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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.

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
Remain
Comfortable
Possible
Society
Compliant
Free
Surveillance
Way
Repression
Make
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More quotes by Glenn Greenwald

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It is always unconscionable for the government to punish people for expressing an idea merely because government officials - or the majority of citizens - decide that those ideas are 'dangerous' or 'wrong.' That is a power nobody ought to possess.
Glenn Greenwald
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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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An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power.
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He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted.
Glenn Greenwald
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I don't have a 'side'—I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else.
Glenn Greenwald
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Whether a country is actually free is determined not by how well-rewarded its convention-affirming media elites are and how ignored its passive citizens are but by how it treats its dissidents, those posing authentic challenges to what the government does.
Glenn Greenwald
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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.
Glenn Greenwald
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It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States. Virtually everything that government does, of any significance, is conducted behind an extreme wall of secrecy. The very few leaks that we’ve had over the last decade are basically the only ways that we’ve had to learn what our government is doing.
Glenn Greenwald
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Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.
Glenn Greenwald
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It’s just simply the fact that the NSA does not think anybody should be able to communicate anywhere on the Earth without them being able to invade it.
Glenn Greenwald
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When people in power can operate in the dark, inevitably they abuse that power. So, you need outside forces to bring light and transparency to what they're doing. And, one of the ways you do that is through journalism, and through guaranteeing a free press. That is its purpose, to provide a check on those who wield power.
Glenn Greenwald
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Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations
Glenn Greenwald
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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.
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.
Glenn Greenwald
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Of all the views that are detached from reality, the most delusional is that Christians are persecuted in the U.S.
Glenn Greenwald
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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.
Glenn Greenwald
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A president who is burdened with a failed and unpopular war, and who has lost the trust of the country, simply can no longer govern. He is destined to become as much a failure as his war.
Glenn Greenwald
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The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function.
Glenn Greenwald
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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.
Glenn Greenwald
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The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes.
Glenn Greenwald