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>"...He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Given the extremely high profile nature of this entire scenario, I don't see how an

>"...He's very likely carrying highly sensitive documentation from Snowden" Given the extremely high profile nature of this entire scenario, I don't see how anyone on the case could expect the probability of Greenwald using his partner as a data mule to rank as "very likely." I'm not saying it's impossible. Just that anyone who's been paying attention for the last decade or so knows better than to travel with hardware across unfriendly borders like the US or the UK. They're just going to take it anyway and then you're out thousands of dollars of gear. Between Snowden and Greenwald and Poitras and The Guardian and Wikileaks, I'd sincerely hope that they'd be capable of utilizing dead drops online. In my opinion, this "retrieving stolen property" argument is merely the parallel construction of the actual motivation: to intimidate journalism. They know perfectly well that the probability of Miranda carrying anything actionable on him is minimal. But that's not the point. That's the pretext. The point was to pressure cook him for nine hours in order to glean from him any useful tidbit of intel, with the understanding that even if nothing comes of it, they've sent a clear message to The Guardian that they're taking the fight to them personally.

jusben1369 13y ago
So there's two possible reasons for them stopping him and both are kind of pathetic. One, that stopping someone for 9 hours in Heathrow really amounts to much intimidation of anything. I mean it's wrong and wrong headed but I struggle to buy that someone with half a brain thought this would be at all intimidating. I mean this is England for crying out loud. They probably spoke loudly at him and refused him tea. So I lean toward they really wanted to see if they could find anything on him directly or indirectly that would help them get to all those documents Greenwald is now saying he'll release. But I understand that most people will chose between these two reasons and it's hard to prove one or the other.
- nugget 13y ago
  I would caution against presuming that nine hours of detention in an interrogation room with a team of very well trained, highly motivated interrogators couldn't be extremely intimidating - regardless of location.
- graedus 13y ago
  If nothing else, it's intimidating because if they can detain you under a terrorism law for doing journalism, it stands to reason that they can bend or abuse some other over-broad law to actually charge/imprison you depending on the interrogation. Also, you get to hand over every piece of electronics you're carrying for an indefinite period of time. If and when you get any of them back, you might as well assume they're bugged or otherwise compromised, so they're essentially useless unless you want to try your hand at finding any backdoors that might be there. Fun.
_djo_ 13y ago
I would have agreed with you before hand, but it turns out that Greenwald and the Guardian were using David Miranda as a data mule: In an e-mail Monday to The Associated Press, Mr. Greenwald said that he needed material from Ms. Poitras for articles he was working on related to the N.S.A., and that he had things she needed. “David, since he was in Berlin, helped with that exchange,” Mr. Greenwald wrote. ... Mr. Miranda told reporters in Rio that he had been subjected to deep questioning at Heathrow. “I stayed in a room, there were six different agents, entering and leaving, who spoke with me,” he said. “They asked questions about my whole life, about everything. They took my computer, video game, cellphone, memory thumb drives — everything.” Mr. Greenwald said that all of the documents encrypted on the thumb drives came from the trove of materials provided by Mr. Snowden. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/europe/britain-detains-the-partner-of-glen-greenwald.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/europe/britain-detai... And: He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden's leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald's investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said. Source: http://theweek.com/article/index/248385/the-miranda-mess http://theweek.com/article/index/248385/the-miranda-mess Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive. What on earth was Greenwald thinking though letting his spouse, who lacks any kind of journalistic privilege, travel through the UK while carrying classified leaked NSA and GCHQ documents? It was foolish at best.
- rmk2 13y ago
  > Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive. Much of the controvery kicked off by this is that they used rights that are supposed to be used purely for direct terrorism-related investigations. As one of the Guardian articles so succinctly put it, this is absolutely unacceptable, unless somebody actually and officially declares journalism terrorism.
deleted 13y ago
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jusben1369 13y ago

So there's two possible reasons for them stopping him and both are kind of pathetic. One, that stopping someone for 9 hours in Heathrow really amounts to much intimidation of anything. I mean it's wrong and wrong headed but I struggle to buy that someone with half a brain thought this would be at all intimidating. I mean this is England for crying out loud. They probably spoke loudly at him and refused him tea. So I lean toward they really wanted to see if they could find anything on him directly or indirectly that would help them get to all those documents Greenwald is now saying he'll release. But I understand that most people will chose between these two reasons and it's hard to prove one or the other.

nugget 13y ago
I would caution against presuming that nine hours of detention in an interrogation room with a team of very well trained, highly motivated interrogators couldn't be extremely intimidating - regardless of location.
graedus 13y ago
If nothing else, it's intimidating because if they can detain you under a terrorism law for doing journalism, it stands to reason that they can bend or abuse some other over-broad law to actually charge/imprison you depending on the interrogation. Also, you get to hand over every piece of electronics you're carrying for an indefinite period of time. If and when you get any of them back, you might as well assume they're bugged or otherwise compromised, so they're essentially useless unless you want to try your hand at finding any backdoors that might be there. Fun.

_djo_ 13y ago

I would have agreed with you before hand, but it turns out that Greenwald and the Guardian were using David Miranda as a data mule: In an e-mail Monday to The Associated Press, Mr. Greenwald said that he needed material from Ms. Poitras for articles he was working on related to the N.S.A., and that he had things she needed. “David, since he was in Berlin, helped with that exchange,” Mr. Greenwald wrote. ... Mr. Miranda told reporters in Rio that he had been subjected to deep questioning at Heathrow. “I stayed in a room, there were six different agents, entering and leaving, who spoke with me,” he said. “They asked questions about my whole life, about everything. They took my computer, video game, cellphone, memory thumb drives — everything.” Mr. Greenwald said that all of the documents encrypted on the thumb drives came from the trove of materials provided by Mr. Snowden. Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/europe/britain-detains-the-partner-of-glen-greenwald.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/europe/britain-detai... And: He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden's leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Greenwald said, and Mr. Miranda was on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. Mr. Miranda was in Berlin to deliver documents related to Mr. Greenwald's investigation into government surveillance to Ms. Poitras, Mr. Greenwald said. Ms. Poitras, in turn, gave Mr. Miranda different documents to pass to Mr. Greenwald. Those documents, which were stored on encrypted thumb drives, were confiscated by airport security, Mr. Greenwald said. All of the documents came from the trove of materials provided to the two journalists by Mr. Snowden. The British authorities seized all of his electronic media — including video games, DVDs and data storage devices — and did not return them, Mr. Greenwald said. Source: http://theweek.com/article/index/248385/the-miranda-mess http://theweek.com/article/index/248385/the-miranda-mess Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive. What on earth was Greenwald thinking though letting his spouse, who lacks any kind of journalistic privilege, travel through the UK while carrying classified leaked NSA and GCHQ documents? It was foolish at best.

rmk2 13y ago
> Having read that, I now believe the British were justified in detaining Miranda, though doing so for 9 hours was clearly excessive. Much of the controvery kicked off by this is that they used rights that are supposed to be used purely for direct terrorism-related investigations. As one of the Guardian articles so succinctly put it, this is absolutely unacceptable, unless somebody actually and officially declares journalism terrorism.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]