David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist and blogger Glenn Greenwald, is taking legal action against the United Kingdom after authorities used a terrorism law to detain him for nine hours at Heathrow Airport on Sunday.
“Miranda’s lawyer Gwendolen Morgan said her client was seeking a judicial review of the legal basis for his detention at London’s Heathrow airport on Sunday under anti-terrorism laws,” Reuters reports.
Miranda, faced with the threat of jail if he did not cooperate, handed over the passwords to his computers and mobile phone to authorities while he was in their custody.
Although Miranda — a Brazilian citizen — was neither charged nor arrested, authorities confiscated his computer, mobile phone, video games and thumb drives.
Morgan told Reuters that she and Miranda have “sought undertakings that there will be no inspection, copying, disclosure, transfer or interference in any other way with our client’s data pending determination of his judicial review.”
She filed a “letter before action” with London’s chief of police and the Home Secretary, stating that she was waiting for a response by Tuesday afternoon.
“Failing that we will be left with no option but to issue urgent proceedings in the High Court tomorrow,” said Morgan.
Her letter also included demands for information about whether Miranda’s data “had already been passed on to anyone else, and if so, who that was and why,” reports Reuters.
Miranda was ferrying documents on encrypted thumb drives between Greenwald, who is based in Rio de Janero, and American filmmaker Laura Poitras in Berlin.
Both Greenwald and Poitras have been working on stories about the classified files provided by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
The Guardian paid for Miranda’s flights and said that he often assists with Greenwald with his work.
In retaliation for the U.K.’s actions, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger revealed Monday that the U.K. government sent officials in June to smash the computers holding the files Snowden had provided the publication.
The government threatened legal action against the Guardian if the computers were not destroyed.