Oh, I know - and the whole thing’s a complete farce, but I do have to wonder along the lines of: ‘Authorities get a call tipping them off that someone’s passing through their customs area carrying stolen property, is it unreasonable that this person was stopped and had said property confiscated’?
Had that been me carrying a stolen pre-release copy of Beyonce’s new album or a sex-tape nicked from Diana, Princess of Wales’ safe, I would have to face the prospect that I was likely to be detained…
I’m also wondering if part of the justification for this wasn’t “outing” Greenwald as gay. We liberal types don’t care one iota who his partner is, but now this news has put the fact that his partner is a man right in everyone’s face. For some people out there, that’s reason enough to trust this man just a little bit less. That’s just dirty pool.
Authorities get a call tipping them off that someone’s passing through their customs area carrying stolen property, is it unreasonable that this person was stopped and had said property confiscated’?
Again, evidence based law enforcement is much more compelling than grudge based law enforcement.
Consider the hypothetical source and motive behind your theorized phone call.
I mean, I got a call once telling me the president was a Kenyan. I got another one once that told me i needed to read my bank card numbers over the phone to reactivate my debit card. I even got a phone call once telling me that I should go catch my refrigerator, since it was running.
I’m sorry - I don’t understand the point you’re making. This was someone known to be travelling betwee person A - that is known to hold the stolen documents, and person B - wanting to write about said documents, surely there’s ‘good cause’ for suspecting they’d be carrying said stolen documents?
The problemis that they used terror laws to do it. They are supposed to be for getting terrorists, and there is a specific meaning to that word. Carrying stolen documents doesn’t fit the definition. If you believe you have a carrier of stolen goods, you arrest them and bring formal charges, not detain then for 9 hours without access to a lawyer.
There are further complications in that he was taken in the “international” section of the airport, which technically isn’t part of Britain and is not subject to British laws.
It’s debatable, actually. The UK government might have been justified in holding Miranda under terrorism laws. If Snowden has taken information that could assist a terrorist, it’s actually a crime for anyone to possess or to transport that data in Britain. I think that there could be a reasonable suspicion that Snowden has taken something that could assist a terrorist organisation amongst the mass of data he took, and there’s a reasonable suspicion that Miranda was transporting that data for him, which is the relevant point.
Terrorism Act §58 holds that:
58.—(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind.
Who knows what Snowden took from the NSA? Presumably we’ve only seen a small subset of the total trove of data he took. It’s possible that amongst the data taken by Snowden, there’s information that would be useful to genuine terrorists, e.g. information on legitimate terrorist suspects that are being monitored, names of informers, etc.
If Miranda was carrying an encrypted copy of Snowden’s whole trove of data, it’s possible that Miranda was in possession of a document or record likely to be of use to a terrorist, which is an offence that carries a 6 month to 10 year jail term. I’m not sure a judge would punish the government for following a plausible suspicion, given they have a remit to do this approved by Parliament.
Maybe it’s a procedural thing, and they should have arrested and charged him with possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist, interviewed him under caution, etc. I’m not sure it was simply an abuse of power or an intimidation tactic. If the request for Judicial Review goes ahead, it’ll be interesting to see what a proper legal mind makes of it - it’s far from black and white.
I have to confess that’s the first thing I thought too… hopefully we’re wrong, because I don’t want to think the bad guys are that competent at playing to their base.
PS: I’m not “liberal” in the modern political sense but not homophobic either.
Wrong. It is part of Britain. It is that international treaties limit the impact of local laws. But you still can get cuffed by the local plods.
That was one of the reasons that the USA was spluttering so much when Russia said we can’t get Snowden. They knew that was fiction. Basically the Russians saying make us a better offer then bullying us (which was also reflected in Putins words on the subject).
Consider me schooled on both parts.
With angle grinders and drills?
I think you may have placed the cart in front of the horse there.
Did they have pretext? Possibly.
Did they have anything besides pretext? Unlikely.
yeah but a pretext is good enough for our Terrorism laws 
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