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!).
