UK Detains Greenwald's Partner for 9 Hours

In what Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald labels a serious abuse of power, British authorities detained his partner for nine hours under a counterterrorism law at London's Heathrow airport. David Miranda, a Brazilian national, had possessions including his laptop seized and was questioned extensively about the Guardian's reporting of Edward Snowden's NSA leaks, says Greenwald. "They never asked him about a single question at all about terrorism or anything relating to a terrorist organization," Greenwald tells the BBC. “This is obviously a serious, radical escalation of what they are doing. He is my partner. He is not even a journalist.”

Miranda was in transit through Heathrow on his way back to Brazil from Berlin, where he had been visiting documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who has been working with Snowden and Greenwald, the New York Times reports. Greenwald says the "intimidation and bullying" of his partner has only strengthened his resolve to report on the NSA leaks. "If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded," he says. (More Glenn Greenwald stories.)