Glenn Greenwald

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Glenn Greenwald (born 1967 in New York City) is an American attorney, best-selling author of How Would a Patriot Act?, and popular political and legal blogger. He is often described by critics as a liberal blogger, and he is opposed to the policies of the Bush Administration, but he describes himself as neither liberal nor conservative. Indeed, he contends that "Bush followers are not conservatives".[1]

He is a graduate of George Washington University and received a J.D. from New York University Law School. He worked at the large New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz both before and briefly after he joined the New York bar in 1995. He left to co-found the law firm of Greenwald Christoph & Holland, now Greenwald Christoph. He litigated several cases with constitutional issues.

Greenwald is openly gay and splits his time between Brazil and New York City. He explains that this is because Brazil recognizes his same-sex relationship with his Brazilian partner, while the United States does not.[1]

Contents

[edit] Matthew Hale

One of Greenwald's more notable clients was neo-Nazi Matthew Hale. Hale was eventually jailed and tried for solicitation of murder against Joan Lefkow, who had been the federal judge in the trademark case. Although Greenwald was not involved in his criminal defense, between Hale's conviction and sentencing, he attempted to use Greenwald to convey a coded message, but Greenwald refused.[2] At the time, Hale was suspected of complicity in the recent double murder of Lefkow's husband and mother, but he was eventually cleared. He remains jailed for the earlier conviction.

[edit] Criticism of Bush administration

Greenwald started a blog, "Unclaimed Territory" (http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/), in October 2005, focusing initially on the Valerie Plame affair and the investigation of Scooter Libby. When the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy became known two months later, he shifted primary attention to that. He quickly became known as a prominent legal critic of the George W. Bush administration. He has written in American Conservative magazine and appeared as a guest on C-Span's Washington Journal Air America's Majority Report and Public Radio International's To the Point. His reporting and analysis have been cited in the The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Slate, and Salon. In April 2006, he was given a 2005 Koufax Award for Best New Blog. He wrote the New York Times best selling[3] book, How Would a Patriot Act?. Pre-orders placed the book at #1 on Amazon.com in less than 24 hours, where it stayed for several days.

Greenwald attracted national media attention in January 2006 when he announced on his blog his finding that U.S. Senator Mike DeWine had proposed an easier standard for domestic eavesdropping by federal agents in 2002, but the administration had declined any interest in the legislation and advised him that it would probably be unconstitutional, a direct contradiction of much of the later rationale for the NSA warrantless domestic spying program once it was known. This discovery became widely covered by the national media, which often credited Greenwald for breaking the story. For example, The Washington Post reported:[4]

'The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be unconstitutional to lower the legal standard. ...
'Democrats and national security law experts who oppose the NSA program say the Justice Department's opposition to the DeWine legislation seriously undermines arguments by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and others, who have said the NSA spying is constitutional and that surveillance warrants are often too cumbersome to obtain.
'"It's entirely inconsistent with their current position," said Philip B. Heymann, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration who teaches law at Harvard University. "The only reason to do what they've been doing is because they wanted a lower standard than 'probable cause.' A member of Congress offered that to them, but they turned it down." ...
'The DeWine amendment — first highlighted this week by Internet blogger Glenn Greenwald and widely publicized yesterday by the Project on Government Secrecy, an arm of the Federation of American Scientists — is the latest point of contention in a fierce political and legal battle over the NSA monitoring program.'

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold quoted Greenwald's blog on the floor of the Senate when he introduced Senate Resolution 398, to censure President Bush. [5]

Greenwald is currently working on his second book, which is "an examination of Bush's presidency with an emphasis on his personality traits and beliefs that drove the presidency (along with an emphasis on how and why those personality traits have led to a presidency that has failed to historic proportions)".[2]

[edit] Views on other matters

Greenwald only began blogging in late 2005 and has naturally focussed on matters he thinks are urgent such as eavesdropping without FISA warrants and the Iraq War. Thus his views on many other matters are not widely known. For instance, in a blog comment he wrote[3]

   
“
 Congress' authority to legislate [as recognized by the Supreme Court] far transgresses constitutional limitations as a result of a wildly inflated Commerce Clause,
   
”

a position more commonly associated with political conservatives than with the liberals he is typically allied with in current debates. He made this comment as an aside in criticizing what he sees as the attack by John Yoo (and more generally the Bush administration) on the doctrine of Separation of Powers. Greenwald explained this focus by saying of his criticism of the expansive interpretation of the Commerce Clause:[4]

   
“
 But none of that remotely competes with the fundamental damage to our system of government by vesting full and unconstrained power in the [President]. Put another way, if I have a brain tumor, I won't spend much time complaining about a hang toenail, no matter how annoying it is.
   
”

[edit] Other contributors to Unclaimed Territory

Starting in May/June 2006, while busy on his book promotion tour, Greenwald had several guest bloggers posting to his site. "Anonymous Liberal," Barbara O'Brien and "Hume's Ghost" each have their own blogs in addition to their posts[6] to Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory.

[edit] Controversy and Criticism

In July 2006, Greenwald was accused of praising himself by pseudonymously posting comments on several other blogs, a practice known as sockpuppetry.[7][8] Greenwald denied the charge, stating "I have never left a single comment at any other blog using any name other than my own, at least not since I began blogging."[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bush followers are not conservatives, Unclaimed Territory blog posting, January 16, 2006.
  2. ^ Attorney: Hale Tried To Deliver Encoded Message From Jail, NBC5.com news, March 9, 2005
  3. ^ Good book news, Unclaimed Territory blog posting, June 1, 2006
  4. ^ White House Dismissed '02 Surveillance Proposal, Dan Eggen, Washington Post, Thursday, January 26, 2006 (page A04).
  5. ^ http://www.fednews.com/transcript.htm?id=20060328t3970 Fednews.com (subscription required)
  6. ^ June 2006 Archives, Archives of Unclaimed Territory including posts by all 3 guest bloggers, accessed July 31, 2006
  7. ^ John Patrick Frey, J.D. Devoted Fans of Glenn Greenwald Emphasize the Same Points About His Resume - From the Same IP Address!! 2006-07-20 Patterico.com. Accessed 2006-09-19. Patterico gives a detailed discussion of the grounds for the accusation, based on common IP addresses and writing style.
  8. ^ Dr. Steven Taylor An Alternative Theory to Greenwald’s "Sockpuppetry" 2006-07-20 PoliBlogger.com Accessed 2006-09-22. Taylor (a conservative blogger, but with some sympathies to Greenwald) disputes the sockpuppetry allegations, arguing that the posts are different in style from Greenwald. Taylor speculates that they may have been posted by Greenwald's partner.
  9. ^ Glenn E. Greenwald, J.D. Response to right-wing personal attacks 2006-07-20. Accessed 2006-09-19

[edit] External links

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