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Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs.

Glenn Greenwald

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Glenn Greenwald
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: March 6
Blogger
Journalist
Lawyer
Pundit
Writer
Queens
New York
Glenn Edward Greenwald
Speech
Backfire
Beyond
Assaults
Free
Martyrs
Reason
Bigots
Always
Martyr
Assault
Transform
Reasons

More quotes by Glenn Greenwald

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They're called 'facts', and my role is to amplify those, not cheerlead. And I don't care at all what you think of my motives.
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[N]othing is less reliable than unchecked claims from political officials that their secret conduct is justified by National Security Threats and the desire to Keep Us Safe.
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Terrorist', noun: 1. Someone my government tells me is a terrorist 2. Someone my President decides to kill.
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I think that - not just as a journalist but as a human being - I have the ethical responsibility to avoid actions that can harm innocent people.
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Nobody really even knows with whom the US is at war, or where. Everyone just knows that it is vital that it continue in unlimited form indefinitely.
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It's so much easier to debate people when you can pretend that they hold moronic position that they don't actually believe.
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Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, . . . its enabling force. Transparency is the only real antidote.
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The ultimate test of a society's freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens it's how it treats its dissidents.
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When you cheer for the erosion of Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs rights, you're cheering for the erosion of your own.
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The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist.
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The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations.
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You can offer the ability to citizens to choose from one of the two parties and elect their leaders as much as you want. But democracy is an illusion - a sham - if the most significant acts taken by those leaders are kept concealed from the citizenry.
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The single most remarkable (and revealing) fact of the Obama presidency may very well be the lack of a single prosecution of Wall Street executives for the massive fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis.
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We should not be comfortable or content in a society where the only way to remain free of surveillance and repression is if we make ourselves as unthreatning, passive, and compliant as possible.
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As a journalist, I think the only question that you ask yourself - once you've determined that the material is authentic - is what is in the public interest to know. And then you go about and report it.
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There's a huge cost to freedom in letting people talk about how you print these plastic guns or letting them say these things about arming for tyranny. There's also a cost to letting the government say these ideas can't be expressed, this is treason. It's difficult.
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The War on Terror has been and continues to be, above all, a war on the most basic liberties and political safeguards that we're all taught are what distinguishes the US and keeps it free.
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For those suggesting criticisms of drone kills should wait until the election: that'd be reasonable if he stops killing until the election.
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As always, imagine how great the press corps would be if it devoted 1/1000th the energy to dissecting non-sex political wrongdoing
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What I do know is that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have been converted into the closest thing the West has to religious-like martyrs in the war against radical Islam, which means that anything short of pure reverence for them generates tribal rage and vilification.
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