Glenn Greenwald

Long-time readers of this blog will be aware of my great respect and appreciation for Glenn Greenwald. He is a powerful, incisive voice for freedom and constitutional rights, and is absolutely fearless when taking on politicians and institutions that he deems to have violated their responsibilities to the American people in the realm of civil rights, privacy and related matters.

One of Glenn's greatest traits is his complete and utter disregard for political party affiliation, and in fact a more general disregard for the power or popularity of anybody. I guess one could say, "You can't hide from Glenn," meaning that nothing you've done in the past will save you from his excoriating words if/when you violate what he thinks are the rights-oriented issues you claim to champion.

Glenn has recently achieved a measure of fame as being the journalist to whom Edward Snowden revealed the NSA spying-on-Americans program. If you had earth-shaking secrets to reveal regarding government abuses and needed somebody you could trust, Glenn would be the obvious choice.

Glenn writes a long article several times a week, and everything he writes is hard-hitting, extremely thorough, detail oriented and quite intense. TOO intense for me, much of the time. But even when I can't finish his articles, which is frequently, I am nonetheless impressed by and grateful for his loud and clear voice on any issue about which he cares to speak.

All of which goes to say, you should probably read Glenn's column—at least once in a while—to be aware of a powerful political perspective that you can't really get anywhere else. So here's a link to the column and today's notable article, in which Glenn reveals just how much President Obama actually "welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens" (the President's quote), and how the President and his most virulent political enemies are happy to make common cause when it comes to maintaining secrecy in government. Isn't it great to see Michele Bachman, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi and the President all on the same side of an issue? And isn't it interesting to see the Democrats in that unholy alliance loudly proclaiming their support for civil liberties in the press, and then voting to eliminate any challenge to the police state apparatus they claim to oppose?

And Glenn has a great sense of humor. Today's column includes the phase, Help The Terrorists™.