Summary

Introduction. Just a few months after Greenwald began a political blog, he learned that the George W. Bush administration had authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on American’s electronic communications without getting a warrant. Greenwald wrote extensively about this issue and, as a result, Edward Snowden chose him to be one of several persons with whom to release secret information.

Greenwald describes the controversy in terms of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which states that American citizens should be free from unlawful search and seizure. He argues that this extends to electronic surveillance even though the Bush administration argued that the NSAs actions were justified to protect Americans from terrorist attack. These types of illegal surveillance have been going on for years. Back in the 1970s, an investigation discovered that the American government had gathered information about many people they...