Shorter UK Security Establishment: "Lovely Partner You Have. Pity if Something Were to Happen to Him."

For that is pretty much what happened in the UK yesterday. Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda, was changing planes at Heathrow Airport when the goons grabbed him and questioned him for the maximum of nine hours that they are allowed to hold someone without charges under the UK's Terrorism Act. They kept every pit of electronics that Miranda had before releasing him.

Of course, this had nothing to do with terrorism. It was retaliatory against Greenwald, the spooks signalling that "we can go after your family".

So-called anti-terror legislation, both here and in the UK, is mainly used for everything else. On a percentage basis of the number of cases that are investigated using the enhanced powers given to law enforcement after 9-11 and the number of terrorism cases so investigated, it's roughly equivalent to the percentage of World Series games with the Chicago Cubs. Maybe less.

But before we get our outrage going against the UK holding Mr. Miranda for nine hours without any reasonable justification, consider this: If he had changed planes at JFK, our badged-up thugs could have held him as a "material witness" for days, if not weeks.

Intimidating journalists, at least in First World countries, is a stupid tactic. It almost always backfires. For unlike lesser-developed shitholes like Mexico or Russia, the intimidators are not killing them.

UPDATE: The fingerprints of the MTAHNS are all over this one.