Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours

The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

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.

Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

Since 5 June, Greenwald has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programmes, detailed in thousands of files passed to him by whistleblower Edward Snowden. The Guardian has also published a number of stories about blanket electronic surveillance by Britain's GCHQ, also based on documents from Snowden.

Clear evidence that the TSA is homophobic!

This was HMG, not USG.

Miranda's orientation, not to say his rights, notwithstanding.

Of course, it's obvious, HMG was just running an errand for Alexander the Geek.

Hopefully, the seized bits will burn many a kwh in the Puzzle Palace's electric bill (to which you and I contribute).

Food for thought.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23761918

The US government has said British officials gave it a "heads up" about the detention of the partner of a journalist who published information from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

But it said the decision to detain David Miranda was a British one taken "independent of our direction".

During a press conference at the White House, deputy spokesman Josh Earnest was asked about whether the US had played a part in the decision to detain Mr Miranda.

He said: "This was a law enforcement action take by the British government and this was something that they did independent of our direction.

"As you would expect, the British government is going to make law enforcement decisions that they determine are in the best interests of their country.

"There was a heads up that was provided by the British government, so this was something we had an indication was likely to occur.

"But it is not something that we requested and it was something that was done specifically by the British law enforcement officials there."

BBC correspondent Kim Ghattas, in Washington, said it was likely that the "heads up" about Mr Miranda's detention was passed to US officials when his name was spotted on passenger lists.

The White House declined to comment on whether Mr Miranda's name was on a "watch list" maintained by the US Transportation Security Administration.

It also declined to comment on whether the US was given access to Mr Miranda's laptop or anything on the laptop.

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