SurveillanceU.K. detains, questions NSA revelations journalist’s partner

David Miranda, who is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories based on Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA surveillance programs, was held on Sunday for almost nine hours by U.K. authorities as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

The Guardian reports that he was informed he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The law, which applies only at airports, ports, and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question, and detain individuals.

Miranda, 28, was held for nine hours, the maximum allowed under the law before the police must release or formally arrest the individual.

Official figures show that 97 percent of examinations under schedule 7 last less than an hour, and that only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.

The Guardian notes that Miranda was released, but that electronics equipment he was carrying with him, including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs, and games consoles were confiscated by the authorities.

“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 [Government Communications Headquarters, the British intelligence agency responsible for signals intelligence]. The actions of the U.K. 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.”

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 U.K. government. The only possible intent behind this detention was to harass him and his partner, Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, for his role in analyzing the data released by Edward Snowden.”

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 would not say why Miranda was stopped and questioned under schedule 7.

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been criticized by civil rights and privacy advocates for giving law enforcement broad powers to stop and search individuals without prior authorization or reasonable suspicion, thus setting schedule 7 apart from other police powers.

Those stopped under the schedule have no automatic right to legal advice, and it is a criminal offense to refuse to cooperate with questioning under schedule 7.

Last month, in response to the criticism, the U.K. government announced that the maximum period of detention will be reduced to six hours. The government also said it would examine the criticism that the schedule unfairly targets minority groups.