UK Detaining Journalist Over Snowden Data 'Incompatible’ With Human Rights

In a landmark ruling, the British Court of Appeal said that the detention of a journalist at Heathrow airport, carrying material connected with ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden, under terrorism rules – although strictly lawful – violated his human rights.

The legal action case concerned David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald — among the first to expose the Snowden files — who was detained by officers at Heathrow airport while in transit from Berlin to his home in Brazil. He was questioned for just short of nine hours, under the Terrorism Act 2000, in August 2013.

Huge: Appeals Court rejects UK's effort to criminalize an act of journalism as "terrorism." https://t.co/E1kJh8n9Gu https://t.co/RE1OBIGPey

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 19, 2016​

Miranda had been to a meeting with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has been working with Greenwald and the Guardian on the leaks by ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden, currently given temporary asylum in Russia.

In this still from the movie "Citizenfour," NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, left, speaks with journalist Glenn Greenwald. The Oscar-nominated film intimately captures Snowden during his leak of NSA documents.

© AP Photo / Radius TWC

Snowden's leaks about the work of the US National Security Agency (NSA) — in particular its PRISM program — have sparked shock and protest around the world. It exposed widespread data mining by the NSA at home and abroad, as well as the collusion of Britain's GCHQ communications agency.

pic.twitter.com/xABsnCB7aB

— David Miranda (@davidmirandario) January 19, 2016​

Miranda was carrying data files from that meeting, back to Brazil, where he lives with his partner. He is taking legal action against the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan Police, seeking an undertaking that there will be "no inspection, copying, disclosure, transfer, distribution or interference, in any way with our client's data" according to Bindmans, his solicitors in London.

@ewenmacaskill I wouldn’t call it ‘absurd’ Orwellian maybe but not absurd

— strangetown (@strangetown) January 19, 2016​

Terrorist or Journalist?

Schedule 7 of the Act provides for the detention of a person in a port or airport and allows for the examination and detention of goods "for the purpose of determining whether they have been used in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."

Thrilled with the court ruling! My purpose was to show UK's terrorism law violates press freedoms. And journalism isn't "terrorism." We won!

— David Miranda (@davidmirandario) January 19, 2016​

Miranda protested, by appeal, that his detention under anti-terrorism laws was wrong and that he was a non-threat carrying out journalistic work and that the material he was carrying was no threat to life.

In its judgement Tuesday, the Court of Appeal agreed. 

"I would declare that the stop power conferred by para 2(1) of Schedule 7 is incompatible with article 10 of the Convention in relation to journalistic material in that it is not subject to adequate safeguards against its arbitrary exercise and I would, therefore, allow the appeal in relation to that issue," the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Richards said.

"It will be for Parliament to provide such protection.  The most obvious safeguard would be some form of judicial or other independent and impartial scrutiny conducted in such a way as to protect the confidentiality in the material.

"If journalists and their sources can have no expectation of confidentiality, they may decide against providing information on sensitive matters of public interest. That is why the confidentiality of such information is so important," he said.