The Intercept is now engaging in the same conduct the paper was founded to reject.
On Tuesday, one of the publication’s founders, Glenn Greenwald, who resigned last fall after his own paper refused to allow him to criticize Hunter Biden, posted an email to subscribers where its writers boast of their surveillance into conservative social media users.
“The Intercept was founded during the Snowden story to defend privacy rights & oppose the security state,” Greenwald tweeted. “Now, the liberal DNC hacks who ‘edit’ it are boasting they got personal data from Gab users & are sorting through it, doing FBI’s work to find ‘extremists.'”
This is repulsive. The Intercept was founded during the Snowden story to defend privacy rights & oppose the security state. Now, the liberal DNC hacks who "edit" it are boasting they got personal data from Gab users & are sorting through it, doing FBI's work to find "extremists." pic.twitter.com/GHpJRosvod
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 4, 2021
Greenwald launched The Intercept in 2014 after he broke the whistleblower story from Edward Snowden detailing U.S. surveillance on American citizens while at The Guardian in 2013. Greenwald stepped down from the publication he founded in October when, at the height of the American presidential campaign, editors refused to publish Greenwald’s criticisms of then-Democrat nominee Joe Biden and the family’s potentially criminal conflicts of interest.
“The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression” Greenwald wrote in a Substack column. “The censored article, based on recently revealed emails and witness testimony, raised critical questions about Biden’s conduct.”
"The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression."
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 29, 2020
Greenwald explained that Intercept editors went as far as to refuse Greenwald the freedom to publish the content with any other publication. They also, he says, declined his offer to refute his claims with an article of their own challenging Greenwald’s assertions and allow readers to decide with whom they agreed.