Glenn Greenwald Quotes

In all questions between a government and an individual the presumption in every Englishman's mind is that the government is in the wrong.

It is only in the freest of nations that people can not only criticize the government, fairly or unfairly, but in extraordinarily few—only the greatest—do the negative criticisms get very wide distribution. Look for the nation where their media are full of criticisms, and there you will find a nation sufficiently free and confident to consider possible improvement from any and all sources.

A country that goes out of its way to imprison the innocent has no business preaching democracy to the world.

Criticism of government finds sanctuary in several portions of the 1st Amendment. It is part of the right of free speech. It embraces freedom of the press.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.

Criticism in a free man's country is made on certain assumptions, one of which is the assumption that the government belongs to the people and is at all times subject to the people's correction and criticism.

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

Only in democratic countries is there the beginning of a suspicion that the old axioms about the press being the bulwark of liberty is something that affects the daily life of the people--that it is a living warning rather than an ancient wisecrack. A people that wants to be free must arm itself with a free press..

What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition

The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.

I fear you do not fully comprehend the danger of abridging the liberties of the people. Nothing but the sternest necessity can ever justify it. A government had better go to the extreme of toleration, than to do aught that could be construed into an interference with, or to jeopardize in any degree, the common rights of its citizens.

What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn't obey its own laws?

In a government bottomed on the will of all, the... liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all.

The Soviet Union is going to have a human-rights explosion. You'll have hundreds of thousands of dissidents.

In a democracy, everyone has the right to criticise the Government.

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen.

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.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

To large numbers of American citizens life in certain parts of the country becomes intolerably hazardous. They may be seized on any pretext, however flimsy, and put to death with horrible tortures. No government pretending to be civilized can go on condoning such atrocities. Either it must make every possible effort to put them down or it must suffer the scorn and contempt of Christendom.

Cows is one thing. But one man telling another man where he can go in this country is something else.

I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.

The worst way to defend our freedom is to let our leaders start taking away our freedoms! It is exactly during times like these [a national crisis] that we need more freedom of speech, a strong and critical press, and a citizenry that is not afraid to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes.

The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere, and should not be demonized or condemned for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge and criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democratic, nor what this country has stood for over 200 years.