Just days after news broke that the Justice Department had secretly obtained AP journalists’ phone records as part of its ongoing crackdown on leaks, the New Yorker released a new tool — Strongbox— to enable people to safely and securely leak electronic files. The late Aaron Swartz largely built the system (for a good discussion of its strengths and weaknesses, see here, here and here).
Meanwhile, Wired has “Hear Ye, Future Deep Throats: This Is How to Leak to the Press” — a post offering a terrific set of recommendations for leaking via email, phone or postal mail.
And in Slate, Dan Gillmor has “How Journalists Can Protect Themselves from the U.S. Government,” which also has a range of useful tips and links.
If the title of Gillmor’s post doesn’t give you pause regarding the state of press freedom in America, this paragraph should stop you in your tracks:
It’s time now for U.S. media companies and individual bloggers alike to recognize that they live in an environment in which their own government — not to mention criminal or corporate hackers — may well be using all of the tools at its considerable disposal, legal or not, to spy on them. They will increasingly need to practice their craft here at home as if they were independent journalists or dissidents living under an authoritarian regime.
Members of the professional press are not the only ones who should be changing their approach. Given how many people are taking up the tools of media making and journalism, we all need to learn how to report and create media safely.
Two years ago, after police around the U.S. arrested more than 100 journalists, primarily at Occupy protests, the country plummeted to 47 in global press freedom rankings. This year we improved only marginally.
This is the world we live in.
I’m glad to see journalist security getting the attention it is, but we shouldn’t just accept and adapt to this new world of surveillance and eroding rights. We need the press to fight back on these encroachments, but we can’t leave it up to journalists alone. We all have a stake in this issue — as media makers, news consumers and members of the public — and we need to begin building a broad-based movement for media rights.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy