I do think this is driven by fear and incompetence rather than malice but you could easily be right. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the various offices dealing with the fall-out from this, especially the interface boundary between the foreign affairs and the anti-terror branches.
Quite possibly the idea of detaining Mr. Miranda originated from an overzealous busy-body relatively low in the hierarchy. Or perhaps it's merely meant to look like that.
(I discount the gay smear argument. It might play in the US, but here in the UK there are/have been out-of-the-closet gay Conservative cabinet ministers.)
Somewhat surprisingly, I don't think it plays in the US anymore either. I have heard fairly little about either Greenwald or Manning's GSM status. The media has made more of a deal with Snowden and his "pole dancing" ex-girlfriend.
Read the middle of the last page: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-sno...
> Their discussion turned to the question of coming back to the United States. Greenwald said, half-jokingly, that if he was arrested, WikiLeaks would become the new traffic cop for publishing N.S.A. documents. “I would just say: ‘O.K., let me introduce you to my friend Julian Assange, who’s going to take my place. Have fun dealing with him.’ ”
> Poitras prodded him: “So you’re going back to the States?”
> He laughed and pointed out that unfortunately, the government does not always take the smartest course of action. “If they were smart,” he said, “I would do it.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/25/greenwald-s...
“When I was in Hong Kong, I spoke to my partner in Rio via Skype and told him I would send an electronic encrypted copy of the documents,” Greenwald said. “I did not end up doing it. Two days later his laptop was stolen from our house and nothing else was taken. Nothing like that has happened before. I am not saying it’s connected to this, but obviously the possibility exists.”
After that his partner was definitely in play and that set the stage for todays (or yesterday, depending on where you live) action.
I think audit trails and accountability (and the threat of punishment for those who abuse their power) will curtail such civil liberties abuses.
Mr Miranda should consult a qualified lawyer: There will likely be several good ones who would do the work pro bono, to explore avenues whereby he can seek redress.
At the very least, it will cost the government (significant quantities of) time and money in legal expenses, and may cause them to think twice about using such tactics in future.