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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, and columnist at Salon Magazine. While Greenwald describes himself as neither liberal nor conservative, Greenwald has frequently criticized the policies of the George W. Bush Administration and conservatives who support it - albeit claiming that "Bush followers are not conservatives".

Background

Greenwald 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.

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, Hale attempted to use Greenwald to convey a coded message, but Greenwald refused. 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.

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.

Unclaimed Territory and Salon.com

Greenwald started a blog, "Unclaimed Territory", 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.

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:

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.

On February 1, 2007, Greenwald announced that he was moving his blog to Salon Magazine, where he would also be a contributing writer. In his last post at Unclaimed Territory dated February 12, 2007, Greenwald directed his readers to Salon Magazine.

Books

Greenwald wrote the New York Times best selling book, How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok.. Pre-orders placed the book at #1 on Amazon.com in less than 24 hours, where it stayed for several days.

Greenwald is currently working on his second book A Tragic Legacy, 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)". A Tragic Legacy is due to be released on June 26, 2007.

Controversial practices

Starting as early as July 2006, several commenters posted comments on conservative blogs (especially when there was an article critical of Greenwald and perceived mis-stating of facts and other distortions he used in his blog and writings) praising Greenwald from his IP address. These commenters have names like Ellison, Thomas Ellers, and Rick Ellensburg. The commenters posting from his IP address are similar to Greenwald in personality, writing style, and verbal tics; English competency and usage; and obsessive interest in and encyclopaedic knowledge of Greenwald’s posts, Greenwald’s updates, his commenters, and his enemies. In some cases "Rick Ellensburg" would write comments very similar to Glenn Greenwald posts the day before Glenn Greenwald actually writes them on his blog.. Some confusion has resulted from this, as each of these commenters sounds exactly like Glenn Freaking Greenwald. Consequently, their views have been mistaken for his by some readers.

This situation was documented by conservative bloggers Ace of Spades HQ as well as Patterico's Pontifications, which tracked Greenwald's IP over many comment threads. Greenwald claimed someone else in his household was making the posts, not he, but despite "someone's" voluminous written defense of Greenwald in comments sections, "someone" never stepped up to claim responsibility. The consensus conclusion was that it was indeed Greenwald defending himself while pretending to be various anonymous posters. This led to doubts about Greenwald's veracity and honesty, tarnishing his reputation as one of the up-and-coming leftist bloggers.

• Parody of Greenwald's sockpuppetry
• Roundup of investigationsabout Greenwald's alleged use of false identities to defend his writings on conservative blog's comment threads.
• The Glenn Greenwald Sock Puppet Story, From Start To (Almost) Finish
• To Know Glenn's Sock-Puppets Is To Love Glenn's Sock Puppets
• Devoted Fans of Glenn Greenwald Emphasize the Same Points About His Resume — From the Same IP Address
• Glenn Greenwald’s IP Address Stolen

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. http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/07/response-to-right-wing-personal.html
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. Greenwald, Glenn (1 February 2007). "Blog News". Unclaimed Territory. Retrieved 2007-02-02. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. Good book news, Unclaimed Territory blog posting, June 1, 2006
8. http://www.haloscan.com/comments/glenngreenwald/116307161281500794/#54519
9. Parody of Greenwald's sockpuppetry
10. Roundup of investigationsabout Greenwald's alleged use of false identities to defend his writings on conservative blog's comment threads.
11. The Glenn Greenwald Sock Puppet Story, From Start To (Almost) Finish
12. To Know Glenn's Sock-Puppets Is To Love Glenn's Sock Puppets
13. Devoted Fans of Glenn Greenwald Emphasize the Same Points About His Resume — From the Same IP Address
14. Glenn Greenwald’s IP Address Stolen

External links

• Glenn Greenwald Column at Salon
• Unclaimed Territory Greenwald's blog
• Video - Greenwald debates University of Virginia law professor Robert Turner on C-SPAN, February 2006

• 1967 births
• Living people
• American bloggers
• American political writers
• LGBT people from the United States
• New York lawyers
• George Washington University alumni