GREAT NEWS!---"Greenwald, Poitras Accept Polk Honor for Exposing NSA Surveillance!" Part 1!

[KoKo]

"This Award is for Snowden": Greenwald, Poitras Accept Polk Honor for Exposing NSA Surveillance

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In their first return to the United States since exposing the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance operations, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras were honored in New York City on Friday with the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting. Over the past 10 months, Poitras and Greenwald have played key roles in reporting the massive trove of documents leaked by Edward Snowden. They were joined by colleagues Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post, with whom they shared the award. In their acceptance speeches, Poitras and Greenwald paid tribute to their source. "Each one of these awards just provides further vindication that what [Snowden] did in coming forward was absolutely the right thing to do and merits gratitude, and not indictments and decades in prison," Greenwald said. "None of us would be here … without the fact that someone decided to sacrifice their life to make this information available," Poitras said. "And so this award is really for Edward Snowden."

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Ten months ago, Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald flew from New York to Hong Kong to meet National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Since then, they’ve published a trove of stories exposing the NSA and the national surveillance state. Poitras and Greenwald did not return to the United States until this past Friday, when they flew from Berlin to New York to accept the George Polk Award for National Security Reporting. They flew in not knowing if they would be detained or subpoenaed by the U.S. government. In January, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, described journalists working on the NSA story as Snowden’s, quote, "accomplices." In February, Republican Congressmember Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, accused Glenn Greenwald of selling stolen goods by reporting stories on the NSA documents. Greenwald and Poitras were accompanied on their trip by an ACLU attorney, a German reporter and Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda. Last year, Miranda was detained for nine hours at London’s Heathrow Airport under an anti-terrorism law.

At the George Polk Awards ceremony in New York City Friday, Poitras and Greenwald were joined by their colleagues, Ewen MacAskill of The Guardian and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post, who shared the award with them. This is Laura Poitras, followed by Glenn Greenwald, in their acceptance speeches.

LAURA POITRAS: So, I’m really incredibly honored to be here and thankful to the Polk committee for giving me a really good excuse to come home. This is the first time I’ve been home since I boarded a plane with Glenn and Ewen to go to Hong Kong, and so it’s really spectacular to be here. And it’s also quite disorienting. Last May, you know, the field, what we looked at, was a lot of uncertainty, risk, concern for everyone, and so it’s really extraordinary to be here and receive this award. But I think that it’s important also that we remember that when we actually do this reporting, the enormous risks that journalists take on and especially that sources take on, and in the case of Snowden, putting his life on the line, literally, to share this information to the public, not just the American public, but to the public internationally.

And we—I want to say something about working with Glenn and Ewen. People—you don’t really know how people will respond to risk, until you’re confronted with it. You know, you hope that you’ll stand up and that you’ll have each other’s back, and that those will be the people who will protect you and get you home safely. And I just want to say that this award would not be possible without their courage and bravery and fierce reporting every step of the way. And we were, as Ewen said, untested working together. We had each had our areas of expertise, but we got on the plane having never worked together and did something and worked together in a way that was really extraordinary, and I’ll forever be bound to them.

None of us would be here—Bart, Ewen, Glenn, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, all the people who are being offered these awards—without the fact that someone decided to sacrifice their life to make this information available. He’s not the first person who’s sacrificed their life, but he came forward with information that allows us to know what’s actually happening. And so this award is really for Edward Snowden. Thank you.

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http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/14/this_award_is_for_snowden_glenn

[radiclib]

1. Where are the *YAWN*s and the "zzzzzz" s??

It's been over half an hour already.

[rhett o rick]

2. Heroes in the fight against the oligarchy. nm

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[2banon]

4. Well Deserved!

K&R'd and thanks for posting this KoKo!

[ballyhoo]

5. Way to go folks. Probably not enough to change

our ultimate destiny, but you bought more time to see if we can find a Lincoln.