The defection of Edward Snowden, the contractor to the U.S. National Security Agency who has been granted permission to stay in Russia, followed the extensive leaks of confidential and secret U.S. documents organized through WikiLeaks by Julian Assange, the Australian granted asylum in the embassy of Ecuador in London in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.
Information provided by Edward Snowden was fed to the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in Britain. This led to officials from Britain's GCHQ (which, according to its official website, "provides intelligence, protects information and informs relevant U.K. policy to keep our society safe and successful in the Internet age") overseeing the smashup of newspaper computers that allegedly contained copies of the leaked documents.
The authorities in Britain, presumably with U.S. cooperation, on Aug. 26 temporarily detained at London airport David Miranda, who was traveling from Berlin to Rio. He is the Brazilian partner of Glenn Greenwald, a resident of Rio de Janeiro and correspondent of the Guardian. The detention was made under the Terrorism Act.