Glenn Greenwald's Blog, page 77

Obama campaign brags about its whistleblower persecutions | Glenn Greenwald

Excuse me if I don't join in Democrats' sycophantic cheerleading for an Obama presidency that has shredded laws and liberties

For several decades, protection of whistleblowers has been a core political value for Democrats, at least for progressives. Daniel Ellsberg has long been viewed by liberals as an American hero for his disclosure of the top secret Pentagon Papers. In 2008, candidate Obama hailed whistleblowing as "acts of courage and patriotism", which "should be encouraged rather than s...

CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news | Glenn Greenwald

The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial

• Report: why didn't CNNi air its own 'iRevolution' documentary?

Today I reported on the refusal of CNN International (CNNi) to broadcast an award-winning documentary, "iRevolution", that was produced in early 2011 as the Arab Spring engulfed the region and which was highly critical of the regime in Bahrain. The documentary, featuring CNN's on-air correspondent Amber Ly...

Why didn't CNN's international arm air its own documentary on Bahrain's Arab Spring repression? | Glenn Greenwald

A former CNN correspondent defies threats from her former employer to speak out about self-censorship at the network

• Comment: CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news

In late March 2011, as the Arab Spring was spreading, CNN sent a four-person crew to Bahrain to produce a one-hour documentary on the use of internet technologies and social media by democracy activists in the region. Featuring on-air investigative correspondent Amber Lyon, the CNN team had a very eventful eight-day stay...

Obama's justice department grants final immunity to Bush's CIA torturers | Glenn Greenwald

By closing two cases of detainees tortured to death, Obama has put the US beyond any accountability under the rule of law

(updated below)

The Obama administration's aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the "war on terror" crimes committed by Bush officials is now complete. Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the closing without charges of the only two cases under investigation relating to the US torture program: one that resulted in the 2002 death of an Afghan detainee at a secre...

Election 2012 and the media: a vast rightwing conspiracy of stupid | Glenn Greenwald

CNN's failure to question Paul Ryan's falsehoods is emblematic of the idiot wind blowing through American electoral politics

Wednesday night, the GOP's nominee for vice-president, Paul Ryan, delivered a speech loaded with pure, fundamental deceit on its core claims. The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn has the clearest and most concise explanation of those falsehoods.

Reflecting the pure worthlessness and chronic failure of CNN, however, here is how that network's lead anchor, Wolf Blitzer, reacted...

Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA | Glenn Greenwald

Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power

(updated below)

The rightwing transparency group, Judicial Watch, released Tuesday a new batch of documents showing how eagerly the Obama administration shoveled information to Hollywood film-makers about the Bin Laden raid. Obama officials did so to enable the production of a politically beneficial pre-election film about that "heroic" killing, even as administration law...

How the US and Israeli justice systems whitewash state crimes | Glenn Greenwald

Courts are supposed to check the abuse of executive power, not cravenly serve it. But in the US and Israel, that is now the case

The US military announced on Monday that no criminal charges would be brought against the US marines in Afghanistan who videotaped themselves urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters. Nor, the military announced, would any criminal charges be filed against the US troops who "tried to burn about 500 copies of the Qur'an as part of a badly bungled security sweep at...

Film highlights the temptations and perils of blind obedience to authority | Glenn Greenwald

Indie film Compliance recalls notions that the past decade's worst events are explained by failures to oppose authority

One can object to some of its particulars, but Frank Bruni has a quite interesting and incisive New York Times column today about a new independent film called Compliance, which explores the human desire to follow and obey authority.

Based on real-life events that took place in 2004 at a McDonalds in Kentucky, the film dramatizes a prank telephone call in which a man posing a...

MSNBC host mimics Fox News' bullying jingoism | Glenn Greenwald

Out-Foxing Fox for phony patriotism, a senior journalist at the liberal network has outlawed any criticism of military officials

In January, Bill Clinton turned on MSNBC for what seems to have been the first time in awhile and shared his reaction to what he saw in an interview with Esquire:

"I was just watching MSNBC, and they had a woman that used to work for me and a couple of other people on there, and they were talking about the Republican primary. And I was laughing. I said, 'Boy, it reall...

The New Statesman must correct its error over Assange and extradition | Glenn Greenwald

The claim that Swedish courts, not government, have final say on extradition is a crucial mistake that distorts the Assange case

The New Statesman owes its readers a correction for a clear and crucial falsehood contained in this much-cited argument by its legal correspondent, David Allen Green. As I noted on Wednesday, Green purported to debunk what he called "common misconceptions" and "myths" being spread by supporters of Ecuador's asylum decision in the Assange case, but in doing so, he pro...