Journalist Glenn Greenwald is speaking out about the criminal charges made against him by the Brazilian government and slammed its "authoritarian" President Jair Bolsonaro for not believing in a free press.

It was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times that federal prosecutors had charged Greenwald with cybercrimes as part of his alleged role in “spreading of cellphone messages that have embarrassed prosecutors and tarnished the image of an anti-corruption task force."

According to The Times, the complaint said that Greenwald -- a former contributor to The Guardian who then co-founded the online news publication The Intercept -- “did more than merely receive the hacked messages and oversee the publication” of newsworthy elements. Prosecutors accused Greenwald of being part of a “criminal organization” that has hacked into the cellphones of prosecutors and other Brazilian officials, according to the report.

Speaking to The New Yorker, Greenwald blasted Bolsonaro for wanting to revive a "military dictatorship" and punishing journalists in the process.

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“I think that what a lot of people are not fully understanding about Brazil is that there are a lot of people in the government, beginning with the President himself, who explicitly want a resurrection of the military dictatorship that ruled the country until 1985. They are not joking about it," Greenwald said. "They are genuine authoritarians who don’t believe in democracy, don’t believe in basic freedoms, and don’t believe in a free press.”

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Greenwald said that he, his husband and their children have not been able to leave their house "without armed security, armored vehicles, teams of security" since they now "get death threats all the time."

“Every one of our friends has been offered money to either reveal things about our private lives or make up lies about our private lives," Greenwald added. "There is a hugely powerful fake-news machine that supports the Bolsonaro movement that has churned out lies about our family and about our children and about our marriage.”

Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.