David Miranda: In The Interests Of National Security

The nine-hour detention at Heathrow Airport of an ex-Guardian journalist's partner has been ruled lawful.

David Miranda lives with reporter Glenn Greenwald who has written articles about state surveillance based on leaked documents.

At the High Court, Mr Miranda claimed his detention under anti-terrorism laws was unlawful and breached human rights.

But judges said it was a "proportionate measure in the circumstances" and in the interests of national security.

In his judgement, Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Openshaw, said: "Its objective was not only legitimate, but very pressing."

BBC News.

The truth won't set you free, it'll get you detained.

• Glenn Greenwald and Michael Albert discuss the difficulties of doing good journalism within the confines of mainstream media, secrecy and corporations and Greenwald’s new media project, The Intercept.

David Miranda: Nobody's Errand Boy

BuzzFeed profile David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's boyfriend.

David Miranda: Goliath Strikes Back

The detention of the partner of a former Guardian journalist has triggered fresh concerns after it emerged that a key reason cited by police for holding him under terrorism powers was the belief that he was promoting a "political or ideological cause".

The revelation has alarmed leading human rights groups and a Tory MP, who said the justification appeared to be without foundation and threatened to have damaging consequences for investigative journalism.

David Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who – often in collaboration with the Guardian – has broken many stories about the extent and scope of spying by the US National Security Agency. Miranda was stopped at Heathrow airport in August and held by the Metropolitan police for nine hours while on his way home to Brazil.

Miranda, it has been claimed, was carrying some 58,000 encrypted UK intelligence documents. He had spent a week in Berlin visiting a journalist, Laura Poitras, who has worked with Greenwald on many of his stories, which have been based on information leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Now documents referred to in court last week before a judicial review of Miranda's detention shine new light on the Metropolitan police's explanation for invoking terrorism powers – a decision critics have called draconian...

The draft that was finally used states: "Intelligence indicates that Miranda is likely to be involved in espionage activity which has the potential to act against the interests of UK national security. We therefore wish to establish the nature of Miranda's activity, assess the risk that Miranda poses to national security and mitigate as appropriate."

The Observer.

And finally... Glenn Greenwald signs off from the Guardian.  

Glenn Greenwald: Enemy Of The State

“I came of age in the late ’70s, early ’80s, when things were way worse than they are now. And, you know, you get this strong sense that somehow the prevailing order is antithetical to who you are—it rejects you, is hostile to you, it teaches you that you’re bad and wrong and dirty. You feel like you can’t reason or deal with it. You just feel it and its powerful force. So there’s a lot of different ways to cope and deal with that.”

“One way is people internalize those judgments. Like, ‘I’m horrible, I’m filthy, I’m broken, I’m wrong, I’m defective, I’m going to go destroy myself’ — which is why gay teens end up killing themselves, right? I just decided to turn the aggression on the people I felt were attacking me. I was like, ‘You’re not going to tell me that I’m wrong, I’m going to show you that your actions are wrong.’ So that was the approach I took toward authority. This very hostile, aggressive way of being that required me to analyze all figures of power and that eventually became waging war on prevailing orthodoxies. And when you do that, it’s an intellectually lonely exercise, but you become much stronger.”

The Advocate run a lengthy, very interesting profile of Glenn Greenwald.

And just to lighten the mood here they give you ten Hello! style fun facts about Glenn and his hot Brazilian boyf David Miranda.

The Holy State: Heroes & Villains

The Independent On Sunday.

Heroes And Villains: Whistleblowers are vilified or intimidated while the wrongs and the wrongdoers that they expose go uninvestigated - Paul Valley.

Rot in jail you traitor - the Daily Star's thoughtful and balanced piece on Chelsea Manning.

Back later...

Notes on language: Interesting that most media call David Glenn's "partner". Though the hilarously stupid Gay Star News called David his "gay partner". Just in case you didn't know these two men who are partners are gay...

PS Slow news day? Let's just say Cheryl Cole getting her bum tattooed is The Sun's front page story...

David Miranda: Can't Happen Here!

At 6:30 am this morning my time - 5:30 am on the East Coast of the US - I received a telephone call from someone who identified himself as a "security official at Heathrow airport." He told me that my partner, David Miranda, had been "detained" at the London airport "under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000."

David had spent the last week in Berlin, where he stayed with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has worked with me 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.

At the time the "security official" called me, David had been detained for 3 hours. The security official told me that they had the right to detain him for up to 9 hours in order to question him, at which point they could either arrest and charge him or ask a court to extend the question time. The official - who refused to give his name but would only identify himself by his number: 203654 - said David was not allowed to have a lawyer present, nor would they allow me to talk to him.

I immediately contacted the Guardian, which sent lawyers to the airport, as well various Brazilian officials I know. Within the hour, several senior Brazilian officials were engaged and expressing indignation over what was being done. The Guardian has the full story here.

Glenn Greenwald writing in Monday's Guardian.

Yesterday's Guardian ran an interview with David.
The Guardian's slightly gone to town on this - the talented Mr GG is one of their own, of course - but it's been the biggest news story of the week so far.
Chilling stuff - and a story involving a clear breach of the human rights of a gay man, whose only "crime" is being the boyfriend of an investigative journalist; Amnesty are on to it.

One wonders if the gay media's coverage would have been different if David Miranda had been detained illegally by the Russian authorities?

Pink News haven't covered it at all, for shame.

Anyway, I've organised a protest outside the British Embassy in Moscow for this Saturday - please join me.

 

Update: Textbook stuff from Richard Littlejohn in Friday's Daily Mail:

 

One might have hoped that the Guardian would extend the same support to Jim Davidson as they have to their own man.
But while Miranda has the right credentials — gay, fashionably Brazilian, Left-wing, anti-American, anti-British — Jimbo [Jim Davidson] ticks all the wrong boxes.
He’s a serial heterosexual, fiercely patriotric, works tirelessly for military charities, tells the ‘wrong’ kind of jokes and, horror or horrors, was a cheerleader for Mrs Thatcher and the Tories.
So, even if he isn’t guilty, as far as the Guardian is concerned it serves him right. His kind aren’t entitled to ‘human rights’.
Meanwhile, Jimmy Savile remains dead.

 

If anyone has the faintest idea what that last line means, can they please get in touch?