8.43am GMT

Good morning.

At 10am David Miranda is due to find out the result of his high court claim that his detention at Heathrow airport last August was unlawful and undermined his freedom of expression.

Miranda is the partner of former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was one of the paper’s key team reporting the initial leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

He was held and questioned for nine hours on Sunday 18 August 2013 under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000. In November his lawyers argued that his detention for the maximum period allowed was a misuse of schedule 7 and breached his human rights.

Steven Kovats QC, for the home secretary, said that if publication of material obtained by Snowden was capable of being an act of terrorism – and the home secretary “submits that it is” – then “seeking to establish the nature of the claimant’s activity” was both meeting the home secretary’s national security duty and discharging the police’s schedule 7 function “of seeking to determine whether the claimant was or appeared to be a person who was or had been concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”.







Home Office lawyers also argued that border controls existed to check on travellers where there was insufficient information to justify an arrest.





Lord Justice Laws, Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Openshaw also heard arguments about what constitutes journalistic material under recent court precedents and whether all documents handed over would have specific protection. Lawyers for the Metropolitan police said they had “legitimate” concerns about how the encrypted material Miranda was carrying had been “arranged” as they feared all of the Snowden material could be released, endangering lives. Miranda’s lawyers argued that counter-terrorism powers under schedule 7 to the act should not have been used, insisted Miranda was not involved in terrorism and said that his right to freedom of expression was curtailed.Lord Justice Laws, Mr Justice Ouseley and Mr Justice Openshaw also heard arguments about what constitutes journalistic material under recent court precedents and whether all documents handed over would have specific protection.

Matthew Ryder QC, for Miranda, told the judges: This claim is about the use of counter-terrorism powers, that can only be used at ports and airports, to seize journalistic material. The “dominant purpose” of the examining officers was not to determine whether he was a person involved in the commission, instigation or preparation of acts of terrorism, but to “assist the Security Service [MI5] in accessing material in the claimant’s possession”, Ryder said. This was also a “disproportionate interference with his right to freedom of expression”. I’ll cover the result live as it happens here. I’ll cover the result live as it happens here.

Miranda had nine items, including his laptop, mobile phone, memory cards and DVDs, taken from him while detained.He was stopped while changing planes on a journey from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, where he lives with Greenwald. In Berlin he was visiting Laura Poitras, a filmmaker who had also worked with the Guardian on the first Snowden revelations. Before his high court challenge in November, judges ruled that the material seized from him could only be examined for national security purposes and the protection of the public, and no other. Miranda’s legal action was against the home secretary and the commissioner of the Metropolitan police. At the high court, lawyers for the Home Office argued that schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act was “surely also capable of covering the publication, or threatened publication, of stolen classified information which, if published, would reveal personal details of members of the armed forces or security and intelligence services thereby endangering their lives where that publication or threatened publication is designed to influence government policy on the activities of the security and intelligence agencies”.