The game is over. Even Andrew Sullivan has jumped ship of the NSA and GCHQ. In Greenwald's defense

[muriel_volestrangler]

108. I don't think the documents are 'stolen', under UK law

The legal definition of theft involves, in England, intent to permanently deprive. Copying is not stealing (there's copyright aspects to a lot of copying, of course, but that is not being invoked here). Greenwald has copies of American data (and so does The Guardian, in London, and it hasn't had its computers taken away, or anyone charged; for that matter, the Washington Post hasn't had its computers confiscated, or anyone charged, and that's in the USA, where it was government data). This dates from 1997, but I don't think new legislation has been introduced:

At present the criminal law gives no specific protection to trade secrets. In
particular, trade secrets cannot, in law, be stolen: they do not constitute “property”
for the purpose of the Theft Act 1968,11 section 1 of which defines the offence of
theft as the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the
intention of permanently depriving the other of it. In the leading case, Oxford v
Moss,12 an undergraduate obtained the proof of an examination paper before the
examination. After reading the proof he returned it, retaining the information for
his own use. He was held not guilty of stealing the information.

The principle is strikingly illustrated by Absolom,13 which followed Oxford v Moss.
The defendant, a geologist, obtained and then tried to sell to a rival company
details of a leading oil company’s exploration for oil off the Irish coast. The
information, which was contained in a “graphalog” (a record of geological data
and an indication of the prospects of finding oil), was unique, since the company
was the only oil company exploring the area. The company had invested £13
million in drilling operations, and the information could have been sold for
between £50,000 and £100,000. Although the judge stated that the defendant had
acted in “utmost bad faith”, he directed the jury to acquit him of theft, on the
ground that the information in the graphalog was not capable of founding such a
charge.

A further difficulty with applying the law of theft to the misappropriation of a trade
secret arises from the requirement that the defendant must intend permanently to
deprive the owner of the property. “It is difficult to see how there is any question
of deprivation where someone has, in breach of confidence, forced the original
holder to share, but not forget, his secret.”

http://lawcommission.justice.gov.uk/docs/cp150_Legislating_the_Criminal_Code__Misuse_of_Trade_Secrets_Consultation.pdf

There are laws about the misuse of computers, which cover people hacking, but those would apply to Snowden, not to everyone he then copied the data to.

Miranda was not detained under suspicion of theft, or the Official Secrets Act, or anything like that; he was detained under the Terrorism Act, which was written (before 9/11) to allow anyone to be detained at an airport or border, for up to 9 hours, even if they're not suspected of having anything to do with terrorism. This is an abuse of the act, though it seems to follow the letter of the law. It is the mark of an authoritarian government to do this.