LONDON The British government, accused of abusing media freedom, said on Tuesday police were right to detain a journalist's partner if they thought lives might be at risk from data he was carrying from fugitive U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. 
 
 Facing legal and diplomatic complaints after police held Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald's Brazilian partner for nine hours on Sunday - and accused by the newspaper of forcing it to trash computers holding copies of Snowden's data - the interior minister said officers were entitled to take security measures. 
 
 Home Secretary Theresa May said police held David Miranda at a London airport under anti-terrorism powers, which allow for action to prevent stolen data to aid terrorists. Material from Snowden, published by the Guardian, has revealed extensive U.S. and British surveillance of global communications networks. 
 
 "It's absolutely right that if the police believe that somebody is in possession of highly sensitive, stolen information that could help terrorists, that could risk lives, lead to a potential loss of life, the police are able to act - and that's what the law enables them to do," May told the BBC. 
 
 She added, however, that an independent reviewer was looking into the police conduct. 
 
 As interior minister, May said she was briefed in advance that Miranda might be stopped but she stressed that she did not decide whom the police detained. The United States said Britain gave it a "heads up" but it did not ask for Miranda to be questioned. 
 
 Snowden, who faces criminal charges in the United States, has been granted a year's asylum by Russia. 
 
 A British lawyer who launched an action on the Brazilian's behalf to question the legal basis of his detention said police seized a laptop computer, a telephone, memory sticks, a computer hard drive and a games console from him. He was released without charge after reaching a time limit on such detentions. 
 
 Miranda had been in transit at Heathrow airport, carrying material from Snowden that was being passed from Berlin-based American documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras to Greenwald, an American writer for Britain's Guardian who lives in Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 "These items contain sensitive, confidential journalistic material and should not have been seized," Miranda's London lawyers wrote in a letter to May and the police. 
 
 Brazil's government has complained to Britain. The action against Miranda also was denounced by British opposition politicians, human rights lawyers and press freedom groups. 
 
 The leaks by Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, gave details of NSA and British surveillance of public telephone and internet traffic. The United States and Britain say their agencies acted within their laws and the leaks threatened their national security. 
 
 'YOU'VE HAD YOUR FUN' 
 
 On Tuesday, Guardian editors revealed how and why the newspaper destroyed computer hard drives containing copies of some of the secret files leaked by Snowden. 
 
 A timeline of events provided by the Guardian said initial British attempts to stop reporting on the files came two weeks after the newspaper published its first three stories based on Snowden's leaks. 
 
 These stories were about a secret U.S. court order obliging communications company Verizon to hand over data on customers' phone usage, Britain's secretive Government Communications Headquarters' (GCHQ) use of data from a NSA internet monitoring program, and British intelligence spying on allies in London. 
 
 Shortly afterward, two senior British officials arrived to see editor Alan Rusbridger to demand the newspaper hand over all its Snowden files, arguing the material was stolen, according to the Guardian's timeline. He refused. 
 
 Three weeks later, in July, after the publication of more articles, officials got back in touch with Rusbridger and told him, according to the newspaper: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." 
 
 The officials expressed fears that foreign governments, particularly Russia or China, could hack into the newspaper's IT network although the journalists stressed the documents were not stored on any Guardian system but held in isolation, according to the newspaper. 
 
 Between July 16 and 19, the Guardian said government pressure intensified and there was an explicit threat of legal action if the newspaper did not comply. 
 
 Rusbridger said he decided that if the government was determined to stop Britain-based reporting on the Snowden files, the best option was to destroy the London copy and to edit and report from the same material held in the United States and Brazil. 
 
 On July 20, two "security experts" from GCHQ visited the paper's London head office and watched as deputy editor Paul Johnson, executive director Sheila Fitzsimons and a newspaper computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverize hard drives and memory chips storing encrypted files, according to the newspaper. 
 
 Both sides were aware other copies existed outside the Britain. 
 
 "I hope what (the Miranda detention controversy) will do is to send people back to read the stories that so upset the British state because there has been a lot of reporting about what GCHQ and the NSA are up to," Rusbridger said. 
 
 Downing Street and GCHQ have declined to comment. 
 
 In Washington, a White House spokesman said he could not comment on the destruction of some of the Guardian's Snowden material. But he said he could not see U.S. authorities destroying an American media company's hard drives to protect national security. 
 
 "That's very difficult to imagine a scenario in which that would be appropriate," spokesman John Earnest told reporters. 
 
 Britain came under criticism from press freedom group Index on Censorship, which denounced the forced destruction of computers revealed by Guardian editors. 
 
 "It is clear that the Snowden and NSA story is strongly in the public interest," the group said. "It seems that the UK government is using, and quite literally misusing, laws to intimidate journalists and silence its critics." 
 
 A British source with knowledge of the security services said GCHQ had no powers to seize material from the Guardian, but could have accused the newspaper of possessing stolen materials and demanded they be destroyed. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn and Belinda Goldsmith in London and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge, Peter Graff and Alastair Macdonald) ||||| David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a "total abuse of power" for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act. 
 
 In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone. 
 
 "They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate," said Miranda. "They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong." 
 
 Miranda – a Brazilian national who lives with Greenwald in Rio – was held for the maximum time permitted under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allows officers to stop, search and question individuals at airports, ports and border areas. 
 
 During that time, he said, he was not allowed to call his partner, who is a qualified lawyer in the US, nor was he given an interpreter, despite being promised one because he felt uncomfortable speaking in a second language. 
 
 "I was in a different country with different laws, in a room with seven agents coming and going who kept asking me questions. I thought anything could happen. I thought I might be detained for a very long time," he said. 
 
 He was on his way back from Berlin, where he was ferrying materials between Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on stories related to the NSA files released by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden. 
 
 Miranda was seized almost as soon as his British Airways flight touched down on Sunday morning. "There was an announcement on the plane that everyone had to show their passports. The minute I stepped out of the plane they took me away to a small room with four chairs and a machine for taking fingerprints," he recalled. 
 
 His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage. 
 
 "They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone," Miranda said. "They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words 'prison' and 'station' all the time." 
 
 "It is clear why they took me. It's because I'm Glenn's partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection," he said. "But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on." 
 
 Miranda was told he was being detained under the Terrorism Act. He was never accused of being a terrorist or being associated with terrorists, but he was told that if – after nine hours – his interrogators did not think he was being co-operative, then he could be taken to a police station and put in jail. 
 
 "This law shouldn't be given to police officers. They use it to get access to documents or people that they cannot get the legal way through courts or judges," said Miranda. "It's a total abuse of power." 
 
 He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities. The questions, he said, were relentless – about Greenwald, Snowden, Poitras and a host of other apparently random subjects. 
 
 "They even asked me about the protests in Brazil, why people were unhappy and who I knew in the government," said Miranda. 
 
 He got his first drink – from a Coke machine in the corridor – after eight hours and was eventually released almost an hour later. Police records show he had been held from 08.05 to 17.00. 
 
 Unable immediately to find a flight for him back to Rio, Miranda says the Heathrow police then escorted him to passport control so he could enter Britain and wait there. 
 
 "It was ridiculous," he said. "First they treat me like a terrorist suspect. Then they are ready to release me in the UK." 
 
 Although he believes the British authorities were doing the bidding of the US, Miranda says his view of the UK has completely changed as a result of the experience. 
 
 "I have friends in the UK and liked to visit, but you can't go to a country where they have laws that allow the abuse of liberty for nothing," he said. 
 
 The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain Miranda, though a spokesman said US officials had been given a "heads up" by British officials beforehand. 
 
 The Brazilian government has expressed grave concern about the "unjustified" detention. 
 
 Speaking by phone from the couple's home in the Tijuca forest, Miranda said it felt "awesome" to be back. "It's really good to be here. I felt the weight lift off my shoulders as soon I got back. Brazil feels very secure, very safe," he said. "I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me."
– The White House says it didn't order British authorities to seize the partner of journalist Glenn Greenwald as he changed planes in London—but it had a "heads-up" on what was going to happen to him. The nine-hour detention and questioning of David Miranda over the Edward Snowden NSA leaks "was a decision that was made by the British government," a White House spokesman told reporters, referring all further questions to British authorities. He declined to say whether the US had been provided with information from Miranda's confiscated electronic equipment. During his detention under anti-terror laws, Miranda says he was ordered to reveal the passwords for his computer and cell phone and told he would be put in jail if his interrogators decided he wasn't being cooperative, the Guardian reports. Amid a growing outcry over the detention, British police insist their actions were "legally and procedurally sound," reports the Wall Street Journal. The UK's independent reviewer of counterterrorism legislation, however, says he wants police to explain the "unusual" detention.