Glenn Greenwald: Americans' Liberties are in Danger

Journalist Glenn Greenwald joins the show to discuss due process, immigration enforcement, and the growing tensions between the courts and executive power.

Subscribe
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@reasonJustAskingQuestions/featured
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-asking-questions/id1719355507
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5SpySKAH3LuVyxXk0MF7tl

Text and links to sources available here: https://reason.com/podcast/2025/04/24/glenn-greenwald-americans-liberties-are-in-danger/

Why is a man who was legally protected from deportation sitting in one of the world's most notorious prisons in El Salvador? This week on Just Asking Questions, Pultizer Prize-winning Glenn Greenwald returns to discuss a case that cuts to the heart of American constitutionalism and due process. Greenwald, known for his reporting on the NSA and his founding role at The Intercept, has become one of the most consistent civil libertarian voices across political eras. He joins Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller to break down how and why the Trump administration ignored a court order to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and why this defiance should concern everyone, regardless of their politics.

But this episode goes beyond one case. It's about the creeping normalization of lawless executive power—from the misuse of anti-terror labels, to the fast-growing deportation dragnet sweeping up even lawful residents, to proposed federal overhauls of speech and campus expression.

This episode was recorded on April 23, 2025.

Chapters
00:00 Coming up…
00:21 Introduction and setup
01:13 The Abrego Garcia case and due process violations
11:00 Trump's legal defiance and the Supreme Court's unanimous rebuke
17:15 Parallels to the War on Terror and the misuse of "terrorist"
23:30 The threat to American citizens and executive overreach
30:00 The limits of Supreme Court enforcement and implications for democracy
37:20 Civil liberties, citizenship, and the universal reach of the Constitution
42:00 Is this a constitutional emergency? Parsing Ezra Klein's warning
48:00 Free speech crackdown: protests, deportations, and political enemies
56:00 Activist surveillance groups and foreign influence in U.S. policy
01:06:30 Rufo, ideological capture, and the right's new institutional strategy
01:13:45 Institutional cowardice vs. backlash: What happens next?
01:20:00 Can civil institutions resist authoritarian pressure?
01:24:00 Pardoning Snowden, and the unpredictable nature of Trump