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Tag Archives | Glenn Greenwald

Oh, George (Orwell)

By on May 23, 2014 in News 13
Review: Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State, Metropolitan Books, 2014

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell

George Orwell press photo

George Orwell

Oh, George

We need you now,
more than ever, ever
to help us wade through
new words of war by wankers
high on high tech
& fudged perceptions
in a security bubble of insecurity

We need help, George,
penetrating acronyms
of government gone wild
of spies & lies
and the madness
of the overtly clever
and covertly maniacal

Hey, Hey, NSA
How many emails did you ‘process’ today?
How many calls did you convert
into acres of unread metadata
stored somewhere in Utah
until the big roundup
that’s coming soon

Hey, Hey, NSA, why do you play
with code names
coined with a clear intent
to maim
and restrain?… Read the rest

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How the NSA is Using The Bahamas as a Model for Total Control | Big Brother Watch

By on May 22, 2014 in News 1

Abby Martin highlights a new report by The Intercept showing that the NSA is collecting and recording virtually every single phone call made on the island nation of the Bahamas and how this dangerous technology is usurping the rights of global citizens.

LIKE Breaking the Set @ http://fb.me/JournalistAbbyMartin FOLLOW Abby Martin @ http://twitter.com/AbbyMartin

… Read the rest

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Mirage Men Revealed by Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden?

By on March 27, 2014 in News 10

deception_p24

[disinfo ed.'s note: This post is by Mark Pilkington, who wrote the book on which the film Mirage Men is based, streaming NOW at Yekra]

A Powerpoint presentation made available on journalist Glenn Greenwald’s web site, Firstlook.org, may just have revealed the Mirage Men – or at least one branch of their operations.

The presentation is called The Art of Deception, Training for a New Generation of Online Covert Operations and was given by GCHQ’s Human Science Operation Cell (HSOC), linked to the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), whose existence was uncovered by Greenwald via the documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

[Initially I won't reproduce any of the presentation itself, but you can see the whole thing here]
 

While the textual content of the presentation is not online, we can infer from the slides that the powerpoint outlines applied techniques for deploying psychology, deception, illusion, dissimulation, magic, religion and belief in their intelligence and counter-intelligence operations.… Read the rest

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Mess With Glenn Greenwald At Your Own Risk

By on March 2, 2014 in News 13

Glenn_greenwald_portrait_transparentClearly, there’s an officially sanctioned, if not supported, backlash underway to cast doubt on the those who are disseminating the information that Edward Snowden and other whistleblowers are exposing to the global public.

What better way to respond to the evidence of government overreach and criminality in the spying by the NSA and other agencies than to try to change the subject by smearing the people who are funding the reporting on it to us.

This latest round of the media battle should not be surprising. In fact, it’s all too predictable.

In the latest round, lawyer and journalist Glenn Greenwald, the point person/interpreter for the majority of the Snowden disclosures, came under attack by indirection with a high profile smear on Pierre Omidyar, the eBay billionaire funding his new venture, First Look Media.

Leading the charge publicly is one MarkAmes, who writes for Pando Daily, a rival news agency funded by another Silicon Valley tech moneyman.… Read the rest

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New York Times Columnist Asks If Glenn Greenwald Is The Future of News

By on October 28, 2013 in News 6
Pic: Glenn Greenwald (CC)

Pic: Glenn Greenwald (CC)

New York Times writer (and former editor) Bill Keller printed a series of letters exchanged between him and muckraking journalist Glenn Greenwald. It’s a little long, but well worth reading.

Via New York Times:

Dear Glenn,

I don’t think of it as reporters pretending they have no opinions. I think of it as reporters, as an occupational discipline, suspending their opinions and letting the evidence speak for itself. And it matters that this is not just an individual exercise, but an institutional discipline, with editors who are tasked to challenge writers if they have given short shrift to contrary facts or arguments readers might want to know.

The thing is, once you have publicly declared your “subjective assumptions and political values,” it’s human nature to want to defend them, and it becomes tempting to omit or minimize facts, or frame the argument, in ways that support your declared viewpoint.

… Read the rest
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Glenn Greenwald Gets $250 Million For Startup News Channel

By on October 16, 2013 in News 4

Glenn greenwald portraitFirst Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post, now eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is chucking a quarter billion dollars at Glenn Greenwald to create a news organization that, presumably, will reflect the progressive politics that are Mr. Greenwald’s stock in trade.

Who will be the next Silicon Valley billionaire to buy his or her own major media presence? From Mr. Greenwald’s erstwhile employer, The Guardian:

Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, has revealed more details of the media organization he is creating with journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald announced on Tuesday that he was leaving the Guardian, where he has broken a series of stories on the National Security Agency, based on documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In an interview with Jay Rosen, media critic and NYU professor of journalism, Omidyar said he was committing an initial $250m to the as-yet-unnamed venture. Omidyar told Rosen the decision was fuelled by his “rising concern about press freedoms in the United States and around the world”.

… Read the rest
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Powerhouse Panel Discussion on Surveillance State and War on Whistleblowers: Alexa O’Brien, Robert Manne, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, and David Coombs

By on September 26, 2013 in News 0

Ideas at the House: Panel – The War on Whistleblowers and Their Publishers: “US Journalist and activist Alexa O’Brien and Australian commentator Robert Manne are joined by video conference with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Guardian Journalist Glenn Greenwald and Chelsea Manning’s Lawyer David Coombs on stage at the Sydney Opera House (moderated by Bernard Keane of Crikey).”

… Read the rest

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Glenn Greenwald’s Boyfriend Detained And Interrogated For 9 Hours Under Terrorism Act

By on August 19, 2013 in News 8

Glenn Greenwald and his partner David Miranda

Via the Guardian, Greenwald writes that the UK authorities targeted his partner as punishment for Greenwald’s journalism:

At 6:30 am this morning my time, I received a telephone call from someone who identified himself as a “security official at Heathrow airport.” He told me that my partner, David Miranda, had been “detained” at the London airport “under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000.”

David had spent the last week in Berlin. A Brazilian citizen, he was returning to our home in Rio de Janeiro this morning on British Airways, flying first to London and then on to Rio.

According to a document published by the UK government about Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, “fewer than 3 people in every 10,000 are examined as they pass through UK borders”. Moreover, “most examinations, over 97%, last under an hour.” An appendix to that document states that only .06% of all people detained are kept for more than 6 hours.

… Read the rest
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Glenn Greenwald Challenges The Media’s NSA Leaks Talking Points On MSNBC

By on June 10, 2013 in News 11
In the days since publishing bombshell articles revealing the NSA's secret spying on all Americans' phone calls, chats, and emails, Glenn Greenwald has been appearing on mainstream U.S. media outlets to challenge the notion that the his scoop is traitorous or a threat to national security: “Yeah, I’ll put it into context for you. The White House talking points that you’re using are completely misleading and false.”
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