Greenwald Announces New “Grant” Program; First Beneficiary: Greenwald’s Partner
Today Glenn Greenwald and Pierre Omidyar’s media organization First Look is announcing a new grant program they’re hyping as: Promoting and Protecting Free Speech and Free Expression.
And if you’ve been paying attention to the way they do things at First Look, it probably won’t surprise you to learn the first beneficiary of their grant program will be — Glenn Greenwald. Or to be more precise, Greenwald’s partner David Miranda, who is suing the British government to recover the stolen NSA documents he tried to sneak through British customs for Glenn Greenwald.
The amazing gall of these people, promoting this as a purely altruistic endeavor when they’re actually awarding this “grant” to themselves.
Glenn Greenwald’s partner David MirandaPress freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as well as in international charters and conventions. A free press contributes to an informed citizenry and protects against corruption and government malfeasance. As Thomas Jefferson declared, “when the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” Yet the cost of protecting these rights often imposes too heavy a burden on journalists and their employers. FLM’s Press Freedom Litigation Fund is designed to strengthen the ability of journalists to pursue legal fights where a substantial public interest is at stake. Grants under the program can be used to fund challenges to government policies or actions that restrict press freedoms or denials of freedom of information act requests; motions to quash subpoenas seeking source information or journalistic material; defamation cases where the underlying report concerns a matter of public interest; access cases to closed proceedings or sealed documents; and amicus efforts in support of press freedom. There must be a substantial public benefit to any litigation receiving a grant.
Our first grant will be to support the appeal in the case of Miranda v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the UK Court of Appeal.