenn Greenwald: Q&A

As it happened: I answered your questions about my column over the past month...

(updated below [several times])

Today beginning at 11am, we're trying out a new feature at the Guardian: a live question-and-answer session between myself and readers regarding columns I've written over the last month. From 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ET, I'll be here (in the comments) live to answer selected questions. The exchange will then be posted in a form similar to this one previously done by the Guardian with Clay...