37 Quotes & Sayings By Glenn Greenwald

It's almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns 'privately with the administration.' That's just a small sliver of Johnson's radicalism: replacing Feingold in the Senate with Ron Johnson would be a civil liberties travesty analogous to the economic travesty from, say, replacing Bernie Sanders with Lloyd Blankfein. Glenn Greenwald

The true measure of a society´s freedom is how it treats its dissidents and other marginalized groups, not how it treats its good loyalists. We shouldn´t have to be faithful loyalists of the powerful to be free from state surveillance. Glenn Greenwald

Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so. Glenn Greenwald

Washington likes to threaten the people over whom they exercise power. Glenn Greenwald

The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history. Glenn Greenwald

But even when the principle of equal treatment was betrayed, American leaders in every era have emphatically affirmed it, not so much out of hypocrisy as out of aspiration. Indeed, for those who were devoted to justice, the persistence of inequality was precisely what made equality before the law so imperative. Glenn Greenwald

Every time I do an interview people ask similar questions, such as "What is the most significant story that you have revealed?" […] There really is only one overarching point that all of these stories have revealed, and that is—and I say this without the slightest bit of hyperbole or melodrama; it's not metaphorical and it's not figurative; it is literally true—that the goal of the NSA and it's five eyes partners in the English speaking world— Canada, New Zealand, Australia and especially the UK—is to eliminate privacy globally, to ensure that there could be no human communications that occur electronically, that evades their surveillance net; they want to make sure that all forms of human communications by telephone or by Internet, and all online activities are collected, monitored, stored and analyzed by that agency and by their allies. That means, to describe that is to describe a ubiquitous surveillance state; you don't need hyperbole to make that claim, and you do not need to believe me when I say that that's their goal. Document after document within the archive that Edward Snowden provided us declare that to be their goal. They are obsessed with searching out any small little premise of the planet where some form of communications might take place without they being able to invade it. . Glenn Greenwald

He's the President–it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted. Glenn Greenwald

I don't have a 'side'–I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else. Glenn Greenwald

It's common to go from 'crashing the gate' to guarding it. Glenn Greenwald

As always, imagine how great the press corps would be if it devoted 1/1000th the energy to dissecting non-sex political wrongdoing Glenn Greenwald

Patriotism is not defined by loyalty to a particular elected official or political party. Indeed, excess loyalty to a single individual or party is the very antithesis of patriotism, as it places fealty to that individual or party over allegiance to the country, its interests, and its values. True patriotism is measured by the extent to which one believes in, and is willing to fight for and defend, the defining values and core principles of our country. Glenn Greenwald

Terrorism': the word that means nothing, yet justifies everything. Glenn Greenwald

Terrorist', noun: 1. Someone my government tells me is a terrorist; 2. Someone my President decides to kill. Glenn Greenwald

The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist. Glenn Greenwald

I know it's a really hard concept to process, but the fact that Govt accuses someone of being a Terrorist doesn't mean they are. Glenn Greenwald

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

Fearlessness can be its own form of power. Glenn Greenwald

When journalists are 'accused' of being 'advocates', that means: challenging and deviating from DC orthodoxies. Glenn Greenwald

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

I'd like to vote for the candidate similar to the one the Right absurdly claims Obama is. Glenn Greenwald

A number I'd love to know: the % of those now saying 'we have to vote Obama to stop an attack on Iran' who will support one if Obama does it. Glenn Greenwald

Very few people use landline phones for much of anything. So when you talk about things like online chat and social media messages and emails, what you're really talking about is the full extent of human communication. Glenn Greenwald

It is true that the Internet can be used to disseminate falsehoods quickly, but it just as quickly roots them out and exposes them in a way that the traditional model of journalism and its closed, insular, one-way form of communication could never do. Glenn Greenwald

The virtue of gay equality has become increasingly recognized in the U.S. because people have been persuaded of its merits, not because state officials, acting like Inquisitors, forced people to accept it by punishing them for their refusal. Glenn Greenwald

I've praised Obama's record on same-sex equality as enthusiastically as anyone: it's one area where his record has been impressive. I understand, and have expressed, the emotional importance for LGBT Americans of his marriage announcement as well as its political significance. Glenn Greenwald

The American Right has an amazing ability to lionize leaders whose lives are the precise antithesis of the political values that define their image. Glenn Greenwald

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. Glenn Greenwald

It shouldn't take extreme courage and a willingness to go to prison for decades or even life to blow the whistle on bad government acts done in secret. But it does. And that is an immense problem for democracy, one that all journalists should be united in fighting. Glenn Greenwald

There's a perennial debate about whether the propagandistic tripe produced by establishment media outlets is shaped more by evil or by stupidity. Personally, I think it's both: a healthy dose of each is needed. The system design is malicious, while those who serve as its public face are generally vacant. Glenn Greenwald

Embedded in 'The New York Times' institutional perspective and reporting methodologies are all sorts of quite debatable and subjective political and cultural assumptions about the world. And with some noble exceptions, 'The Times, ' by design or otherwise, has long served the interests of the same set of elite and powerful factions. Glenn Greenwald