Glenn Greenwald accepted the 2014 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism Tuesday.

He didn’t show up for the awards ceremony, emceed by the Playboy publisher’s daughter, Christie Hefner, at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

But in a recorded video message to attendees, Greenwald said he thought of his politically conservative father when he found out he won.

“I realized instantly that receiving an award named after Hugh Hefner would be the first time that he really felt unqualified enthusiasm about the work that I was doing, and would be truly impressed in a way that was free of caveats, so thank you for that,” he said.

Greenwald’s award was presented by Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office.

Proposed surveillance reforms in the USA Freedom Act (which goes up for a vote Thursday in the House) “wouldn’t have happened without Glenn,” Murphy said. “[He] broke the logjam.”

Earlier this year, Greenwald won a George Polk Award for his reporting on Edward Snowden’s leaks, and the Guardian co-won a Pulitzer Prize with The Washington Post for its Greenwald-led coverage.

The Hefner awards were first presented in 1980.

Other winners, each of whom appeared in the flesh Tuesday, included authors Christopher Finan and Thomas Healy, student free-speech advocates Mary Beth Tinker and Mike Hiestand, Oklahoma Muslim activist Muneer Awad and Norman Dorsen, former president of the ACLU.