Top 158 Quotes & Sayings by Glenn Greenwald - Page 3

Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.

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.

[N]othing is less reliable than unchecked claims from political officials that their secret conduct is justified by National Security Threats and the desire to Keep Us Safe.

What state surveillance actually is is best understood by the NSA's own documents and own words, which I think as you know I happen to have a lot of.

A lot of these people are Iraqis fighting for control of their own government. Maybe there's an argument to make that outside forces that go in and start bombing that country or invading that country are actually terrorists more so than the people in the country.

The genius of America's endless war machine is that, learning from the unpleasantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible.

As the American Muslim community gets a little bit freer in terms of not being under the thumb of that kind of oppressive mentality, there is going to be some internal dissent. When you are consciously oppressed, you tend to sort of band together and unite because there's a necessity to do so. And that as that proceeds, some of those difference get more into the fore and I think that's the reason you are seeing some internal dissension as a byproduct of the fact that there is not this kind of immediate urgency to unify against this kind of onslaught because that onslaught is refuted.

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.

Colin Powell speaks regularly to high-ranking U.S. officials, he knows a lot about what's going on in the government. And so he's a powerful person who merits transparency, just like any other powerful people do.

But when Warren has spoken on national security, she has invariably spouted warmed-over, banal Democratic hawk tripe of the kind that she just recited about Israel and Gaza. During her Senate campaign, for instance, she issued wildly militaristic – and in some cases clearly false – statements about Iran and its nuclear program that would have been comfortable on the pages of The Weekly Standard.

Even as considering African-Americans, immigrants and other groups who may be marginalized in different ways, American Muslims are still one of the most marginalized groups. Overt prejudice is probably more acceptable toward American Muslims than any other single group in the U.S. There is still a lot of policies in place that are incredibly effective that don't show any signs of eroding. So, I don't want to overstate the optimism but I think things are headed gradually in the right direction. Just because of the distance between us and 9/11.

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.

Many of the most important stories in the history of modern journalism have come from sources who have taken information without authorization.

Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs.

Significant and seemingly impossible social and political change happens more often than we think, and it happens more rapidly than we realize. Even the most momentous change is always possible if one finds the right way to make it happen.

[I]f you want instant, reflexive support for the US government's police and military powers, MSNBC is the place to turn these days.

To permit surveillance to take root on the Internet would mean subjecting virtually all forms of human interaction, planning, and even thought itself to comprehensive state examination.

The domestic NSA-led Surveillance State which Frank Church so stridently warned about has obviously come to fruition. The way to avoid its grip is simply to acquiesce to the nation's most powerful factions, to obediently remain within the permitted boundaries of political discourse and activism. Accepting that bargain enables one to maintain the delusion of freedom - "he who does not move does not notice his chains," observed Rosa Luxemburg - but the true measure of political liberty is whether one is free to make a different choice.

The second term of the Bush administration and first five years of the Obama presidency have been devoted to codifying and institutionalizing the vast and unchecked powers that are typically vested in leaders in the name of war. Those powers of secrecy, indefinite detention, mass surveillance, and due-process-free assassination are not going anywhere. They are now permanent fixtures not only in the US political system but, worse, in American political culture.

For those suggesting criticisms of drone kills should wait until the election: that'd be reasonable if he stops killing until the election.

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations

The mythology of the Reagan presidency is that he induced the collapse of the Soviet Union by luring it into unsustainable military spending and wars: should there come a point when we think about applying that lesson to ourselves?

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

Of all the views that are detached from reality, the most delusional is that Christians are persecuted in the U.S.

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.

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.

The promise of the Internet has always been that it was gonna be this unprecedentedly potent instrument of liberation and democratization. It would let you explore things and meet people who you wouldn't otherwise get to know, in completely free and unconstrained ways.

When poor and ordinary Americans who commit crimes are prosecuted and imprisoned, that is Justice. When the same thing is done to Washington elites, that is Ugly Retribution.

The bottom layer of the right-wing noise machine.

It's so much easier to debate people when you can pretend that they hold moronic position that they don't actually believe.

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.

Having the career of the beloved CIA Director and the commanding general in Afghanistan instantly destroyed due to highly invasive and unwarranted electronic surveillance is almost enough to make one believe not only that there is a god, but that he is an ardent civil libertarian.

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.

No matter the specific techniques involved, historically mass surveillance has had several constant attributes. Initially, it is always the country’s dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of the surveillance, leading those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe they are immune. And history shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used, is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.

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

The government usually announces it killed a Big Terrorist 5 or 6 different times before they're dead - they're almost like cats.

One should be weary of drawing too many inferences from a single poll. You can find wildly disparate results with two different polls. There is no question that American Muslims remain one of the most marginalized and demonized groups in United States. There has been a sustained propaganda campaign against Muslims for over a decade and it doesn't disappear over night. Those attitudes are hardened. But one of the things that polling often doesn't measure is the intensity of opinions.

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.