Glenn Greenwald Calls Obama’s NSA Speech A Publicity Stunt

The journalist Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, talks about secrets and surveillance of the Brazilian government during his presentation at the International Congress of Investigat... The journalist Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, talks about secrets and surveillance of the Brazilian government during his presentation at the International Congress of Investigative Journalism at PUC in Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil, on October 14, 2013. Photo: FABIO MOTTA/ESTADAO CONTEUDO. (Agencia Estado via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has disclosed many National Security Agency secrets with the aid of documents provided by former contractor Edward Snowden, preemptively called President Obama’s Friday speech centered on reforms to the agency as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

“It’s really just basically a PR gesture, a way to calm the public and to make them think there’s reform when in reality there really won’t be,” he said to Al Jazeera America.

“And I think that if the public, at this point, has heard enough about what the NSA does and how invasive it is,” he added, “that they’re going to need more than just a pretty speech from President Obama to feel as though their concerns have been addressed.”

This post has been updated.

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