US Had 'Heads-Up' on Greenwald Partner Detention

Scotland Yard insists incident was 'legally sound'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 20, 2013 3:47 AM CDT
US Had 'Heads-Up' on Greenwald Partner Detention
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, right, and his partner David Miranda.   (AP Photo/Janine Gibson, the Guardian)

The White House says it didn't order British authorities to seize the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald as he changed planes in London—but it had a "heads-up" on what was going to happen to him. The nine-hour detention and questioning of David Miranda over the Edward Snowden NSA leaks "was a decision that was made by the British government," a White House spokesman told reporters, referring all further questions to British authorities. He declined to say whether the US had been provided with information from Miranda's confiscated electronic equipment.

During his detention under anti-terror laws, Miranda says he was ordered to reveal the passwords for his computer and cell phone and told he would be put in jail if his interrogators decided he wasn't being cooperative, the Guardian reports. Amid a growing outcry over the detention, British police insist their actions were "legally and procedurally sound," reports the Wall Street Journal. The UK's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, however, says he wants police to explain the "unusual" detention. (More Glenn Greenwald stories.)

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