Glenn Greenwald vs. fellow journalists

Thank, don't criticize, the man who exposed NSA spying

Kirsten Powers, USA Today, 5:35 p.m. EDT May 27, 2014

Since breaking the National Security Agency spying story for The (London) Guardian last year, Glenn Greenwald has been the target of attacks from fellow journalists who seem to labor under the delusion that it's their job to protect the government.

Soon after he reported revelations of government malfeasance provided by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, NBC's David Gregory asked Greenwald, "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden ... why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?"

This accusation, dressed up as a question, was nonsensical. That it came from a fellow journalist was bizarre. How could reporting news be "aiding and abetting"? What crime could Greenwald possibly have committed? Most important, which government minion tricked the host of Meet the Press into thinking that reporters can't — and don't — publish government secrets?

Now we have Michael Kinsley doubling down on the chilling notion that certain types of investigative journalism should be criminalized. In his New York Times review of Greenwald's new book, No Place to Hide, Kinsley argues, "There shouldn't be a special class of people called 'journalists' with privileges like publishing secret government documents."

(More here.)