The Brazilian federal government on Tuesday revealed charges of cyber crimes against Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald for allegedly assisting leakers of explosive messages written by high-ranking law enforcement officials.

The messages published by Greenwald's outlet, The Intercept, cast doubt on the integrity of an

anti-corruption task force. Press freedom advocates immediately decried the charges as a dangerous

blow to basic press freedoms. Greenwald himself told Washington Post cybersecurity reporter Joseph Marks, quote,

governments are figuring out how they can criminalize journalism based on large-scale leaks.

Marks joins us now. Joe, welcome to on the media.

Pleasure to be here.

According to the Brazilian government, what exactly were Greenwald's crimes?

They allege that he essentially participated in the hacking of a series of text messages that were later released on Brazil Intercept,

focused on corruption investigation that The Intercept showed was relatively tainted that helped lead to President Bolsonaro's rise.

They say that he participated in the crime because he advised his anonymous sources

to delete their copies of the text messages after they sent them.

Glenn Greenwald says he understands Brazilian law.

He was scrupulous to stay within the

letter of Brazilian law and that it's standard journalistic practice to help your sources

keep themselves out of danger while they're speaking with you. And that's what he was doing when

he says he simply told them that he was keeping copies of these text messages they didn't need to.

They say, no, you were helping them to evade detection, and that's being part of the conspiracy,

and it's a crime.

Now, this is horrified press freedom advocates the world over, not only because of the case in Brazil itself,

but because, you know, it seems to be part of a trend of governments,

especially right-wing governments, using cybercrime laws to prosecute just plain journalism,

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