VANCOUVER – The British government could face legal action over the detainment of David Miranda – the Brazilian partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story about the U.S. secret surveillance program.
Both Miranda and Greenwald have now spoken out about the detainment at Heathrow airport on Sunday.
Miranda was returning home from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald, when he was detained by British authorities for nearly nine hours – the maximum amount of time an individual can be held under Schedule 7 of the U.K.’s Terrorism Act 2000.
Poitras co-authored, with Greenwald, the series of stories that exposed the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) secret telecommunications surveillance program, revealed by former contract worker Edward Snowden.
“There was an announcement on the plane that everyone had to show their passports,” Miranda said. “The minute I stepped out of the plane they took me away to a small room with four chairs and a machine for taking fingerprints.”
He said he wasn’t given access to a Portuguese interpreter and was not allowed to call Greenwald.
Police seized his laptop, video game consoles, USB drives, an external hard drive, a smart watch and a smartphone.
They also took DVDs of the 2007 documentary My Country, My Country and the 2010 documentary The Oath, both produced by Poitras, Miranda’s lawyers said on Tuesday.
Miranda’s lawyer’s at Bindmans LLP signaled they may pursue legal action.
In a letter, dated Aug. 20 to the British Home Office – the ministerial department that oversees immigration and passports, drugs policy, crime policy and counter-terrorism – Miranda’s lawyers called the detainment “unlawful.”
“The use of Schedule 7 powers in relation to our client in order to obtain access to journalistic material is of exceptional and grave concern,” the letter read.
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Home Secretary Theresa May defended the detainment, which both the White House and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron were made aware of in advance.
“I think it is absolutely right that if the police believe somebody is in possession of highly sensitive stolen information that could help terrorists, that could risk lives, lead to a potential loss of life, that the police are able to act. And that’s what the law enables them to do,” May said.
Greenwald said Monday Miranda’s detainment and seizure of the contents of his baggage was “despotic” and that it showed “a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism.”
He vowed it would not deter his reporting on security and government surveillance.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned that detainment and demanded the government explain the action.
“It’s incredible that Miranda was considered to be a terrorist suspect… his detention looks intended to intimidate Greenwald and other journalists who report on surveillance abuses,” HRW’s U.K. director David Mepham said in a statement.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, on her Monday evening broadcast, opined “journalism is not terrorism” in reporting on the story of Miranda’s detainment.
She also referenced Poitras’ past run-ins with customs officials and repeated searches and seizure of her belonging, after focusing documentary work on post-9/11 surveillance programs in the U.S.
Her experiences were detailed in a 2008 article for Salon, written by Greenwald.
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