MEDIA WATCH: Greenwald event for June 26 at Crowne Plaza has been cancelled
The long expected event featuring reporter Glenn Greenwald which was supposed to take place on the evening of June 26, 2014 at "Socialism 2014" has been cancelled, according to a last-minute press release from Haymarket Books. The press release (see below) says that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! will sub for Glenn Greenwald.
Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Laura Poitras (above, left to right) exposed the massive spying by the United States National Security Agency a year ago, and Greenwald's book and articles continue to detail the extent of the spying and the lies of the Obama administration.Greenwald's best selling book "No Place To Hide" details the way in which former CIA and NSA operative Edward Snowden contacted reporters he trusted and began the revelations of the unprecedented spying by the U.S. National Security Agency. "No Place to Hide" consists of four separate revelations, each of which deserves careful reading. One, a spy story reminiscent of John Le Carre, describes how Greenwald and Laura Poidras met with Snowden in Hong Kong, obtained the NSA materials, and began publication of them in the Guardian while Poidras, a video reporter, began the video story of the Snowden revelations. An unprecedented central chapter in the book reveals the various spyings by te United States government, which includes spying on foreign officials, commercial activities, and foreign industries.
Greenwald had scheduled to speak at "Socialism 2013" in Chicago but spoke instead via Skype because of worries that the Obama administration would have him detained at any U.S. airport were he to fly into the United States. The administration's attacks on the press and on freedom of the press have escalated even as the NSA revelations document the extent of the spying and reveal the vastness of the hypocrisy of Barack Obama and his top aides. Most recently, Obama has continued to harass reporters who protect confidential sources.
Substance will continue to cover these international stories, as we have since 1976 when Substance revealed that a Chicago teacher, Sheli Lulking, was a spy for the Chicago Police Red Squad and other agencies. The Substance expose took place before most people had heard of the infamous "COINTELPRO" FBI program directed by J. Edgar Hoover against civil rights, trade union, anti war and other groups that the administrations considered "Communist" or "subversive."
At press time (six a.m. June 26, 2014) Substance didn't know whether Greenwald would be available via Skype as he was a year ago.
HAYMARKET BOOKS PRESS RELEASE:
Glenn Greenwald has had to return to Brazil because of a family medical emergency and will NOT be speaking in Chicago on Thursday, June 26. Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman will be pinch hitting for Glenn, discussing the US Surveillance State and the Corporate Media. If you have purchased tickets on Eventbrite specifically for the Greenwald speech, Haymarket Books will refund you tickets. You will receive this message via Eventbrite. Glenn send's his apologies, but still encourages you to attend the www.SocialismConference.org! ----------------------
In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency�s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments rage on and the government considers various proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden�s disclosures.
In April 2014, Greenwald and his colleagues at The Guardian received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Don't miss Greenwald speak in-person as he fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity eleven-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA�s unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.
Sponsored by Haymarket Books, Center for Economic Research and Social Change, Glaser Progress Foundation and Metropolitan Books
