Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours

[AdamSmith]

Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours

David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act

Glenn Greenwald: a failed attempt at intimidation

• Guardian staff
• The Guardian, Sunday 18 August 2013

David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act

Glenn Greenwald: a failed attempt at intimidation

• Guardian staff

• The Guardian, Sunday 18 August 2013

Glenn Greenwald (right) and his partner David Miranda, who was held by UK authorities at Heathrow airport. Photograph: Janine Gibson

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.

Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain's GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.

While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian. The Guardian paid for Miranda's flights.

"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," Greenwald said. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.

"But the last thing it will do is intimidate or deter us in any way from doing our job as journalists. Quite the contrary: it will only embolden us more to continue to report aggressively."

A spokesperson for the Guardian said: "We were dismayed that the partner of a Guardian journalist who has been writing about the security services was detained for nearly nine hours while passing through Heathrow airport. We are urgently seeking clarification from the British authorities."

A spokesperson for Scotland Yard said: "At 08:05 on Sunday, 18 August a 28-year-old man was detained at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. He was not arrested. He was subsequently released at 17:00."

Scotland Yard refused to be drawn on why Miranda was stopped using powers that enable police officers to stop and question travellers at UK ports and airports.

There was no comment from the Home Office in relation to the detention. However, there was surprise in political circles and elsewhere. Labour MP Tom Watson said he was shocked at the news and called for it to be made clear if any ministers were involved in authorising the detention.

He said: "It's almost impossible, even without full knowledge of the case, to conclude that Glenn Greenwald's partner was a terrorist suspect.

"I think that we need to know if any ministers knew about this decision, and exactly who authorised it."

"The clause in this act is not meant to be used as a catch-all that can be used in this way."

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.

Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.

Last month the UK government said it

would reduce the maximum period of detention to six hours and promised a review of the operation on schedule 7 amid concerns it unfairly targets minority groups and gives individuals fewer legal protections than they would have if detained at a police station.

The government of Brazil issued a statement in which it expressed its "grave concern" over the detention of one of its citizens and the use of anti-terror legislation. It said: "This measure is without justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today are not repeated."

Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director of international law and policy, said: "It is utterly improbable that David Michael Miranda, a Brazilian national transiting through London, was detained at random, given the role his partner has played in revealing the truth about the unlawful nature of NSA surveillance.

"David's detention was unlawful and inexcusable. He was detained under a law that violates any principle of fairness and his detention shows how the law can be abused for petty, vindictive reasons.

"There is simply no basis for believing that David Michael Miranda presents any threat whatsoever to the UK government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analysing the data released by Edward Snowden."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/18/glenn-greenwald-guardian-partner-detained-heathrow

[lookin]

Ridiculous.

[Lucky]

I found this very troubling. The British, along with the US, are making a mockery of freedom and democracy. Obama is such a disappointment, caught in his own lies about NSA snooping. More and more I think Snowden did us a favor by revealing the information that he had. Today's detainment seems pure harassment. What will be next?

There is a fascinating article in today's NY Times Magazine on Laura Poitras, Snowden, and Glen Greenwald:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?ref=magazine

[Lucky]

Andrew Sullivan didn't like this either!

"A disclosure upfront: I have met David Miranda as part of a my friendship with Glenn Greenwald. The thought of his being detained by the British police for nine hours because his partner embarrassed the American government really sickens me at a gut level. I immediately think of my husband, Aaron, being detained in connection to work I have done – something that would horrify and frighten me. We should, of course, feel this empathy with people we have never known – but the realization is all the more gob-smacking when it comes so close to home. So of course my instinct is to see this exactly as Glenn has today...
I have seen nothing anywhere that could even connect his spouse to such nefarious contacts. Unless Glenn is some kind of super-al-Qaeda mole, he has none to my knowledge and to suspect him of any is so close to unreasonable it qualifies as absurd. The idea that David may fomenting terrorism is even more ludicrous.
In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state. You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my he is cute!

[Guest hitoallusa]

"dishes tend to pile up in the sink; the refrigerator is not always filled with fresh vegetables" Oh my does he need a wife? I think Glenn Greenwald and his partner are cute together. So I don't want to wreck their love nest. lol.. As for detailing David.. Is he being played psychologically to make him impatient so he makes mistakes?

[ihpguy]

Inquiring Minds Want To Know(and much more important than comparisons between Putin and Cameron as to the crushing of civil liberties - prompted by Barry O'Bama's, by the way?)

In the bedroom, who is the top and who is the bottom, who is the ass-smacker and who is the ass-smackee, do they call each other puto or the feminine form puta. And most important of all, especially for HITO, in the budoir does Glenn get all femmy and slip on his come-fuck-me pumps to grab the attention and ministrations of David, his Brasilieiro studmuffin?

Yours,

IHOP akaFavelaDweller

[AdamSmith]

Glenn Greenwald: Won't be silenced by detention

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 8/19/13 9:59 AM EDT

LONDON — The American journalist who has published stories based on leaked documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says he's going to be much more "aggressive" about printing stories now.

That statement from journalist Glenn Greenwald comes after English authorities detained his partner under anti-terror legislation for nearly nine hours at Heathrow Airport in London.

Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, arrived back in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, where the pair live together.

Greenwald says he's going "to write much more aggressively than before, I'm going to publish many more documents than before."

He added: "I'm going to publish many more things about England, as well. I have many documents about the system of espionage of England, and now my focus will be there, too."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-95671.html#ixzz2cQU6kixG

[AdamSmith]

Oh my

cute!

Two in one post!

[Guest hitoallusa]

O M AS I don't want to kill yourself from over drinking.. Don't you want live to see our grandkids??? Let's go easy on your drinks.. If I were nearby I would cook and bake you yummy things everyday.. Sigh.. My work here is busy I won't be able to go back to NC anytime soon.

Anyways, I don't know why someone would do this to his partner.. It's like someone intentionally did this to provoke more outcries and criticism..

[RA1]

Why does anyone think the "democracies" are not just "warming up" with their usurpation of freedoms? This sort of thing and worse has been going on for a very long time. Unfortunately I expect some to many in the general population who cannot or will not be bothered with being informed or doing something until too late but I have higher expectations from our group.

The evidence is right in front of you everyday and still we just try to ignore it and go on.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

over drinking..

Anyways, I don't know why someone would do this to his partner.. It's like someone intentionally did this to provoke more outcries and criticism..

Do you finally see why we are bitching and moaning about all this outrageously illegal behavior by governments?

[AdamSmith]

The evidence is right in front of you everyday and still we just try to ignore it and go on.

Jefferson thought the price of freedom was for every generation to make its own revolution and start anew.

I am beginning to think he was onto something.

[Guest hitoallusa]

We don't know who and what their motivation of detaining Greenwald's partner. If they tried to intimidate Snowden then I think it was a very foolish thing to do. Were they so desperate to do so? Let's wait till the statements from investigators. It will be coming soon.

[AdamSmith]

I wouldn't hold my breath.

[AdamSmith]

MPs have decided to use a parliamentary inquiry into terrorist legislation to force the police to explain why David Miranda, partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained for almost nine hours at Heathrow airport under a controversial anti-terror law. The law (schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act) is only supposed to be used to stop people suspected of being involved in terrorism. (See 4.32pm.) Keith Vaz, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee, used a letter to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, to pose a series of questions about the affair. (See 5.16pm.) He issued this statement.

This is an extraordinary twist to an already complex story. It is right that the Police have these powers but it is important that they are used appropriately.

I have today written to the Metropolitan police commissioner asking him to clarify this use of the Terrorism Act and whether it was implemented at the behest of another government. We need to establish the full facts. I am concerned about the message this sends out to all those who transit through the UK. Our legislation needs to be used proportionately.

The home affairs select committee will begin an inquiry into terrorism shortly and we will certainly be looking at this issue very closely.

Britain's independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, David Anderson QC, has also said he wants to be told why schedule 7 was used to detain Miranda. And Labour has demanded a full explanation. (See 12.54pm.)

• Anderson has suggested that government plans to restrict the use of schedule 7 do not got far enough. (See 1.54pm.) He has encouraged people to lobby their MPs on this issue. (See 3.44pm.) The pressure group Liberty has also said the Miranda case highlights the importance of its legal challenge to schedule 7 at the European Court of Human Rights. (See 5.08pm.)

• The Society of Editors and the National Union of Journalists have both strongly condemned the treatment of Miranda. Miranda's detention was "a gross misuse of the law and clearly linked to the work of his partner Glenn Greenwald", Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ general secretary, said.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

Liberty, the human rights pressure group, is already challenging schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act at the European Court of Human Rights. (See 1.05pm.) Here's a news release with more details about the case.

Liberty has long argued that Schedule 7 is overbroad legislation, ripe for misuse and discrimination, and currently has a case pending at the European Court of Human Rights challenging the power. The case involves a British citizen of Asian origin who was detained at Heathrow under Schedule 7 for four and a half hours in November 2010. During his detention, he was questioned about his salary, his voting habits and the trip he had been on, among other matters. Copies were taken of all his paperwork and credit cards and the police kept his mobile phone, which was only returned to him eight days later after having to pay for its return himself. He had never previously been arrested or detained by the police and was travelling entirely lawfully.

And here is a Liberty submission to a Home Office review proposing changes to schedule 7 (pdf).

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, has described the detention of David Miranda as "a gross misuse of law".

[Miranda's] detention and treatment was a gross misuse of the law and clearly linked to the work of his partner Glenn Greenwald, who revealed the extent of mass surveillance and wholesale interception of internet traffic by the US security services and its collusion with GCQH. It's rather ironic that the police's response, in turn, is to put the partner of a journalist under surveillance and detain him in this way.

Miranda had been used as a go-between by Greenwald and film-maker Laura Poitras, in Berlin, who had been working with him on the information supplied by Edward Snowden. This material has now been confiscated. Journalists no longer feel safe exchanging even encrypted messages by email and now it seems they are not safe when they resort to face-to-face meetings. This is not an isolated problem.

The treatment meted out to David Miranda is wholly unacceptable and it is time the use, or rather misuse, of terrorism legislation as a way of targeting individuals was properly and independently reviewed.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

Nick Cohen has written a terrific blog for the Spectator about the detention of David Miranda which includes a nice account of his (doomed) attempt to get some answers about the affair from the Scotland Yard press office. Here's an extract.

The detention of David Miranda at Heathrow is a clarifying moment that reveals how far Britain has changed for the worse. Nearly everyone suspects the Met held Miranda on trumped up charges because the police, at the behest of the Americans, wanted to intimidate Miranda’s partner Glenn Greenwald, the conduit of Edward Snowden’s revelations, and find out whether more embarrassing information is on Greenwald’s laptop ...

The Terrorism Act of 2000, which the Met used against Miranda,

says

that terrorism involves ‘serious violence against a person’ or ‘serious damage to property’. The police can also detain the alleged terrorist because he or she ‘endangers a person’s life’, ‘poses a serious risk to the health and safety of the public’ or threatens to interfere with ‘an electronic system’.

I wanted to ask the Met: Which of these above offences did your officers suspect that Miranda might have been about to commit? What reasonable grounds did they have for thinking he could endanger lives or property? And, more to the point, which terrorist movement did you believe Miranda was associated with: al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Continuity IRA, ETA, Shiv Sena, the provisional wing of the Unabomber Appreciation Society?

Greenwald may not thank me for saying this but in one respect America is an admirable country. In the US, the police reply to reporters’ questions. They may lie, but at least they reply. In the UK, they say nothing. Chief constables could save precious money and protect front line services by sacking every police press officer in the UK. They are useless. Actually, they are worse than useless: they are sinister. They provide the illusion of accountability while blocking it at every stage.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

And in the UK the Society of Editors has strongly condemned the treatment of David Miranda. This is from Bob Satchwell, its executive director.

Journalism may be embarrassing and annoying for governments but it is not terrorism. It is difficult to know how in this instance the law was being used to prevent terrorism.

On the face of it it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the detention of a journalist's partner is anything other than an attempt to intimidate a journalist and his news organisation that is simply informing the public of what is being done by authorities in their name.

It is another example of a dangerous tendency that the initial reaction of authorities is to assume that journalists are bad when in fact they play an important part in any democracy.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

In America Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, has written a blog strongly condemning the detention of David Miranda. Here's an extract.

The most appalling part of the story is the use of UK’s “terrorism” law as a guise to detain David, who, of course, has nothing to do with terrorism. Just like the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act, which have been used by the NSA to create mass domestic surveillance databases of millions of innocent people, the “terrorism” law in the UK

declares the

“power to stop and question may be exercised without suspicion of involvement in terrorism.”

The NSA stories published by Greenwald and others have prompted an unprecedented debate in the US about the government’s vast surveillance powers, and major reforms now seem likely to pass Congress. Maybe this incident will spark renewed outrage over Britain “terrorism” law, which

thousands of innocent people have been subject to

, and laws permitting suspicion-less border searches in general.

Ironically, this incident comes the same day as

a long profile in New York Times Magazine

of [Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has worked with Glenn Greenwald on the NSA revelations and whom Miranda visited in Berlin before his detention] who has shamefully been the subject of similar harassment at the border by the US for years, solely because she produces journalism that the United States government apparently does not like. It’s unknown whether the US had any involvement in the detention of Miranda but questions should be asked as to what they knew and when.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[AdamSmith]

Andrew Sullivan, the American blogger, has written a powerful post about the David Miranda case. When Glenn Greenwald started publishing his NSA revelations in the Guardian, Sullivan was sceptical about claims made by Greenwald and other civil libertarians that the state was abusing his powers. Now he says he has changed his stance.

Here's an extract.

David was detained for nine hours – the maximum time under the law, to the minute. He therefore falls into the 3 percent of interviewees particularly, one assumes, likely to be linked to terrorist organizations. My obvious question is: what could possibly lead the British security services to suspect David of such ties to terror groups?

I have seen nothing anywhere that could even connect his spouse to such nefarious contacts. Unless Glenn is some kind of super-al-Qaeda mole, he has none to my knowledge and to suspect him of any is so close to unreasonable it qualifies as absurd. The idea that David may fomenting terrorism is even more ludicrous ...

In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state.

You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

[Guest hitoallusa]

I think there is more to it then what it meets the eye. I don't think people in the intelligence community are this stupid. It's like what we see in the movies in terms of stupidity. I really hoping people in the intelligence community is not involved in this incident.

[AdamSmith]

I think there is more to it then what it meets the eye. I don't think people in the intelligence community are this stupid. It's like what we see in the movies in terms of stupidity. I really hoping people in the intelligence community is not involved in this incident.

What would it take to convince you?

They are not stupid -- they are evil.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I don't think they are evil.. Maybe insecure since they have to keep their job and want a good life so they can't accept criticism and anything that might harm their career. That's not evil and it could happen to any of us too. Maybe they are simply afraid and don't know what to do. People should stop looking at these people in the intelligence community as evil and bad, IMHO. They should look these imperfect people with their own issues, interests, struggles and conflicts, just like us. We need to work together that things get done right.

What would it take to convince you?

They are not stupid -- they are evil.