The life partner of Guardian Reporter Glenn Greenwald was detained for nine hours by British officials, Hit the jump for the rest of the story!
28 year old David Michael Miranda, is not even a reporter, but the significant other of Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald who is accredited with “publishing information” leaked by NSA leaker Edward Snowdend, was detained by British officials for nine hours.
“Mr. Miranda, Mr. Greenwald said, was told that he was being detained under Section 7 of the British Terrorism Act, which allows the authorities to detain someone for up to nine hours for questioning and to conduct a search of personal items, often without a lawyer, to determine possible ties to terrorism. More than 97 percent of people stopped under the provision are questioned for under an hour, according to the British government”
Miranda a citizen of Brazil had spent the week prior with documentary film maker Laura Poitras, who is also tied in with exposing the information leaked by Snowden, in Berlin on a trip that was paid by The Guardian. When it was their time to travel back to Miranda and Greenwald’s home of Rio de Jeneiro the detainment occurred.
“What’s amazing is this law, called the Terrorism Act, gives them a right to detain and question you about your activities with a terrorist organization or your possible involvement in or knowledge of a terrorism plot,” Mr. Greenwald said. “The only thing they were interested in was N.S.A. documents and what I was doing with Laura Poitras. It’s a total abuse of the law.”
After receiving the call from security officials from Heathrow Airport that his partner had been detained for three hours officials counted to state they had enough information to hold him detained for up to 48 hours, to which they later released after 9 hours. London Metropolitan Police Service claim that they had detained Miranda “lawfully” under the Terrorism Act. Yet released without giving anymore detail.
“Civil rights groups in Britain have criticized Section 7 of the Terrorism Act, accusing the authorities of using the provision to arbitrarily stop and detain travelers, particularly Muslims. The British Home Office has said it is reviewing the provision in an effort to address the concerns”.
**Checkout the gallery above for pics of the couple!**
Via NYTimes
