Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization

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Glenn Greenwald: ‘The Most Shocking Stories Have Not Been Published’… Is This Why He Left The Guardian?



Greenwald in Rio de Janeiro in July.

Exclusive: Glenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization (BuzzFeed, Oct 15, 2013):

The reporter who broke the NSA story promises “a momentous new venture.”
A “very substantial new media outlet” with serious backing, he says. Updated.

Glenn Greenwald, the lawyer and blogger who brought The Guardian the biggest scoop of the decade, is departing the London-based news organization, for a brand-new, large-scale, broadly focused media outlet, he told BuzzFeed Tuesday.

Greenwald, 46, published revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden about the extent of American and British domestic spying and about officials’ deception about its scope. He said he is departing for a new, “once-in-a-career dream journalistic opportunity” with major financial backing, the details of which will be public soon.

Read moreGlenn Greenwald Will Leave Guardian To Create New News Organization

Glenn Greenwald: ‘The Most Shocking Stories Have Not Been Published’… Is This Why He Left The Guardian?

Glenn Greenwald: “The Most Shocking Stories Have Not Been Published”…Is This Why He Left The Guardian? (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Oct 15, 2013):

Just yesterday, I was taken aback by an article in Time magazine in which Glenn Greenwald was quoted as saying:

“The archives are so complex and so deep and so shocking, that I think the most shocking and significant stories are the ones we are still working on, and have yet to publish.”

The above statement was expressed during a speech by Greenwald at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This takes on an entirely new meaning now that we know Mr. Greenwald has decided to leave The Guardian. There have been grumblings for several weeks now that the relationship between the journalist and the paper had been strained. Whether or not that is the result of new censorship resulting from government pressure on the paper at this stage is unknown. Either way, I can’t wait to see what new information he has in store for us, whether it will be through a Brazilian news organization or an independent venture.

Below are statements from both Glenn and The Guardian:

Read moreGlenn Greenwald: ‘The Most Shocking Stories Have Not Been Published’… Is This Why He Left The Guardian?

Glenn Greenwald Full Interview On Edward Snowden, NSA, GCHQ And Spying (Video)


YouTube Added: 03.10.2013

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BBC Newsnight exclusive interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald on Edward Snowden, the PRISM revelations and mass surveillance

Greenwald, Scahill Vow To Unmask NSA’s ‘US Assassination Program’


US journalists Jeremy Scahill (L) and Glenn Greenwald

Greenwald, Scahill vow to unmask NSA’s ‘US assassination program’ (RT, Sep 30, 2013):

American investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald say they have teamed up to prepare a report on the National Security Agency’s role in what one of them described as the “US assassination program.”

“The connections between war and surveillance are clear. I don’t want to give too much away but Glenn and I are working on a project right now that has at its center how the National Security Agency plays a significant, central role in the US assassination program,” Scahill said in Rio de Janeiro, as cited by Associated Press.

Speaking to moviegoers at the Rio Film Festival, where an award-winning documentary based on his book was shown, Scahill said he will be working on the project with another journalist – Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story on the NSA leaker Edward Snowden in June.

Read moreGreenwald, Scahill Vow To Unmask NSA’s ‘US Assassination Program’

Detention of Greenwald Partner in London Clearly Came on US Orders

– America’s assault on a free press moves into high gear: Detention of Greenwald Partner in London Clearly Came on US Orders (This Can’t Be Happening, Aug 20, 2013):

It is becoming perfectly clear that the outrageous detention of American journalist Glenn Greenwald’s Brazilian partner David Miranda by British police during a flight transfer at London’s Heathrow Airport was, behind the scenes, the work of US intelligence authorities.

British police and the British Home Office (the equivalent of America’s Department of Homeland Security) are claiming that the action was taken by them on the basis of an anti-terrorist statute, passed in 2000, with the Orwellian name “Schedule 7.” The give-away that this was not something that the British dreamed up on their own, however, is their admission that they had given Washington a “heads up” in advance about their intention to detain Miranda, a Brazilian national, before the detention actually occurred.

Note that the British did not notify Brazilian authorities. It was the Americans who got the call. Why would British police notify American authorities about the detention of a Brazilian citizen except to ask what US authorities wanted done ? Clearly, Miranda was on one of America’s “watch lists” and the British police called because they needed instructions from their superiors in the US regarding whether to detain him and what to do with him once they had him. It looks like that call to Washington, rather than a “heads up,” was actually more of a request for a “thumbs up” from Washington to go ahead and detain and interrogate Miranda. (The ironically named new White House press secretary, Josh Ernest, denied any involvement by the US in Miranda’s ordeal, saying, “This is a decision that was made by the British government without the involvement – and not at the request – of the United States government. It is as simple as that.” He was not pressed on the matter by the assembled members of the White House press corps–a group that is not known for its aggressiveness even when its own interests are at stake.)

Read moreDetention of Greenwald Partner in London Clearly Came on US Orders

Glenn Greenwald’s Partner David Miranda Detained For 9 Hours, Electronics Confiscated

Glenn Greenwald’s Partner Detained For 9 Hours, Electronics Confiscated (Liberty Blitzkrieg,, Aug 18, 2013):

A month ago, I wrote a piece titled: If Flying into the UK, Your Phone Can Be Seized and Data Downloaded Without Suspicion. As you might suspect, the focus of the piece was something called schedule 7 of the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000, which allows authorities to stop and search  people “without prior authorization or reasonable suspicion.” Not only that, they are not automatically permitted access to legal counsel during the interrogation and they must cooperate. Oh, and your electronic devices can be confiscated.

I chose to write that article at the time to highlight the myriad ways it could be grossly abused. Well now we a very high profile example of such abuse as Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda was stopped for nine hours (the maximum allowed), his electronics were confiscated, and we have no explanation from the Home Office as to why he was considered a terrorist threat.

Here’s an idea for investigative journalists and activists worldwide. Do not fly through the UK unless you absolutely have to.

More from The Guardian:

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

Read moreGlenn Greenwald’s Partner David Miranda Detained For 9 Hours, Electronics Confiscated

Battle Royale On Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen And Jeffrey Toobin (Video)

Battle Royale on Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen and Jeffrey Toobin (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Aug 3, 2013):

“That’s the thing I don’t understand about the climate in Washington these days. People want to have debates on television and elsewhere, but then you want to throw the people that start the debates in jail.”
– James Risen, New York Times Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist (he now faces jail time)

The above quote occurred during an excellent discussion between Glenn Greenwald, James Risen and Jeffrey Toobin on Piers Morgan’s show. While pretty much everyone on planet earth knows who Glenn Greenwald is at this point, most people do not know who James Risen is. This is a situation that must change. Mr. Risen is at the center of another very important case that threatens the future of freedom of the press in these United States.

In his book State of War, James Risen published information leaked to him by former CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling, who is currently being charged under the Espionage Act by President Transparency, Barrack Obama. While a lower court had previously ruled Mr. Risen should be afforded reporter privilege to not testify against Mr. Sterling, a federal appeals court last month saw it differently in a 2-1 decision.

Read moreBattle Royale On Piers Morgan: Glenn Greenwald, James Risen And Jeffrey Toobin (Video)

Members Of Congress Denied Access To Basic Information About NSA

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Glenn Greenwald: NSA Congressional Hearing Canceled Due To Obama



Members of Congress are increasingly frustrated at their inability to obtain even basic information about the NSA and FISA court. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Members of Congress denied access to basic information about NSA (Guardian, Aug 4, 2013):

Documents provided by two House members demonstrate how they are blocked from exercising any oversight over domestic surveillance

Morgan Griffith’s requests for NSA information
Alan Grayson’s requests for NSA information

Members of Congress have been repeatedly thwarted when attempting to learn basic information about the National Security Agency (NSA) and the secret FISA court which authorizes its activities, documents provided by two House members demonstrate.

From the beginning of the NSA controversy, the agency’s defenders have insisted that Congress is aware of the disclosed programs and exercises robust supervision over them. “These programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate,” President Obama said the day after the first story on NSA bulk collection of phone records was published in this space. “And if there are members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up.”

But members of Congress, including those in Obama’s party, have flatly denied knowing about them. On MSNBC on Wednesday night, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct) was asked by host Chris Hayes: “How much are you learning about what the government that you are charged with overseeing and holding accountable is doing from the newspaper and how much of this do you know?” The Senator’s reply:

Read moreMembers Of Congress Denied Access To Basic Information About NSA

The NSA IS Reading Your E-mails

The NSA IS Reading Your E-mails (The New American, July 31, 2013):

The London Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald revealed in a July 31 exposé that the NSA has indeed been collecting the full text of every American’s e-mails without a warrant under the “XKeyscore” program, flatly contradicting the claims of congressional opponents of the Amash amendment last week.

The Amash amendment would have denied the NSA the ability to snoop on Americans without a warrant or National Security letter under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The amendment by Michigan congressman Justin Amash failed by a mere seven-vote margin in the House of Representatives. In the wake of the vote, Amash has promised to sponsor legislation to ban the NSA from collecting telephone and Internet data on American citizens.

Using NSA PowerPoint presentations provided by whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Greenwald explained: “One presentation claims the [XKeyscore] program covers ‘nearly everything a typical user does on the internet,’ including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.” Greenwald added: “Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing ‘real-time’ interception of an individual’s internet activity.”

Read moreThe NSA IS Reading Your E-mails

XKeyscore: NSA Tool Collects ‘Nearly Everything A User Does On The Internet’

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects ‘nearly everything a user does on the internet’ (Guardian, July 31, 2013):

• XKeyscore gives ‘widest-reaching’ collection of online data
• NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
• Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
NSA’s XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.

The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian’s earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.

The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden’s assertion: “He’s lying. It’s impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do.”

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

Read moreXKeyscore: NSA Tool Collects ‘Nearly Everything A User Does On The Internet’

Glenn Greenwald: NSA Congressional Hearing Canceled Due To Obama

Greenwald: NSA hearing canceled (Politics, July 30, 2013):

This week’s informal congressional hearing on the National Security Agency’s surveillance program has been canceled, according to The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, who was expected to testify via satellite.

Democratic congressman Alan Grayson and a bipartisan group of congressman were expected to hear from Greenwald and other critics of the NSA’s surveillance practices on Wednesday, according to a Guardian report from last week. The meeting was not meant to be a formal committee hearing, but would take place on the Hill before a dozen members of Congress from both parties.

But Greenwald now tells POLITICO that the hearing has been canceled due to Obama’s decision to meet with House Democrats.

“Obama developed a sudden and newfound interest in House Democrats and scheduled a meeting with them for that same time,” he wrote in an email, adding that the committee was trying to re-schedule the meeting to take place before congress goes on recess.

Representatives from both the American Civil Liberties Union and the conservative Cato Institute were expected to testify, Grayson told The Guardian.

Glenn Greenwald: Growing Backlash Against NSA Spying Shows Why U.S. Wants To Silence Edward Snowden (Video & Transcript)

Glenn Greenwald: Growing Backlash Against NSA Spying Shows Why U.S. Wants to Silence Edward Snowden (Democracy Now, July 18, 2013):

As Congress holds its second major public hearing on the National Security Agency’s bulk spying, we speak with Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations. The NSA admitted their analysis of phone records and online behavior far exceeded what it had previously disclosed. “The fact that you now see members of both political parties increasingly angry over the fact that they were misled and lied to by top-level Obama administration officials, that the laws that they enacted in the wake of 9/11 — as broad as they were — are being incredibly distorted by secret legal interpretations approved by secret courts, really indicates exactly that Snowden’s motives to come forward with these revelations, at the expense of his liberty and even his life, were valid and compelling,” Greenwald says. “If you think about whistleblowing in terms of people who expose things the government is hiding that they shouldn’t be, in order to bring about reform, I think what you’re seeing is the fruits of classic whistleblowing.”

Transcript

Read moreGlenn Greenwald: Growing Backlash Against NSA Spying Shows Why U.S. Wants To Silence Edward Snowden (Video & Transcript)

AND NOW: Private ‘Blackwater-Type’ Spy Agencies (Video)

“Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Benito Mussolini



YouTube Added: 12.06.2013

Description:

“Could the sprawling surveillance state enable government or its legion of private contractors to abuse their technology and spy upon domestic political targets or judges This is not a far off possibility. Two years ago, a batch of stolen e-mails revealed a plot by a set of three defense contractors (Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal) to target activists, reporters, labor unions and political organizations. The plans— one concocted in concert with lawyers for the US Chamber of Commerce to sabotage left-leaning critics, like the Center for American Progress and the SEIU, and a separate proposal to “combat” WikiLeaks and its supporters, including Glenn Greenwald, on behalf of Bank of America— fell apart after reports of their existence were published online. But the episode serves as a reminder that the expanding spy industry could use its government-backed cybertools to harm ordinary Americans and political dissident groups…”.* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

Read more from Lee Fang / The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174741/…

Support The Young Turks by Subscribing http://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungt…

So Who is James Comey, Obama’s New FBI Chief?


James Comey, Deputy Attorney General under President Bush, is reported to be President Obama’s pick to lead the FBI. File photo from Jan. 14, 2004. Photograph: Evan Vucci, File/Associated Press

So Who is James Comey, Obama’s Nominee to Head the FBI? (Liberty Blitzkrieg, June 6, 2013):

In light of the latest revelations that the NSA is spying on the communications of millions of Verizon customers courtesy of information provided by the FBI, it probably makes sense to know a little more about Obama’s nominee to head that Bureau.  That man is James Comey, and he was a top Department of Justice attorney under John Ashcroft during the George W. Bush Administration (since then he has worked at Lockheed Martin and at the enormous Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates).  This guy defines the revolving door cancer ruining these United States.

Comey’s defenders point out that he stood up to some of the more egregious spy programs that Bush officials wanted to pursue, and that he also expressed reservations about the torture program.  Nevertheless, he signed off on, and provided the legal justification for both.  This is the man being recycled back through the revolving door by Obama.  I have read many articles on Mr. Comey ever since it surfaced he would be nominated and, as usual, Glenn Greenwald did the best work.

From the Guardian:

In other words, there was something the NSA was doing for years – that we still don’t know – even more extreme than the illegal NSA program revealed by the NYT in 2005. It was Comey, along with Ashcroft, Mueller, and Goldsmith, who threatened to resign if it did not stop, and they deserve credit for that. But the reason they didn’t end up resigning was because Bush officials “modified” that NSA program into something those lawyers could and did endorse: the still-illegal, still-radical NSA eavesdropping program that spied on the communications of Americans without warrants and in violation of the law. And this was accomplished by inventing a new legal theory to accompany the old one: that Congress, when it enacted the 2001 AUMF, silently and “implicitly” authorized Bush to eavesdrop in exactly the ways the law expressly forbade.

Targeted Killings: ‘It’s Ok If Obama Does It’

Targeted Killings: “It’s Ok if Obama Does it” (Liberty Blitzkrieg, Feb 22, 2013):

In a YouGov poll of 1,000 voters last August, Tesler found significantly more support for targeted killing of suspected terrorists among white “racial liberals” (i.e., those liberal on issues of race) and African-Americans when they were told that Obama supported such a policy than when they were not told it was the president’s policy. Only 27 percent of white racial liberals in a control group supported the targeted killing policy, but that jumped to 48 percent among such voters who were told Obama had conducted such targeted killings.

– Joan Walsh’s recent article at Salon:  Targeted killings: OK if Obama does it?

Think about how troubling the above passage is.  Basically, a reasonably large percentage of the population of America will simply allow Barrack Obama to do whatever he wants because he is black and a member of their “Democrat” football team.  The irony is incredible, but believe me this fact is not lost upon the elites that want to perpetuate the warfare state indefinitely. They fully understand that Obama essentially neutralizes a large part of the “liberal” resistance simply because he is black and ostensibly “liberal.”

I came across the above information while reading Glenn Greenwald’s article about how MSNBC has finally make the total transformation into official government propaganda arm by hiring Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod.  His article is a scathing must-read.  Here are my favorite excerpts:

Read moreTargeted Killings: ‘It’s Ok If Obama Does It’