The fact that war is the word we use for almost everythingโon terrorism, drugs, even povertyโhas certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?
Glenn GreenwaldItโs 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 GreenwaldWhen 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 GreenwaldThere 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 GreenwaldA 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 GreenwaldRevealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law--the supreme law--was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.
Glenn Greenwald