Glenn Greenwald’s – the Guardian journalist personally handling the NSA leaks made by Edward Snowden – partner, David Miranda, was held by British government authorities at London’s Heathrow airport for nine hours over the weekend.
Miranda was returning from Berlin when police stopped him and proceeded to question him citing the Terrorism Act 2000. Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 “applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.” Under the law, authorities are able to hold detainees for a maximum of nine hours, after that, they must release the questioned or make an arrest. A report about schedule 7 indicates that 97 percent of those detained are released in less than an hour.
Although Miranda was eventually released, authorities took his cell phone, computer, and memory drives, among several other personal items.
Now, an infuriated Glenn Greenwald has stepped out, promising revenge and harsh action against the British government for overreach of power. Greenwald said that “the detention was an attempt to intimidate him for publishing documents leaked by Snowden disclosing U.S. surveillance of global internet communications.” Greenwald currently has up to 20,000 documents about the NSA’s domestic spying program that were given to him by Snowden.
Greenwald then warned the British government that because of their abuse of power, he said has “many documents on England’s spy system” and will release them.
“I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now on. . . I am going to publish things on England too. . . I think they will be sorry for what they did,” said Greenwald.
The provision under which Miranda was held has received an ample amount of criticism because its “[gives] police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion.”
Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.
