In 1798, the Federalist Party leveraged fear of French spies and domestic traitors to pass the Sedition Act, making it a crime to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing” that would bring Congress and the president into “contempt or disrepute.” Punishment ranged from six months to five years in prison and $5,000, a small fortune at the time. Several editors and publishers were prosecuted. Some newspapers folded, others were cowed into silence and at least one editor fled and continued to write in hiding.

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While Rogers’ comments implicate all journalists (and anyone who cares about the First Amendment), he saved his ire for Glenn Greenwald in particular. “For personal gain, he’s now selling his access to information, that’s how they’re terming it…. A thief selling stolen material is a thief,” Rogers told Politico after the hearing. But according to Rogers’ reasoning, shouldn’t Barton Gellman of The Washington Post and other reports from ProPublica and The New York Times who have broken stories based on the Snowden leaks be prosecuted? And what about the editors and publishers who, arguably, have also profited from running stories based on the classified documents and some of the documents themselves?