Glenn Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, was held up for nearly nine hours at London Heathrow: Stop The Presses! You aid an international outlaw, you’re going to get some extra scrutiny when traveling through Europe.
David Miranda, who lives with Greenwald in Brazil, was held by officers for nearly 9 hours and told he was being questioned under a U.K. anti-terrorism law.
He was released without charges, but authorities confiscated electronic equipment, including his cell phone, laptop, camera and memory sticks.
Greenwald called the detainment of Miranda “a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process.”
“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 [U.K. Government Communications Headqarters]. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere,” he said.
“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,” Greenwald added.
Miranda had been traveling from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, transiting through London. In Berlin he had met with Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has worked with Snowden.
The story has evolved dramatically since those innocent days of “direct-access,” but Greenwald doesn’t notice the whole, Snowden-wanted-for-espionage thing until his partner is inconvenienced at an international airport? It seems that with Greenwald’s legal counsel and advice, you will very likely find yourself on the wrong end of an interrogation and arrested. Awesome track record! Expert advice. Only goes with the territory of being a rebel, babe.
Let the persecution complex begin!