Thread by @SulomeAnderson

Glenn Greenwald has the nicest fans

This is a thread about how dangerous idiots can be. I will be attaching screenshots of all the tweets I just received in response to the below tweet. There are hundreds of them, most calling me a spy. Please allow me to explain why this is a problem.

https://twitter.com/SulomeAnderson/status/1328763499657502721?s=20

I am morally opposed to journalists working as intelligence agents. Why? Because after my father, a journalist, was kidnapped by terrorists, they tortured him again and again for years, calling him CIA. "I am not a spy!" he would scream. "I am a reporter!" It never stopped them.

When my friend, the aid worker Peter Kassig, was kidnapped by ISIS, he was also tortured and accused of being a spy. Pete was a Ranger before he started an NGO to give civilians in Syria medical care. Apparently his tattoos were a problem for his captors. Pete was killed in 2014.

Time and time again, American hostages--journalists and otherwise--have been falsely called spies, tortured and killed. I have been in many situations where I've had to convince the very dangerous men I am with that I am not a spy. My saving grace has always been that I am not.

It is true that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have used journalists as assets, mounted operations to influence the media and occasionally even use agents who pose as reporters. This is reprehensible, but also rare. The overwhelming majority of journalists are not spies.

Thus, Glenn Greenwald and his army of keyboard crusaders spewing unhinged accusations at journalists and news orgs without a shred of evidence--usually from the safety of a country far, far away from the kind of place where journalists are tortured and killed--endangers us all.

To end, I will just say that the situation on the ground for journalists, aid workers and civilians working/living in conflict zones becomes more dangerous each year. Terrorists, dictators and war criminals have Twitter accounts. Please, think before you say this shit online.

P.S. #FreeRealityWinner