David Michael Miranda, Guardian jouranlist Glenn Greenwald's 28-year-old Brazilian partner, was detained for nine hours at London's Heathrow Airport in connection to a counterterrorism law, but in reality due his connection to the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, according to the New York Times.
Miranda had been in Berlin for a week visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Snowden's leaks, to assist Greenwald. It seems the Guardian had paid for the trip and Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald.
According to a report published by the Guardian, Miranda was released, but officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.
"What's amazing is this law, called the Terrorism Act, gives them a right to detain and question you about your activities with a terrorist organization or your possible involvement in or knowledge of a terrorism plot," Greenwald told the Times. "The only thing they were interested in was N.S.A. documents and what I was doing with Laura Poitras. It's a total abuse of the law." He added: "This is obviously a serious, radical escalation of what they are doing. He is my partner. He is not even a journalist."
The government of Brazil issued a statement in which it expressed its "grave concern" over the detention of one of its citizens and the use of anti-terror legislation, stating: "This measure is without justification since it involves an individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that legislation. The Brazilian government expects that incidents such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today are not repeated."
When we profiled the couple's relationship in spring of 2011, Miranda commented about Greenwald's journalism and activism: "He exposes himself to so much hate, and there are a lot of crazy people in the world. He has to do what he has to do."
