Glen Greenwald’s Partner Held For Nine Hours At Heathrow Airport

Glen Greenwald has been instrumental in collaborating with Edward Snowden and publishing whatever he had to offer. The journalist was one of the key figures in letting the PRISM leaks reach the public. Recently, UK authorities held his partner at Heathrow Airport for nine hours on the pretext of questioning him.


Glen Greenwald

The move by UK authorities is being seen as an attempt to harass the families of the journalists who are involved in publishing material from a whistle-blower. David Miranda, who is Greenwald’s partner, was stopped by officers at the Heathrow Airport and was detained for nine hours. During this time, he was being questioned by the authorities under the Terrorism Act 2000. The Act allows authorities to detain any given passenger for questioning about security issues for at most nine hours. In other words, the authorities detained Miranda for as long as they could. Eventually, although he was allowed to leave, the officials wouldn’t let him have his mobile phone, laptop, camera and a whole lot of other electronic gear. This was all confiscated by the officials, again, on the name of security.

Naturally, Greenwald is outraged over this incident. According to him, “This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news gathering process. 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.”

It is sad to note that the governments around the globe, even those who are touted as the champions of human rights, tend to let go of all restraints when it comes to their own ends.

Courtesy: The Guardian

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Salman

Salman Latif is a software engineer with a specific interest in social media, big data and real-world solutions using the two.Other than that, he is a bit of a gypsy. He also writes in his own blog. You can find him on Google+ and Twitter .

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Tsais

    Quote: “It is sad to note that the governments around the globe, even those who are touted as the champions of human rights, tend to let go of all restraints when it comes to their own ends.”

    Did you really believe the propaganda of a “free, modern western world”….?

    You see, democracy is a fallacy, cause with short 4 year periods and politician’s need to get good press and someone to pay for their campaigns, it is the perfect system to run and manipulate from the shadows – by the ultra-rich, who own media, banks and industry. In any democracy, its only a matter of time before they sufficiently gamed the system, to the point where there’s not a single politician left who would actually represent the general public.

    This mechanic makes democracy nothing but the seeding stage of eventual fascism. And we’re simply seeing the inevitable rise now.

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