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British High Court has ruled that police can keep searching data seized from Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda when he was detained for nine hours at a London airport two weeks ago. Miranda's lawyers had tried to block police from searching his documents, which Greenwald obtained from NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The British government has aggressively sought to limit Snowden-related reporting, with British Prime Minister David Cameron ordering government officials to force Guardian staff to destroy hard drives containing data Snowden leaked.
The initial search was on national security grounds, The Guardian's Robert Booth explains, and the broader power was granted to investigate whether there was a crime related to terrorism or a breach of the Official Secrets Act — whether there has been "communication of material to an enemy." Oliver Robbins, deputy national security adviser in the Cabinet Office, said in a witness statement that Miranda was carrying 58,000 "highly classified" British intelligence documents, as well as a password written on a piece of paper that allowed police to decrypt one file, according to Daily Telegraph reporter David Barrett. They have not finished decrypting the others. Greenwald responded in a tweet, "UK Govt: their op-sec was sloppy, but we can't get access to their docs because they're all 'heavy encrypted.'"