Glenn Greenwald: US Is Committed to Destroying Privacy Worldwide

(UPDATE) "Investigate" they will. "Shoot The PRISM-Gate Messenger: Obama To Launch Criminal Probe Into NSA Leaks", says Zero Hedge headline, with eyes on details like (emphasis is original):

Reuters reports that "President Barack Obama's administration is likely to open a criminal investigation into the leaking of highly classified documents that revealed the secret surveillance of Americans' telephone and email traffic, U.S. officials said on Friday."

And how did Reuters learn this: from "law enforcement and security officials who were not authorized to speak publicly."

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I forgot to mention who wrote that Guardian article on the top-secret NSA program called PRISM. It is Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill.

Greenwald, who used to write for Salon.com, a progressive constitutional lawyer and strong advocate for civil liberty, appeared on the US news media and blasted the US government. He is also one of the few who continue to write about Bradley Manning and his treatment by the US government under the Obama administration.

From Politico (6/7/2013; part, emphasis is mine):

Glenn Greenwald: U.S. wants to destroy privacy worldwide

...“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,” charged Glenn Greenwald, a reporter for the British newspaper “The Guardian,” speaking on CNN. “That is not hyperbole. That is their objective.”

“So whatever the Justice Department wants to do, they can beat their chests all they want,” he said. “People like Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss can have press conferences threatening people for bringing … light to what it is they’re doing, but the only people who are going to be investigated are them. It’s well past time that these threats start to be treated with the contempt that they deserve. That’s certainly how I intend to treat them moving forward, with more investigation and disclosures.”

“The Obama administration has been very aggressive about bullying and threatening anybody who thinks about exposing it or writing it or even doing journalism about it, and it’s well past time that come to an end,” he said.

“What the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so warped and distorted and it vests themselves with such extremist surveillance powers over the United States and American citizens that Americans, in their words, would be stunned to learn what the Obama administration is doing,” he said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

Speaking with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, Greenwald dared lawmakers to investigate how information about the Verizon phone records leaked, as Feinstein has said should happen.

“Let them go and investigate,” Greenwald said.

He added, “There is this massive surveillance state that the United States government has built up that has extraordinary implications for how we live as human beings on the earth and as Americans in our country, and we have the right to know what it is that that government and that agency is doing. I intend to continue to shine light on that, and Dianne Feinstein can beat her chest all she wants and call for investigations, and none of that is going to stop and none of it is going to change.”

(Full article at the link)

It looks Glenn Greenwald has declared his war.

Unlike other liberal/progressive commentators who almost completely stopped criticizing the federal government once their idol became the occupant of the White House, Greenwald has continued to criticize the government for what it does, regardless of who is at the (nominal) top.

Unlike Greenwald, New York Times folded in mere two and a half hours or so after they dare published an editorial condemning the Obama administration and President Obama. They "modified" it, they say.

The "communication companies" that have been aiding the NSA turn out to be (no surprise here) Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint. In addition, NSA has been obtaining the records from credit card companies. No surprise there either, particularly the issuing companies are big Wall Street banks who were bailed out by the federal government at the expense of small people who were made to foot the bill.

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