In an act of blatant escalation against press freedom, UK officials held David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, at Heathrow Airport under a controversial Terrorism Act for 9 hours, the maximum allowed under law before police must release or formally arrest a "suspect." Miranda was finally released after police confiscated all his electronics, including cell phone and laptop - a move prompting Greenwald to compare them,  unfavorably, with the Mafia.

"If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded. If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further...Every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world ...all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark."