97+ Glenn Greenwald Quotes: Defending Civil Liberties and Exposing Power Dynamics

Glenn Greenwald is a renowned journalist, author, and political commentator known for his fearless investigative reporting and commitment to exposing government surveillance and abuses of power. With a distinguished career in journalism, Greenwald has played a crucial role in shaping public discourse and shedding light on critical issues of civil liberties and national security. His specialty lies in his in-depth analysis and reporting on topics such as whistleblowing, privacy rights, and government transparency. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Glenn Greenwald on leadership, climate change, education.

Top 10 Glenn Greenwald Quotes

1. Secrecy is the linchpin of abuse of power, . . . its enabling force. Transparency is the only real antidote.
2. Transparency is for those who carry out public duties and exercise public power. Privacy is for everyone else.
3. Edward Snowden made an audacious claim: “I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.
4. Your personal life is now known as Facebook’s data. Its CEO’s personal life is now known as mind your own business.
5. The ultimate test of a society's freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it's how it treats its dissidents.
6. Washington likes to threaten the people over whom they exercise power.
7. Privacy is a core condition of being a free person.
8. We shouldn’t have to be faithful loyalists of the powerful to feel safe from state surveillance. Nor should the price of immunity be refraining from controversial or provocative dissent.
9. When you cheer for the erosion of Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs rights, you're cheering for the erosion of your own.
10. The definition of an extreme authoritarian is one who is willing blindly to assume that government accusations are true without any evidence presented or opportunity to contest those accusations.

Glenn Greenwald Short Quotes

• Fearlessness can be its own form of power.
• A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one.
• You can't have a pristine house with ten dogs, and I'd rather have the ten dogs.
• It's common to go from 'crashing the gate' to guarding it.
• I'd like to vote for the candidate similar to the one the Right absurdly claims Obama is.
• Terrorism': the word that means nothing, yet justifies everything.
• I don't have a 'side'—I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else.
• The bottom layer of the right-wing noise machine.

Glenn Greenwald Quotes About Government

The way things are supposed to work is that we're supposed to know virtually everything about what they [the government] do: that's why they're called public servants. They're supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that's why we're called private individuals. — Glenn Greenwald

There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous. — Glenn Greenwald

Whether a country is actually free is determined not by how well-rewarded its convention-affirming media elites are and how ignored its passive citizens are but by how it treats its dissidents, those posing authentic challenges to what the government does. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

Terrorist', noun: 1. Someone my government tells me is a terrorist; 2. Someone my President decides to kill. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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

Glenn Greenwald Quotes About Surveillance

Converting the Internet into a system of surveillance thus guts it of its core potential. Worse, it turns the Internet into a tool of repression, threatening to produce the most extreme and oppressive weapon of state intrusion human history has ever seen. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

We should not be comfortable or content in a society where the only way to remain free of surveillance and repression is if we make ourselves as unthreatning, passive, and compliant as possible. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald Quotes About War

What I do know is that Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have been converted into the closest thing the West has to religious-like martyrs in the war against radical Islam, which means that anything short of pure reverence for them generates tribal rage and vilification. — Glenn Greenwald

The fact that war is the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be? — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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? — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald Quotes About Politics

American political culture quickly and always outpaces any attempt to satirize it. — Glenn Greenwald

Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred - other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west? — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

It is simply an invariable truth in the history of politics, in the history of government, that whenever a new power is acquired in the name of some threat, it always - not sometimes, not often, not usually -it always extends beyond its original application, beyond its original justification. — Glenn Greenwald

If you remove the fear of criminal punishment for the nation's political and financial elites - as we have done - what possible constraint on their behavior does anyone think will remain? — Glenn Greenwald

When someone who wields political power does something you dislike or disagree with, it's incumbent upon you to object, criticize, and demand a different course. Those who refuse to do so are abdicating the most basic duty of citizenship and rendering themselves impotent. — Glenn Greenwald

As always, imagine how great the press corps would be if it devoted 1/1000th the energy to dissecting non-sex political wrongdoing — Glenn Greenwald

[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. — Glenn Greenwald

The more fear confrontational activism can put into the heart of the political class, the better. — Glenn Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald Famous Quotes And Sayings

The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo Eric Schmidt’s view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes. — Glenn Greenwald

What keeps a person passive and compliant is fear of repercussions, but once you let go of your attachment to things that don’t ultimately matter – money, career, physical safety – you can overcome that fear. — Glenn Greenwald

Abused in this way, law becomes a tool – both domestically and internationally – by which the powerful can coerce and control the powerless, rather than a system for ensuring that all are subjected to common rules. Nowhere. — Glenn Greenwald

It’s almost hard to imagine anything more undemocratic than the view that political officials should not debate American wars in public, but only express concerns ‘privately with the administration.’ That’s just a small sliver of Johnson’s radicalism: replacing Feingold in the Senate with Ron Johnson would be a civil liberties travesty analogous to the economic travesty from, say, replacing Bernie Sanders with Lloyd Blankfein. — Glenn Greenwald

Objectivity means nothing more than reflecting the biases and serving the interests of entrenched Washington. Opinions are problematic only when they deviate from the acceptable range of Washington orthodoxy. — Glenn Greenwald

Finally, Snowden gave me an answer that felt vibrant and real. “The true measurement of a person’s worth isn’t what they say they believe in, but what they do in defense of those beliefs,” he said. “If you’re not acting on your beliefs, then they probably aren’t real. — Glenn Greenwald

The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that—whether from fear, careerism, or conviction—uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function. — Glenn Greenwald

It is hard to imagine having a government more secretive than the United States. Virtually everything that government does, of any significance, is conducted behind an extreme wall of secrecy. The very few leaks that we’ve had over the last decade are basically the only ways that we’ve had to learn what our government is doing. — Glenn Greenwald

An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power. — Glenn Greenwald

When people in power can operate in the dark, inevitably they abuse that power. So, you need outside forces to bring light and transparency to what they're doing. And, one of the ways you do that is through journalism, and through guaranteeing a free press. That is its purpose, to provide a check on those who wield power. — Glenn Greenwald

Only In America can a renowned and devoted terrorism supporter like Peter King be the arbiter of national security and treason. — Glenn Greenwald

The single most remarkable (and revealing) fact of the Obama presidency may very well be the lack of a single prosecution of Wall Street executives for the massive fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. — Glenn Greenwald

Nobody has the right to shield any idea as so sacred it can’t be challenged. ... Almost all human progress is driven by people who stood up and said ‘I disagree’ with this idea that society at the time considered to be the most precious.’ — Glenn Greenwald

As always with any discussion of elite immunity, it's crucial to note that what makes this development such a particularly warped travesty is that the very same elites who enjoy this immunity have created the world's largest, and the Western world's most oppressive and merciless, penal state for ordinary citizens. — Glenn Greenwald

As a journalist, I think the only question that you ask yourself - once you've determined that the material is authentic - is what is in the public interest to know. And then you go about and report it. — Glenn Greenwald

I personally think honestly disclosing rather than hiding ones subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism. But no journalism - from the most stylistically objective to the most brazenly opinionated - has any real value unless it is grounded in facts, evidence, and verifiable data. — Glenn Greenwald

Those [American Jews] who favor the [Israeli] attack on Gaza are certainly guilty of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis, that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity. — Glenn Greenwald

The many pro-surveillance advocates I have debated since Snowden blew the whistle have been quick to echo [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt's view that privacy is for people who have something to hide. But none of them would willingly give me the passwords to their email accounts, or allow video cameras in their homes. — Glenn Greenwald

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

Snowden has enough [sic] information to cause harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had. The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare. — Glenn Greenwald

Arming domestic police forces with paramilitary weaponry will ensure their systematic use even in the absence of a terrorist attack on US soil; they will simply find other, increasingly permissive uses for those weapons. — Glenn Greenwald

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

The Obama administration already claims the power to wage endless and boundless war, in virtually total secrecy, and without a single meaningful check or constraint. No institution with any power disputes this. To the contrary, the only ones which exert real influence - Congress, the courts, the establishment media, the plutocratic class - clearly favor its continuation and only think about how further to enable it. — Glenn Greenwald

The key question: will the NSA continue to monitor hundreds of millions of people without any suspicion? Under Obama's proposals: Yes. — Glenn Greenwald

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

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. — Glenn Greenwald

I think that - not just as a journalist but as a human being - I have the ethical responsibility to avoid actions that can harm innocent people. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

What we revealed is that this spying system is devoted not to terrorists, but is directed to innocent people around the world. None of this has anything to do with terrorism. Is Angela Merkel a terrorist? — Glenn Greenwald

Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own. — Glenn Greenwald

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

The hallmark of an authoritarian idiot is yelling TERRORIST-LOVER! at anyone questioning the definition of Terrorist. — Glenn Greenwald

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

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. — Glenn Greenwald

It's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries. — Glenn Greenwald

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

There are few things more bizarre than watching people advocate that another country be bombed even while acknowledging that it will achieve no good outcomes other than safeguarding the 'credibility' of those doing the bombing. Relatedly, it's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries. — Glenn Greenwald

I know it's a really hard concept to process, but the fact that Govt accuses someone of being a Terrorist doesn't mean they are. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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

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

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

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. — Glenn Greenwald

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. — Glenn Greenwald

A key purpose of journalism is to provide an adversarial check on those who wield the greatest power by shining a light on what they do in the dark, and informing the public about those acts. — Glenn Greenwald

He's the President—it's the responsibility of every citizen to criticize aggressively when they think it's warranted. — Glenn Greenwald

Life Lessons by Glenn Greenwald

1. Uphold the truth and hold those in power accountable: Greenwald's work teaches us the importance of questioning authority, seeking the truth, and exposing wrongdoing to ensure transparency and justice.
2. Defend civil liberties and protect individual privacy: Greenwald's dedication to privacy rights reminds us of the significance of safeguarding our personal freedoms and challenging invasive surveillance practices.
3. Embrace independent journalism and critical thinking: Greenwald's career highlights the value of independent journalism and critical thinking in an era of media manipulation, encouraging individuals to seek diverse perspectives and question mainstream narratives.