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

■ 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 under an hour, and only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours. Miranda was then released without charge, 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. While in Berlin, Miranda had visited Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on the Snowden files with Greenwald and the Guardian.
■ "This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process," said Greenwald. "To detain my partner for a full nine hours while denying him a lawyer, and then seize large amounts of his possessions, is clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA and GCHQ. The actions of the UK pose a serious threat to journalists everywhere.

BBC: Snowden case: Brazil 'concerned' after UK detention ● The Brazilian government issued an official statement soon after the release of Mr Miranda. The foreign ministry document says there was no justification for detaining an "individual against whom there are no charges that can legitimate the use of that [anti-terror] legislation". It also says Brazil expects incidents "such as the one that happened to the Brazilian citizen today" not to be repeated.

Annie Machon: UK freedoms, farewell! Detention of Miranda reveals vindictiveness of wounded police state ● As the definition of terrorism has expanded to cover activists, placard wavers, protesters and now, apparently, the partners of journalists, the arrest of Glenn Greenwald's partner is just another nail in the coffin of British Freedoms. He was detained for the maximum period allowed under the draconian terms of Schedule 7 of the UK's Terrorism Act (2000). His apparent "crime"? To be the partner of campaigning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden whistleblowing stories. Miranda's detention has caused outrage, rightly, around the world.

Justin Raimondo: Despicable Brits target Glenn Greenwald’s partner ● Although Greenwald is increasingly the target of a concerted attack on his character and journalistic credentials, the authorities have so far left the dirty work to their journalistic Praetorian Guard, the David Gregorys, the Walter Pincus types, and the Mike Grunwalds of this world. This action by the British government – and does it make me a "conspiracy theorist" to think this was carried out at the direction of their Washington overseers? – crosses a very distinct line, the boundary between a free society that recognizes the rule of law and an authoritarian state that manipulates the law to serve its own purposes. ● Miranda is not a journalist. His identity and his relationship to Glenn has only recently been revealed by the spotlight shown on his partner: a recent New York Times profile of Ms. Poitras was set in the Miranda-Greenwald household, in Brazil, when Poitras was visiting. ● To target Miranda is to cross into Soviet territory: the KGB, in their war on dissidents, also victimized loved ones, often sending entire families to the gulag. ● By citing the "Terrorism Act" as justification for their actions, the Brits violated their own procedures, as this paragraph from their Code of Practice makes clear: "The purpose of questioning and associated powers is to determine whether a person appears to be someone who is or has been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. The powers, which are additional to the powers of arrest under the Act, should not be used for any other purpose."