Whole thing makes no sense. Unless they are planning on going full retard and abducting/killing/imprisoning someone, then minor harassment just makes you look like assholes. Impotent assholes at that. Cameron is bad, but he isn't Putin. Greenwald knows his threats are idle. Obama has been playing it cool and making some token concessions which is a much more media-savvy approach.
It seems very much like they stopped caring about how it looks. Pretty much around the time the revoked Snowden's passport.
We're through the looking glass now. Our governments (no Western government is exempt here) are operating in a way that closely resembles the regimes of the former Eastern Bloc, and they are making no attempts to hide it anymore. That's the scary part.
Revoking a citizens passport? Blocking attempts to seek asylum? Forcing down a plane of a foreign, democratically elected leader of a country? Detaining the boyfriend of a reporter under false pretenses? None of this is happening in secret anymore. And it's no longer "them", the anonymous evil "terrorists", the "enemy combatants" that cannot be fought by conventional means. They've turned on us now.
I wouldn't be too sure anymore they aren't planning to go "full retard". They obviously have no shame, and no fear of consequences.
Acts like this are designed to have a psychological effect on the target. Since government can't outright just kill the guy any more, they will do everything they can to make his life miserable by doing things like this. Imagine being in Greenwald's shoes and knowing that your spouse is bearing the brunt of consequences for your actions. It would make many people rethink what they're doing.
My point is that holding him in an airport for few hours is piss poor attempt at intimidation. I've been subjected to worse at the hands of baggage handlers strike or a heavy storm.
Every turn by the governments has been an attempt to cast the issue as a personal one by unhinged opponents. With every revelation putting the spotlight on the government and the laws and processes they have put into place, they try to turn around and say it's just some lone spy nut or whatever. Hasn't been working too well, but I suppose this gives them a minute of breathing room on the news cycle.
My sense is that if they're going after Greenwald's hubby, they don't really know what to do about all this. They certainly don't want any focus on the past, since they can't help but lie about it (and later be exposed for doing so), so this makes the story about "today." That means the governments can (finally) be the source of information in the story, rather than being wrongfooted as the subject. The western governments really don't seem to like the spotlight these days, but we'll see if they can convert this story to one favorable to them, if even for a couple of days until Greenwald/Gellman/Sanchez/etc.'s next story.
It could be they were trying to score points with the US for their "special relationship". Show commitment etc. so they continue to get funding from the US for surveillance activities (I hope you do remember that revelation, a few weeks back!).
To be honest it was confusing as hell because they said partner and his name is Miranda, more commonly a girls name. Seriously, boyfriend or husband, partner just sounds like some live in person or like you said business related.
I'm also amused by just how hard these reporters seem to even avoid pronouns or other language that would indicate his gender. Strikes me as really really odd.
I wonder if the media and/or government(s) were bending over backwards to make damn sure no one could be accused of homophobia. Dunno about the US, but in the UK, if there were the slightest smell of homophobia, a whole new can of worms would have been opened. The gay rights folk would have, rightly IMHO, exploded, with quite a lot of public support. Oddly, I reckon if this had been some how made a gay issue, the government would have been in a lot more trouble. Last thing this UK government in particular wants is any more controversy over gay rights issues. Lining it to the spying would be both explosive, and kinda 1960's traditional!!!
Or perhaps some credit is due in that some parts of the media have simply grown up, and the gay part really is a non issue. Which would be a good thing.
Even the Daily Mail's coverage was surprisingly good (I looked at it explicitly expecting a total hatchet job).
You know they government has fucked this up when even the Daily Mail writes an article that sympathetic about terror law abuses directed at a gay couple closely linked to the Guardian.
I'm not British but I lived in London for two years and I believe this is the way the British say "significant other." Its pretty forward thinking actually, because they use it for all of the options and therefore take the stigma out of same-sex couples using it to refer to themselves.
I deliberately leave that question unanswered when I'm speaking to groups I don't know personally (such as HN). When I'm talking about my significant other, I refer to them as my significant other. Not my boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband. In this day and age, that really only matters when you're speaking about legal rights as recognized by the state. The gender or legal status of the person I love doesn't generally make one bit of difference.
On the other hand, my dad is a business owner and I've had people assume he was gay when I referred to his co-owner as "his partner, Jeff".
It does in this sense: people were talking about governments going after families. I thought this was just the now-typical bullshit overstatement that I've gotten used to seeing, so I wrote off all the criticism along that line as crackpot, because I assumed Miranda was just another journalist who happened to work directly with Greenwald a lot.
This angle of understanding is now clearly incorrect.
Now I have to go and look up whether or not Miranda is a Guardian reporter, for instance, because that's an assumption I made that may not be true after all.
I am not sure why everyone thinks this has anything to do with bullying and intimidation. Greenwald implicated his partner by saying he had considered sending STOLEN documents to him in a previous interview. Of course British authorities would detain someone who might have stolen property with national security implications.
Stolen documents? No, no. He was, at worst, carrying a copy of information someone else copied without being allowed to so.
You see, if he were carrying stolen documents, someone at Booze Hamilton would be saying "shiiit, that manilla folder with the post-it saying important stuff, don't lose got stolen!".
If someone tells you a secret, hd might be a hero or a villain... but a thief he is not!
"When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.”
"Hey guys, we're going to bully the boyfriend of a reporter for you. High five?"