The news has been heavy this week with the news of the David Miranda detention.
David Miranda is the partner of Glenn Greenwald, who is better known as the journalist responsible for writing the stories in the Guardian about Edward Snowden. However this week David was detained at Heathrow airport for just under nine hours under the UK Terrorism Act. Schedule 7 gives officers power to question a person at an airport if they believe the person concerned involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
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David was not allowed access to a lawyer. Officials also confiscated his laptop, phone, two memory sticks, two DVDs, a Sony games console, a smart watch and a hard drive. These items have yet to be returned There appears to be no suggestion that Miranda is a terrorist, which suggests that his detention and questioning at Heathrow is down to Greenwald’s reporting of the Snowden story. Schedule 7 does not provide authority to detain and question partners of journalists simply because the state disapproves of the articles written by said journalist or the source of the information. Indeed this has been reiterated by one of the individuals who drafted the Terrorism Act. The news this week has certainly made us question just how much further are authorities going to abuse their power in the future? Related Video:
