David Miranda, der Lebensgefährte von Glenn Greenwald, der ausführlich für den Guardian über Edward Snowden berichtet, wurde Sonntag in Heathrow neun Stunden lang festgehalten:

„David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals. (…)

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act has been widely criticised for giving police broad powers under the guise of anti-terror legislation to stop and search individuals without prior authorisation or reasonable suspicion – setting it apart from other police powers.

Those stopped have no automatic right to legal advice and it is a criminal offence to refuse to co-operate with questioning under schedule 7, which critics say is a curtailment of the right to silence.“

Greenwald hat den richtigen Kommentar dazu (fett gedruckte Hervorhebung von mir):

„The stated purpose of this law, as the name suggests, is to question people about terrorism. The detention power, claims the UK government, is used “to determine whether that person is or has been involved in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

But they obviously had zero suspicion that David was associated with a terrorist organization or involved in any terrorist plot. Instead, they spent their time interrogating him about the NSA reporting which Laura Poitras, the Guardian and I are doing, as well the content of the electronic products he was carrying. They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism: a potent reminder of how often governments lie when they claim that they need powers to stop “the terrorists”, and how dangerous it is to vest unchecked power with political officials in its name.“

Und so ganz nebenbei musste der Guardian auch noch Beweise zerstören:

„Die britische Zeitung The Guardian ist nach eigenen Angaben nach der Veröffentlichung der geheimen Dokumente des früheren NSA-Mitarbeiters Edward Snowden von der Regierung in London massiv unter Druck gesetzt worden. Der Chefredakteur des Blattes, Alan Rusbridger, schreibt, sie seien zur Zerstörung oder Herausgabe des Snowden-Materials aufgefordert worden. Im Falle der Nichtbefolgung der Anweisung sei mit juristischen Konsequenzen gedroht worden. Letztlich seien daraufhin Datenträger zerstört worden.“

So viel zum Thema „Wer nichts zu verbergen hat“ blablabla. Ich kotze.