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A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts.

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
Public
Check
Dark
Checks
Journalism
Purpose
Acts
Light
Provide
Power
Shining
Adversarial
Keys
Wield
Greatest
Informing

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The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.
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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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There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous.
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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 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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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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Fearlessness can be its own form of power.
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The more fear confrontational activism can put into the heart of the political class, the better.
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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 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.
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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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There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal, and that is to destroy privacy and anonymity, not just in the United States but around the world.
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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.
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.
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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.
Glenn Greenwald
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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.
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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Many of the most important stories in the history of modern journalism have come from sources who have taken information without authorization.
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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He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted.
Glenn Greenwald