David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, says he was questioned about his entire life after being detained for nine hours under anti-terror laws at London's Heathrow airport. Greenwald, who met David Miranda at Rio de Janeiro's international airport, said as a journalist he would not be silenced by this police action against his partner and vowed to publish many more spying documents. Brazil's foreign minister says the detention was "unjustified."
According to Glenn Greenwald, his partner David MIranda had spent the last week in Berlin, where he stayed with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has worked extensively on the NSA stories. "A Brazilian citizen, he was returning to our home in Rio de Janeiro this morning on British Airways, flying first to London and then on to Rio. When he arrived in London this morning, he was detained."
David Miranda was told he was being detained under the Terrorism Act. He was never accused of being a terrorist or being associated with terrorists, but he was told that if – after nine hours – his interrogators did not think he was being co-operative, then he could be taken to a police station and put in jail.
The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain David Miranda. However, a spokesman said US officials had been given a "heads up" by British officials beforehand.
"It is clear why they took me. It's because I'm Glenn's partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection. But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on."
In his account of Sunday's events, Glenn Greenwald's partner also told The Guardian that "this law shouldn't be given to police officers. They use it to get access to documents or people that they cannot get the legal way through courts or judges. It's a total abuse of power."
To read Sunday's events and reaction by Glenn Greenwald, please visit Glenn Greenwald's blog "Glenn Greenwald: detaining my partner was a failed attempt at intimidation."
