A Brazilian official has taken the unusual step of publicly announcing that the Brazilian government will offer Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald protection from the U.S. government after determining he risks facing legal action if he returns to the U.S.<\/span>
<\/span>To receive protection from Brazil, Greenwald would have to officially request it. But though he takes the risk of prosecution seriously, Greenwald tells me he has no intention of taking the Brazilian government up on the offer \u2014 and that he plans to return to the U.S. sooner than later, come what may.<\/span>
<\/span>\u201cI haven\u2019t requested any protection from the Brazilian government or any other government because, rather obviously, I\u2019ve committed no crime \u2014 unless investigative journalism is now a felony in the U.S.,\u201d Greenwald said via email. \u201cBut the fact that Brazilian authorities believe there is a real possibility that the U.S. would unjustly prosecute journalists for the \u2018crime\u2019 of reporting what the U.S. government is doing is a powerful indictment of the U.S.\u2019s current image in the world \u2014 just as was the requirement that the U.S. promise it will not torture or kill Snowden if he\u2019s returned. It\u2019s an equally potent reflection of the massive gap in opinion between the U.S. Government and the rest of the world when it comes to how the NSA disclosures, my reporting, and Snowden are perceived.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span>\u201cGiven that the Obama DOJ has adopted theories that would criminalize journalism in both the WikiLeaks Grand Jury proceeding and the investigation of James Rosen, given that it has waged what most observers agree is an unprecedented war on whistle-blowers, and given that several prominent political figures and journalists have called for my prosecution, I obviously take the risk seriously,\u201d Greenwald adds. \u201cBut I take more seriously the Constitution\u2019s guarantee of a free press in the First Amendment. So I have every intention of entering the U.S. as soon as my schedule permits and there\u2019s a reason to do so.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIf he sets foot in the United States while Obama is president, he will be harassed, and almost certainly detained, at least briefly. (The reality will likely be worse.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Glenn Greenwald lives in Brazil, though he regularly returns to the United States. In response to an offer of protection from Brazilian officials, Greenwald has stated that he will not be applying for protection from US prosecution: A Brazilian official has taken the unusual step of publicly announcing that the Brazilian government will offer Guardian …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[971,970,1169,1129,972],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-corruption","category-heroism","category-journalism","category-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186962"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}