At the same time, the Obama Administration has been very aggressive of that during things like investigating and prosecuting Whistle Blowers who, back in 2002-2003 disclosed high level law-breaking and criminality and so, they are very willing to look backward and prosecute when it suits them.
Rob Kall: Opednews, the site I publish is very involved with the whistle Blower community. We're the go-to place for their articles. And the Whistle Blowers, say that the Obama Administration is worse than all the previous presidents combined when it comes to the way they treat whistle blowers. How does that jibe with your book and what you have to say?
Glenn Greenwald: Well, it is just fascinating that the Obama Administration has been so aggressively protecting high-level criminals and yet they've been punishing those who expose criminality. So, if you look, for example, at the NSA warrantless eavesdropping scandal, what is amazing there is that not a single one of the people responsible for spying on Amerixans without warrants, have been held accountable or punished in any way. The only person to be punished in anyway from that episode is someone named Thomas Tam. He was a mid-level Justice Department lawyer who found out that the Bush administration was flying without the warrants of cry bygone when they pick up the phone and call their Eric Lichtblau at the New York Times to tell him that this was taking place. The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that, but the Bush and Obama DOJ assembled the Grand Jury and issued subpoenas and aimed at investigating not the law-breaking but who disclosed the law-breaking, Thomas Tam lost his job and he could not really even afford lawyers and he ended up in bankruptcy trying to defend himself from these investigations, so that's very - a sort of a personification of how this two tiered justice system works. The law-breakers at the highest level of government were shielded while the whistleblower was prosecuted.
Rob Kall: When this happens again and again, are precedents set? Is this something that once it happens, it kind of gets embellished into the law?
Glenn Greenwald: Sure. I mean, everything with the law is a precedent, so if something happens and the certain outcome takes place, the next time that same thing happened, people will point to that outcome as a - as how the law functions and justify doing it again.
So, absolutely that's what happened with the Ford pardon of Nixon. A lot of people believed that it was important to protect Richard Nixon as this one-time aberration and that set a precedent, that whenever political leaders break the law and disharmony would result from prosecution, it is better that they just simply protect them, pardon them, shield them and move on. And that became a precedent and every time that we've done that since, with Iran contra, now with the Bush crimes, with Wall street criminals-- that creates more precedents normalizing this idea that elites should be shielded from the rule of law.
Rob Kall: Yuck. So, what about corporate personhood? It is almost like these elites are getting the same kind of treatment as corporations. It is like an overlap 'cause corporations get specie treatment, too.
Glenn Greenwald: Well, I mean, a corporation, of course is really nothing more than a reflection of typically wealthy individuals who are their shareholders. And so the law has been exploited lots of different ways to make sure that the interest of elites are protected.
Now, I'm not somebody who believes that this issue is so clear-cut. If you look at, for example, at the ACLU or labor unions and the like, most people think that they should have some constitutional protection that the government shouldn't be able to see the, I think, account-to-be COU without due process that it shouldn't be able to invade their offices without a search Warrant. That it shouldn't be able to punish the unions for their first enrollment free speech. So, we do believe that entities are protected under the Constitution and in ways that the Constitution describes as being the rights of persons. But I think it's really more of a systemic problem that the courts are basically very pre-disposed to deciding in favor of corporations, even when they get caught breaking the law and I think that's really the problem.
Rob Kall: This is getting worse and worse? How much worse could it get? What are ways that it could get even worse than it is now?
Glenn Greenwald: Well, I mean, there is no reason why it could not continue get worse. I mean, we've seen nations of the world that have severe amounts of income inequality and wealth inequality. And that is one of the problems-- the more the rich are able to consolidate their wealth and then use that wealth to exert influence over the political process, the more they're going to continue to try and entrench their power, to increase it, to expand it. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle with the rich-poor gap just creates its own momentum to continue to grow. And we're already at the point. We've seen riots and unrest and disruptions in other societies that have less problem with economic anxiety and suffering and inequality than the United States has. And it just stands to reason that we're going to have a lot of that unrest and disruption and potentially even rioting as well if things continue on their current path.
Rob Kall: Wow. You talk about outcome inequality. What is that about?
Glenn Greenwald: Well, the way I look at outcome inequality and then a sort of analogize the issue to say a running race where, in a fair and legitimate running race, everyone starts at the same point-- the starting line--and can only run when the starting gun is shot and has to abide by the same rules. You can't invade the lanes of the other runners. You can't knock them down with your elbows. Everyone has to maintain an arms-length relationship with the Judge. You can't pay the Judge to decide on your favor.
As long as those basic rules are abided by that assure a fair playing field then we accept inequality and outcomes as legitimate. So, someone is going to cross the finish line first and be declared the winner and the fastest runner. They're going to get some cash prize for having won. There is going to be a second place finisher and then a last place finisher.
That's what I mean by outcome inequality. Somebody wins and gets more and somebody loses and gets less. And we generally accept that in the United States if we believe that it is legitimate. So, for example, Steve Jobs died with eight billion dollars. Nobody really begrudged him having eight billion dollars, even though there was mass joblessness and homelessness and mortgage foreclosures and massive inequality because there was a perception that he had earned that money and earned those winnings. The problem comes when the outcome inequality seems illegitimate because it is the byproduct, not of merit and achievement, but of cheating, of rule breaking on an uneven playing field and I think that is clearly the position we are in.
Rob Kall: Yeah. Now, I was reading in the Wall Street Journal today there was an article about prisons. There are more and more private prisons and private prisons are trying to prevent prisoners from being able to have the same access to lawsuits that they have in Federal Prisons. What do you think of that? Where does that fit into this picture.
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