Glenn Greenwald went on the warpath Thursday morning following the arrest of Julian Assange in London.

In a lengthy Twitter rant, Greenwald — founder of The Intercept — blasted those in the media who are not speaking out against the arrest, arguing it is a direct attack on press freedom.

“If you’re a US media star who has spent 2 years claiming to be so concerned about press freedoms over Trump’s mean tweets about your friends, but don’t raise your voice in protest over this grave attack on press freedom, take a hard look in the mirror,” Greenwald wrote.

If you’re a US media star who has spent 2 years claiming to be so concerned about press freedoms over Trump’s mean tweets about your friends, but don’t raise your voice in protest over this grave attack on press freedom, take a hard look in the mirror https://t.co/b32TZ7vatx — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

Some journalists on Twitter issued similar warnings as Greenwald — but backed off their criticism of the arrest after the Department of Justice formally announced its charge, one count of conspiracy of hacking by helping Chelsea Manning break into a Department of Defense computer. Greenwald, though, maintained that the DOJ was still out of bounds.

“The DOJ says part of what Assange did to justify his prosecution – beyond allegedly helping Manning get the documents – is he encouraged Manning to get more docs for him to publish,” Greenwald wrote. “Journalists do this with sources constantly: it’s the criminalization of journalism.”

The DOJ says part of what Assange did to justify his prosecution – beyond allegedly helping Manning get the documents – is he encouraged Manning to get more docs for him to publish. Journalists do this with sources constantly: it’s the criminalization of journalism pic.twitter.com/GXNjWlkFZw — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

The security state agents for NBC/MSNBC cheering the Trump administration for arresting Assange because they’re authoritarians who only pretend to care about press freedom when it advances their partisan interests.This is what happens when news outlets merge with the US Govt pic.twitter.com/wFBAiwb3GQ — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

Eventually, Greenwald focused his ire on NBC News.

I’m not surprised to see NBC journalists uniting behind Trump DOJ to justify the criminalization of WikiLeaks – NBC is fully aligned with the CIA/NSA long obsessed with destroying WL – but this tweet is false: the indictment also charges Assange with *encouraging* his source: https://t.co/pvJHVvea0K — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

US journalists have long hated WikiLeaks because they have published stories of far greater importance & impact than most of those journalists in the lifetime will ever publish, all without being part of their little club. But to cheer the Trump DOJ prosecution is just grotesque. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

NBC News made the decision to hire a team of former military & intelligence officials to “report” & “analyze” the news – starting with the highly compromised ex-CIA DIrector now on its payroll – and as a result the have full-on fascists & authoritarians saying things like this: pic.twitter.com/d3jm10ut4a — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

NBC is the official organ of whatever you call it: the military-industrial complex, the Deep State, the Blob. I’m glad they made it official by putting CIA & intel officials on their payroll. The above psychopathic tweet is what you’d expect to hear at Langley, not a news outlet. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

At one point, MSNBC justice and security analyst Matthew Miller decided to engage Greenwald — leading to this debate:

how is hacking a legitimate journalistic technique? — Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) April 11, 2019

So you’re saying the Obama DOJ searched for years to find evidence that Assange “hacked” those documents but failed to find any evidence, but the Trump DOJ found what you couldn’t. Pretty humiliating for you. Hacking is a crime, but they’re emphasizing “encouragement”: pic.twitter.com/ikafKk1ReT — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

no, not humiliated at all. I’m glad when DOJ does its job, under any admin. The indictment shows an attempt to hack a password, which is a crime. It’s certainly not a legit journalistic technique, and prosecuting it does not threaten journalism or the first amendment. — Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) April 11, 2019

I love how you blindly trust the Trump DOJ’s accusations in a press release. It doesn’t surprise me at all to watch Democrats unite behind Trump to imprison their political enemy. The indictment doesn’t allege he hacked. Manning had access. It alleges he tried to help her hide it — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

Prominent documentarian Alex Gibney jumped in the fray as well.

Not accurate. The charge is “conspire…to knowingly access a computer…without authorization…” 15 (A) in the following document: https://t.co/qQpx07wqOK — Alex Gibney (@alexgibneyfilm) April 11, 2019

Manning had access. The indictment says that. It claims Assange’s efforts were designed to help her cover her tracks and, it seems clear,it did not work. It also alleges that he encouraged her to get more: something journalists do constantly with sources. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019

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