And Then Glenn Greenwald’s Partner was Detained
According to The Guardian,
David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.
The 28-year-old was held for nine hours, the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, most examinations under schedule 7 – over 97% – last less than an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours.
The fact that Miranda was returning from a a trip to visit Laura Poitras and doing so on The Guardian’s dime should only make the UK government’s actions that much more scandalous. Here was a someone doing journalistic work, for a press organization, detained by government officials for nine hours, who also had all of his digital belongings present at the time stolen by those government officials.
And yet this move seems as inept as the not nearly controversial enough grounding of the Bolivian President’s plane just a couple months ago. While that tactic might have appeared to someone, at sometime, like a calculated risk with at least some chance of actually capturing Edward Snowden and preventing the whistleblower from leaking any further information, the detention and interrogation of Miranda doesn’t appear like it could possible achieve anything beneficial to the governments involved.
In fact, the only indisputable consequence of what occurred at Heathrow Airport is that Edward Snowden, the investigations he’s aided, and the debates over privacy, surveillance, and national security he’s helped to initiate, will build up at least a little more momentum.
Not to justify what seems like a poorly made law permitting police wide discretion (no lawyer, no suspicion required, and no right to remain silent), but this seems incorrect, “the detention and interrogation of Miranda doesn’t appear like it could possible achieve anything beneficial to the governments involved.” Miranda was acting as a courier of US/NSA related documents for Greenwald and Poitras, according to the Times,
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I don’t know about UK law, but New York Times v. United States seems relevant here. Publishing leaked classified documents is not punishable. It’s the executive’s own responsibility to keep such things to itself.Report
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the UK’s Official Secrets Act is broader than the US equivalent, with sections that’d apply to media and not just government officials. Similarly, the D-Notice system in the UK doesn’t seem to have an equivalent in the US; in the US it amounts to government officials negotiating with the news outlet in question on a case by case basis.Report
From what I recall (and it’s been a while since I read the exact text) section 5 of the Official Secrets Act actually allows for the prosecution of people who disclose information from unauthorized sources. There’s actually a fair amount of prior restraint power for the Home Office. They’ve exercised this authority a few times to warn papers not to publish certain articles or else face prosecution.Report
On the plus side, the fact that he was detained under a terrorism statue does finally confirm for us once and for all that journalism that criticizes the State is considered terrorism.Report
Because We Can.
Forget You, That’s Why.Report
Did Miranda attend public school? Use public roads? We accept reciprocity.
(More seriously, I guess identifying Miranda as the partner of Greenwald is helpful because otherwise we wouldn’t know who he is, but I think we have to approach this, more or less, as “a journalist” being detained and not as “the spouse of a journalist” being detained. The latter is actually worse, in my view, but isn’t actually the case here. It’s worth noting that this post makes Miranda’s role here clear.)Report
Exactly. This story seems to be getting reported as “They can’t get at Greenwald, so they’re harassing his husband” rather than as “They harassed a journalist for his connections to Snowden.” Likewise, Miranda’s belongings weren’t confiscated out of unalloyed pettiness, but also because they might contain classified information.Report
They detained him re: terrorism, so wouldn’t they have to be presuming that his personal items have information related to suspected terrorists or terrorist activities on them?Report
Unless they were using that purely as a pretext to harass him, which, again, is the impression I got from how it’s being reported.Report
Terrorism Act has this really vague provision that prohibits releasing information that would be of use to terrorists or incites terrorist acts. They needed something broad enough to ban things like Inspire magazine.Report
The UK doesn’t honor Miranda rights?Report
Miranda rights don’t kick in until an arrest, and in Miranda’s case he wasn’t arrested, he was just seized, detained, questioned, searched, and held by police and other government authorities.
I can’t conceive where the crazy spouse angle came from. So Greenwald has a partner. I’m sure the policeman who first stopped Miranda works with a partner too. Did anyone who watched Adam-12 assume cops in squad cars are actually married to each other?Report
I hate to disagree but Miranda requirement doesn’t really kick in till someone in custody is questioned. They don’t need to be Mirandized when arrested only before they are questioned if, the police want to be able to use any of the perp’s statements in court. Most of the time detectives will re Mirandize a perp before questioning just to make sure that it’s been done.Report
He wasn’t wearing the hat.Report
The only thing I can say about this debacle is that if the administration and bureaucracy continue to be this inept, tin eared and ham handed about it all they may actually whip up some public interest in reining this idiocy in.Report
Which Administration? Where?
I’m highly dubious that anyone above say, a metro police mid-level manager made the call here. Maybe the Home Office tipped off the White House once the examination was made, but this is all a “call by the person on the ground” provision.Report
What are you basing that on?
How would someone on the ground even know who he was? Let alone what he was doing there?Report
That’s sort of my thought. This doesn’t read like a TSA spot-check sort of thing to me. I don’t know that it goes all the way “to the top”… but I would guess it’s above metro mid-level manager. (Not that I necessarily know what I am talking about. But I’d at least need Ethan’s question answered before my mind changed.)Report
Look at it this way: At least David Cameron is pro-choice.Report
I’m mostly basing it on how the power is defined and exercised. The entirety of the examination and detention power is placed on officers on the ground. Just for the record the actual legislation says:
It is in fact exactly the same as a TSA spot-check, except that the detention authority is there if they refuse to answer the questions. The question is how high up the chain of command the instructions to examine Miranda came from. Based on how flat footed Scotland Yard seems to have been taken on the out-cry, I don’t think this is something that was approved from Downing Street, even if it might have eventually filtered up.Report
I guess I am just unclear as to how they knew he might be a person of interest. Or where they got the idea from, if not for information the officer himself wouldn’t have had at his disposal. Chance?Report
I suppose my point goes further that if the Home Office really wanted to send a thorough message they would’ve arrested him under the Official Secrets Act for carrying unauthorized information with intent to publish it. There’s a rather nasty number of laws that allow UK authorities to prevent the disclosure of secret documents by journalists. Granted, there would be more of a chancy aspect to getting away with it, but given that the power used was one that’s granted low on the food chain, it seems like someone got extremely overzealous somewhere in the border agency rather than in the Cabinet.Report
Not sure on that one, Will. I do think it might have been someone higher up who was keeping tabs, or got a tip from intelligence. For all we know it’s mid-level operatives in both organizations colluding, but I highly doubt it was something from say the Home Secretary or anything at that level. It’s just too sloppy.Report
It’s just too sloppy.
This might be the difference between our world views in a nutshell.
There is no level of incompetence on the part of government that would strike me as implausible.Report
This might be the difference between our world views in a nutshell.
I’ve spent way too much time in private enterprise to think that government has a monopoly on sloppy.Report
Groupthink and herd fear took over on this one. It probably wasn’t just one person, that much seems evident. Governments everywhere live in fear of discovery. Would it surprise you to know most of what an enemy would want to know about us is classified as merely Confidential? Troop movements, readiness levels, order of battle, that sort of thing.
Most higher levels of classification are reserved for Serious Messes.Report
So what? Was Greenwald either naive or arrogant enough to think he could publish whatever he wanted and not get some push back? Actually he probably is so I have no sympathy for someone that pokes the bull but doesn’t like the horns.Report
Well yes. Ideally speaking, anyway, we should be able to speek freely without fear of the government coming down on us. (Obvious exceptions for confidentiality agreements and employment clauses and the like).Report
See it as an intercontinental Stop and Frisk.Report
Will:
“Ideally speaking, anyway, we should be able to speek freely without fear of the government coming down on us. (Obvious exceptions for confidentiality agreements and employment clauses and the like).”
I’d like to live in that ideal world but right now we are stuck with the real world. Sorry, if Greenwald is going to use his BF to mule Snowden docs then they may have to pay the piper.Report
Be careful what precedents you set. Any tool in Obama’s hands will one day reside in Jeb Bush’s.Report
NotMe: The “Miranda was carrying government documents/property” argument is stronger than “Greenwald said the wrong things and so push back is okay” argument.
Jaybird: I could be wrong, but I believe NM leans more Bush than Obama, broadly speaking.Report
Be careful what tools you allow in Jeb Bush’s hands. One day they’ll end up in Anthony Weiner’s.Report
The only tool in Anthony Weiner’s hand is…
Too easy?Report
Total gimme.Report
The Weiner / Holder ticket could pull a victory should the R’s run Limbaugh / Merck.Report
The White House is saying they knew beforehand that he was going to be detained, but deny that it was done at their request.Report
Just saying….there are a lot of reporters working on this story. The only ones being detained are the ones ferrying ill-gotten government documents across international borders. This is an important distinction.Report
Glenn Greenwald’s partner”
Are they business partners or sex partners? Why can’t we call Miranda what he is–Greenwald’s boyfriend? Is there some embarrassment somewhere over Greenwald being a homosexual? Is “partner” somehow more dignified, less bigoted? Is “boyfriend” the new “b” word that must never be spoken? Come on.Report
I thought they were married, or at least in some sort of formal partnership, hence “partner” rather than “boyfriend”. I’ve consistently tried to use “husband” when writing about this subject.Report
An interesting take on the controversy:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100231711/why-does-being-a-relative-of-glenn-greenwald-place-you-above-the-law/Report