Journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras returned to the United States on Friday for the first time since they exposed the United States government’s vast surveillance using documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Along with Guardian reporter Ewan MacAskill, the team flew to New York to accept the prestigious George Polk Award for national security reporting Friday evening.
It was such a (free press) pleasure to shake @ggreenwald‘s hand last night and meet Laura Poitras for the first time. pic.twitter.com/LxnaTRaCz8
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 13, 2014
Ahead of their arrival, reports speculated that the journalists were under threat of being stopped by U.S. officials.
During his acceptance speech, Greenwald discussed the intimidation that both whistleblowers and journalists face.
“The only way to deal with those kind of threats,” he said, referring to actions such as the airport detention of his partner David Miranda or the destruction of the Guardian’s computers, “is to just do the reporting, as aggressively, if not more so, then you would absent those threats.”
Discussing the many awards and accolades that both Snowden and the reporters recieved, Greenwald said that each one “provides further vindication that what [Snowden] did coming foward was absolutely the right thing to do and merits gratitude and not indictments and decades of prison.”
This article first appeared on Common Dreams.