When David Gregory asked Glenn Greenwald: "To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mister Greenwald, be charged with a crime?"

On "Meet the Press" today. Greenwald answered (from Brazil):

I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies. 

How did Gregory "muse about" it? He asked about it.

The assumption in your question, David, is completely without evidence, the idea that I’ve aided and abetted him in any way.

Where's the assumption? Gregory's "to the extent that" protects him from any charge of assumption. He's giving Greenwald the opportunity to explain himself, and Greenwald is changing the subject from what have you done and why isn't it a crime to how dare you.

GREENWALD: The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the-- the e-mails and phone records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory that you just embraced, being a co-conspirator with felony-- in felonies for working with sources. If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. That’s why the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, her word, as a result of the theories that you just referenced.

GREGORY: Well, the question of who’s a journalist may be up to a debate with regard to what you’re doing....

So, essentially, Greenwald said you don't want to criminalize journalism and Gregory said what counts as journalism?

Gregory moves on to other guests, who talk about Greenwald, and eventually Gregory tells us:

... I want to acknowledge there is a-- a debate on Twitter that goes on online about this even as we are speaking and here’s what Greenwald has tweeted after this appearance this morning, “Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?” And I want to directly take that on because this is the problem with somebody who claims that he is a journalist, would object to a journalist raising questions which is not actually embracing any particular point of view. And that’s part of the tactics of the debate here when, in fact, lawmakers have questioned him. There is a question about his role in this, The Guardian’s role in all of this. It is actually part of the debate rather than going after the questioner, he could take on the issues and he had an opportunity to do that here on-- on MEET THE PRESS.

Is Gregory part of the problem of criminalizing journalists? Or is Greenwald throwing up a smokescreen to defend himself? As Gregory put it, in the interview with Greenwald: "You're — you-- you are a polemicist here, you have a point of view, you are a columnist, you’re also a lawyer." He's trying to draw the polemicist/journalist line. But I don't think the line is between journalism and everyone else. We all— including polemicists and lawyers — have a right to freedom of speech. And anyone — citizens as well as professional journalists — might play a role in disseminating useful information or — on the other hand — crossing the line into what may be criminal.