Glenn Greenwald resigns from board of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

[Better Believe It]

Greenwald quits CREW over WikiLeaks

The Salon blogger and civil libertarian (and sometime POLITICO critic) Glenn Greenwald has quit his post on the board of the liberal ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington over the group's criticism of WikiLeaks.

Greenwald's letter of resignation:


December 12, 2010

To the Board of Directors of CREW:

I am hereby resigning from the Board of Directors, effective immediately. I fully expected when joining the Board that CREW would periodically take positions with which I disagreed, and that was perfectly acceptable to me.

But the recent condemnation of WikiLeaks by Anne Weismann, purporting to speak on behalf of CREW, is both baffling and unacceptable to me. It is baffling because I cannot fathom how a group purportedly devoted to greater transparency in government could condemn an entity that has brought more transparency to governments and corporations around the world than any single other organization by far. And it is unacceptable to me because I believe defense of WikiLeaks has become one of the greatest and most important political causes that exists -- certainly one to which I intend to devote myself -- and I do not want to be affiliated with any group which works to undermine it.

I remain supportive of much of the work done by CREW and wish the organization nothing but the best.

Very truly yours,

Glenn Greenwald

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1210/Greenwald_quits_CREW_over_WikiLeaks.html?showall

[Autumn]

1. Kudos to Glenn Greenwald

we need a few more people like him.

[Better Believe It]

2. We need a lot more people like Glenn Greenwald!

[Foo Fighter]

12. We need someone like him running in 2012.

Sadly, we'll probably get the same old crap as usual.

[chimpymustgo]

25. Perchance to dream... Greenwald is a treasure.

[avaistheone1]

37. Yes, the world is badly in need of more heroes like him

in these sad hours.

I am so proud of the principles in Greenwald standing on. At the same time I am shocked by CREW's stance.

[eleny]

3. kr

[howaboutme]

4. Hysterical group think is what got us into Iraq War

Good for Glen. Remember how the Dixie Chicks were vilified by the fascists?

[awoke_in_2003]

39. yep...

half of Texas was all atwitter about it. The same folks who cry about the constitution have no idea what freedom of speech is all about.

[truedelphi]

62. That sentiment would be a laugh riot,

If it wasn't so potentially a threat to us all.

[Eddie Haskell]

66. Group think

like those who label people who question the "official" story as conspiracy theorists.

[marylanddem]

5. What an elegant writer - and he's got integrity.

Thanks for posting. In these crazy times it is good to know that people of principle still exist.

[Scurrilous]

6. K & R

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[thunder rising]

7. That's good to know ... no more money for CREW.

[GodlessBiker]

8. Very nice, Glenn. Proud of you!

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. Cheers Glenn!

Good for you!

[glitch]

10. Very baffling. WTF? Glenn Greenwald impresses again. nt

[Angry Dragon]

11. A man with spine

[struggle4progress]

13. Here's what Weisman said:

... For those of us in the transparency business, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) offers a useful tool to pierce government secrecy. Designed to let the public know what its government is up to, the FOIA mandates disclosure upon request, subject to nine limited exemptions. Those exemptions represent a congressional balancing of governmental interests, such as national security and investigative needs, against the public's need to know. For agencies that stray off course, the FOIA provides judicial review, allowing courts to view requested documents in camera to determine if they were properly withheld. While the FOIA is far from perfect, it provides the public with a useful tool for scrutinizing government actions and policies balanced by oversight and procedural safeguards.

Some may attempt to justify the flaws in WikiLeaks' disclosure process by pointing out the usefulness of the leaked cables. While in the short run we may have gained valuable insight into how the U.S. conducts foreign diplomacy, in the long run WikiLeaks' reckless actions likely will endanger transparency. The government has long relied on a "mosaic theory" to justify withholding unclassified information from FOIA requesters. According to this theory, bits of unclassified and seemingly innocuous information may threaten national security when they are pieced together in a broad compilation or "mosaic." The next time the government attempts to invoke this theory to justify withholding a document under the FOIA, it will point to the actions of WikiLeaks as Exhibit A for why the government must maintain the secrecy of non-classified documents. Courts will be more likely to agree that the FOIA's exemptions should be stretched to accommodate the government's concerns. Post-WikiLeaks, the mosaic theory may have no discernable limits.

We can also anticipate legislation equating the actions of WikiLeaks with those of journalists, subjecting both to greater risk of criminal prosecution. However irresponsibly WikiLeaks has acted, the newspapers that published portions of the leaked cables appear to have proceeded with far greater caution. And, unlike WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the newspapers were not motivated by a desire to harm U.S. interests. Nevertheless, in the emotional aftermath of such an enormous leak, any legislative backlash against WikiLeaks may also sweep in journalists, failing to distinguish WikiLeaks and similar entities from other media.

Finally, contrary to some suggestions, WikiLeaks is not a whistleblower. Decades ago a whistleblower by the name of Daniel Elsberg, motivated by a desire to inform the public of illegal governmental misconduct, leaked to the New York Times and Congress a copy of the Pentagon Papers. The newspaper published the papers after discussions with the government to aid public debate on issues of great national importance. WikiLeaks, by contrast, seeks to advance an agenda of self-aggrandizement at the expense of U.S. interests, with reckless disregard for the consequences of its actions ...

Anne L. Weismann
Chief Counsel, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Posted: December 9, 2010 09:42 AM
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WikiLeaks Damages Hopes for a Transparent Government
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-l-weismann/wikileaks-damages-hopes-f_b_794312.html

I don't know whether Weisman's analysis is correct in every detail, but I think she is quite likely correct to anticipate a legislative backlash against transparency in the coming Congress: I hope the people cheering today for Wikileaks are already organizing effectively to help protect journalists and openness when that backlash comes

[progressoid]

15. I think she's deluded about FOIA

We have seen for the last decade or more how the gov't postpones, ignores or just plain refuses FOI requests. I doubt any of the wikileaks would been seen from a FOI request.

[struggle4progress]

46. U.S. National Archives Web Site Uploads Thousands of Diplomatic Cables (2006)

Washington, DC, April 21, 2006 - Last month the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) put almost 320,000 declassified cables on-line when it opened up State Department document databases from 1973 and 1974. This is significant news for researchers, because the text of declassified diplomatic cables is now retrievable on the NARA Web site.

Beginning in 1973, the State Department began creating electronic systems for transmitting cables to and from U.S. embassies. With computerized records management becoming standard practice, only electronic copies of the cables would be saved in the State Department's Central Foreign Policy Files. Over time, NARA will put on-line State Department document databases for the years after 1974. The new databases provide extensive coverage of key events of the period, from the October War, to the conflict in Indochina, to developments in Chile surrounding the September 1973 coup against the Allende government. They also include withdrawal cards of documents that are still classified, so that they can be requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ...

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB188/index.htm

[jeanpalmer]

16. If she's going to be wrong on the issues

the least she could do is spell Daniel Ellsberg correctly.

[valerief]

28. LOL. Guess she wants to be wrong on the details, too. nt

[struggle4progress]

48. TIME's Julian Assange Interview: Full Transcript/Audio

Wednesday, Dec. 01, 2010

... RS: One of the unintended consequences is the opposite effect, which is what we've seen with the Department of Defense, and even the State Department, here in the U.S., of trying to make secrets more impenetrable rather than less and trying to take precautions against what has happened from happening again in the future. How do you regard that?

JA: Well, I think that's very positive ...

RS: Are there any instances <in> diplomacy or global affairs in which you see secrecy as necessary and as an asset?

JA: Yes, of course. We keep secret the identity of our sources ...

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2034040,00.html

So Assange shares Weisman's view that wikileaks is likely to provoke a backlash that reduces information availability -- but Assange thinks that would be a good thing

[Voice for Peace]

26. I don't get where people say Assange is trying to harm America.

Or many of the other things people say about the man.

Not my impression of him at all, not as an activist nor
as a human being. He strikes me as having a high level of
integrity and purity of purpose, which is very simply
a long-term vision of a system whereby cheat and deceit
have no place to hide. And the brilliance to pull it off.

[Bandit]

34. I agree and in fact I think his motives are the exact opposite

I think he is trying to save America.. Free it from the clutches of incompetence and evil...When you blow the whistle on evil people doing evil things it most definitely is not "harming" our country.. Republicans think they are the country and of course they would feel harmed. Not sure why this person would feel that way..

[awoke_in_2003]

40. "integrity and purity"

these things are not harmful to America the ideal, but they are very destructive of what we are in reality- a stampeding bully running roughshod in the world.

[glinda]

27. When did she become Jury and Judge?

[struggle4progress]

49. That's a misleading characterization of Weisman's article

[pnwmom]

53. Thanks for the link. n/t

[rhett o rick]

55. She is not on our side. She declares, as do tyrants, that whistle-blowers are aiming

at destruction. "WikiLeaks, by contrast, seeks to advance an agenda..." and "..unlike WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the newspapers were not motivated by a desire to harm U.S. interests." How does she know their agenda?

She is basically saying that whistle-blowing will only make the monster mad.

She has chosen the side of tyranny.

[frazzled]

14. Greenwald is such a one-note first amendment advocate

that he loses all sense of rationality. (I refer you to the Matthew Hale case.)

You can take civil liberties too far. Absolutism, even with first amendment, leads you down the path to myopia, and eventually nonsense. I don't think CREW lost too much.

[Karmadillo]

17. "You can take civil liberties too far." Maybe, but that sure isn't our problem right now.

nt

[DirkGently]

21. Precisely. We are not living in a "too much freedom of speech" world. Nice going, Glenn.

[MedicalAdmin]

20. Did you actually say that?

Is it even possible to take civil liberties too far? Rights are, by their very nature absolute.

Do you think that the ACLU is a waste of time?

[frazzled]

22. Absolutely

No, I don't think the ACLU is a waste of time (I was a paying member for many many years), but they're also not perfect. I had my falling out with my state ACLU (of which I was a member ) when they failed to oppose state laws that used state monies to pay for religious school services, like busing and special services.

First amendment rights go too far when it comes to hate speech, which harms people. So I don't think defending a neo-Nazi, white supremacist's unfettered rights is a smart use of a progressive's legal skills. Even on principle.

Here's two prime examples of limiting free speech rights that are correct: not allowing abortion opponents to harrass women at the doorways to clinics; not allowing Fred Phelps's group to yell homophobic slurs wherever they want, including at the door to Elizabeth Edwards's funeral. Legal precedent has been able to limit the rights of such hate groups, even while protecting the first amendment. An absolutist civil liberties LIBERTARIAN like Greenwald sees no such boundary.

[MedicalAdmin]

36. An excellent and thoughtful reply. Thank you for that.

You've given me some thoughts to ponder. But I still think that rights, while may be adjudicated to have limits in certain small instances, at their core rights must be absolute. It should take a constitutional amendment or SCOTUS decision to change that. It can't be at a whim.

As much as I enjoy a good argument, I fear that on this subject we agree.

Have a great day.

[pokercat999]

42. The two examples you site are issues of disturbing the

peace not free speech. However the people you site have every right to make their arguments in print, or by voice in the appropriate forum like on the radio or TV.

[Jakes Progress]

44. T'aint free speech you are talking about.

In both cases the issue was disturbing the peace.

Would you care to tell us just how Wikileaks is going too far? I suspect you may be laboring under the msm version of what that organization is doing.

It makes for nice copy to use terms like absolutist and libertarian (in quotes yet) but you don't give examples to prove your purple prose. Have you any evidence that Greenwald favors either abortion opponents to harrass phelps to disrupt? If not then your using those examples kind of disproves you allegations that Greenwald is the kind of absolutist you claim. How about giving us examples of his capital letter libertarianism. He has been writing for a long time. Surely you didn't just throw that word out without any evidence or proof of claim. Did you?

[skepticscott]

59. Uh, hate speech "harms people"

in exactly what ways?

[frazzled]

60. Families mourning the deaths of their children, for instance

Young men and women who lost their lives on battlefields, who are faced with Westboro Baptist Church protesters screaming hateful epithets and holding signs decrying homosexuality as an "abomination" and saying "Thank God for dead soldiers." That is why their free speech has been LIMITED by police orders (as to the distance they may be to a funeral) or even laws, as in Kansas, which outlawed picketing at funerals, and in Indiana, Michigan, and South Dakota,, which limited the distance people could "speak" (protest) at funerals. Free speech is not absolute: it can be limited, within the Constitution. Even the Bush administration pushed legislation to limit the free speech of these hateful people:

On May 29, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act (Pub.L. 109-228), prohibiting protests within 300 feet (91 m) of the entrance of any cemetery under control of the National Cemetery Administration from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral.<76> Penalties for violating the act are up to $100,000 in fines and up to one year imprisonment.<76> The bill garnered overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress with a 408–3 vote in the House, with 21 not voting, and a unanimous vote in the Senate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

Women who make the painful choice to abort a pregnancy also do not have to be subjected to the "free speech" of hateful people who yell at them as they enter abortion clinics. By law, these people can't exercise their free speech within a certain distance of abortion clinics. So their right to free speech is NOT absolute. They may not speak anywhere they want.

I could go on, but there is ample legal precedent for the notion that free speech is not an absolute right and may be limited.

Speech can certainly harm people: think of all the young people who have committed suicide because of being told they are "fags." No law against such bullying has been passed, but if a school were to expel any student for harrassing another student on the basis of sexual orientation or any other factor, and that school policy were upheld, then free speech would be limited. Not absolute.

[skepticscott]

65. You've mentioned no "harm" other than

being offended, annoyed, angered or having your feelings hurt. If those are justifications for restricting free speech, then exactly what kinds of speech is the First Amendment intended to protect?

[Lucky 13]

30. AGREED.

I mean we can't have people or journalists running around saying whatever they want! It weakens our position around the world when we allow criticisms of our President or government or corporations to go to print. It's inciting riots and violence really. In fact, I propose that we abolish the fourth estate and move to government controlled information dissemination. It will allow us to control messaging and ensure only the facts are reported. A "no spin zone" if you will.

[BlueMTexpat]

32. You forgot the sarcasm thingie. Otherwise, good post! nt

[Lucky 13]

33. There's no sarcasm thingie allowed in the "no spin zone".

It's not American.

[Le Taz Hot]

18. Yess!!!!

The people lining up against the WikiLeak persecution is looking phenomenal. It's like a who's who of REAL LIBERALS and activists.

[Dokkie]

19. K & R

You can always count on GG to do the right thing

[webDude]

23. GO GLENN!!!

[davidwparker]

24. K&R

... for reading about someone with character and the courage of his convictions.

[sirthomas66]

29. Excellent, Mr. Greenwald. Anne Weismann has no business

on CREW. This is a prime example of a bought-and-paid-for hypocrite. There will be no government transparency as long as such people are on the BOD of CREW.

[Uncle Joe]

31. Kudos to Glenn Greenwald for his ethics.

Thanks for the thread, Better Believe It.

[xchrom]

35. recommend

[awoke_in_2003]

38. at least someone...

lived up to the name of their organization.

[femrap]

41. I'm very disappointed w/ CREW.

No more funds for them.

Hopefully there will be a retraction. OK, I'm dreaming.

[Gravel Democrat]

43. kopac i polecamy

Lots of people have eyes but can't even
see something in front of their face!

Thankfully that's not "uniquely american"

[L. Coyote]

45. And, I'm resigning from urging people to support CREW!

[AllyCat]

47. What is up with CREW?? Seriously? Good for you Mr. Greenwald to stick to your guns

I hope you find a similar venture to continue the good work you do. May CREW figure it out in the near future.

[NuttyFluffers]

50. i remember getting a preview of his feelings this monday on Majority Report

said pretty much he was going to resign and why 48 hours ago.

... which is my oblique way to plug the Majority Report and Sam Seder. ;) hard hitting talk about what the experts (aka. talking heads?) are really feeling, before the Snooze Media wakes up and realize what's goin' on.

Good for Glen. and i loved his explanation in this letter and on monday's interview.

[DeSwiss]

51. Good on ya Glenn.....

...because TRUTH is a zero-sum game.

K&R

[VeryConfused]

52. Interesting

[felix_numinous]

54. K&R

[rhett o rick]

56. The world is choosing sides. Anne Weismann appears to side with tyranny. nm

[leveymg]

57. CREW, like a number of other mildly liberal "watchdog" groups has uncovered precious little in

recent years. They seem unwilling to enter into investigations that might really upset the Powers That Be in Washington and Wall Street. I think they waste a lot resources that would be better spent elsewhere.

Here's a link to the page with their most recent FOIA requests. http://www.scribd.com/CREWFOIA They're all about domestic partner violence at Ft Bragg and other bases. Not very weighty subject matter, considering the towering level of corruption at DoD.

[defendandprotect]

58. Congratulations GREENWALD -- goodbye Crew ... !!!

[IsrealBissel]

61. Good for Glenn! He has integrity!

[BrklynLiberal]

63. A man of principle...how unique.

[bertman]

64. Thank you, Glenn. We need more CREW members with principals. REC. nt

[malaise]

67. K & R

for Truth - bravo Glen