A British court gives police wider abilities to investigate the data seized from Miranda

Aug 30, 2013 12:45 GMT  ·  By

The documents seized from David Miranda are going to be further investigated by the Metropolitan police after the British high court granted them this right. The authorities are set to investigate whether any crimes related to terrorism and breaches of the Official Secrets Act have been committed following the seizure of data from David Miranda.

Police will now be allowed to investigate whether a crime of “communication of material to an enemy” has been committed, while previously they were only allowed to investigate the matter on grounds of national security, The Guardian reports.

Glenn Greenwald’s partner was traveling from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro via London, carrying documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the journalist. He was detained at the Heathrow airport for nine hours under anti-terrorism laws, despite there being no grounds for such suspicions.

Now, the Home Office continues to say they did the right thing to detain Miranda on these grounds, despite protests even from politicians who came up with the law.

The Home Office brought in a witness statement from Oliver Robbins, deputy national security adviser in the Cabinet Office in which he claims the encrypted material from Miranda includes personal information of UK intelligence officers and any compromise of the data could mean the risk of their lives and of their family members.

However, despite such concerns, over the past several months since the entire saga began, journalists working with Snowden have abided by his request to make sure the articles and data they publish do not harm anyone.

Thus, fears that such information about GCHQ agents would get published, even if existing, have little to no grounds.

Furthermore, it seems there have also been other unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims, as The Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger said, including in regards to the government’s attitude over the last three months.

"The government claims that they have at all times acted with the utmost urgency because of what they believed to be a grave threat to national security. However, their behavior since early June – when the Guardian's first Snowden articles were published – belies these claims,” Rusbridger said.