Snowden anniversary a reminder of the need to protect whistleblowers and journalists
AP Photo/George Brich
Whistleblowers are essential to a free and unfettered press.
Whistleblowers play a critical role in informing the public and holding the government to account.
Sources who act out of conscience to leak information to the press further our democracy. Whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden, have exposed some of our government’s gravest abuses.
Unfortunately, whistleblowers are often prosecuted and jailed. That’s wrong. Whistleblowers and the journalists they work with should be celebrated, not punished.
Featured Items
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The Freedom of Information Act: The Most Powerful Tool in My Reporting Arsenal
Jason Leopold is Truthout’s lead investigative reporter. Freedom of the Press Foundation is crowd-funding in support of his FOIA work and on-the-scenes reporting at the Guantanamo Bay trials. You can fund his work here. A couple of years ago, a friend handed me about 500 pages of documents he …
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Correcting the Error-Riddled Wall Street Journal Column on WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, and Press Freedom
Since the audio of whistleblower Bradley Manning's statement to the court leaked last week, it's becoming clear how much of a threat the government's "aiding the enemy" charge against Manning threatens all whistleblowers. Famed law professor Yochai Benkler and First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams wrote an op-ed in the …
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Bradley Manning's Voice Now Available on The Internet Archive and The Pirate Bay
Yesterday Freedom of the Press Foundation published a full, previously unreleased audio recording of Bradley Manning's speech to the military court about his motivations for leaking the Apache helicopter video, Afghanistan and Iraq Wars Logs, and the State Department Diplomatic Cables to WikiLeaks. In this recording he says in his …
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Help Spread Bradley Manning's Words Across the Internet
Today Freedom of the Press Foundation released an audio recording of Bradley Manning's statement to the military court. By releasing this audio recording, we wish to make sure that the voice of this generation's most prolific whistleblower can be heard—literally—by the world. Please spread his words as far as you …
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Freedom of the Press Foundation Publishes Leaked Audio of Bradley Manning’s Statement
Today, Freedom of the Press Foundation is publishing the full, previously unreleased audio recording of Private First Class Bradley Manning’s speech to the military court in Ft. Meade about his motivations for leaking over 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks. In addition, we have published highlights from Manning’s statement to the …
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Independent Journalists Lead Way in Covering and Bringing Transparency to Bradley Manning's Court Martial
Cross-posted with permission from Firedoglake.com Whenever members of the US media have heard Pfc. Bradley Manning is about to testify or make some kind of statement in military court at Fort Meade, where his court martial is taking place, the press pool has ballooned. Suddenly, many media organizations want to …
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The Drones Controversy Shows Why Leaks Are Vital to Democracy
This week, Congress finally started a substantive debate on the role of drones in US foreign policy, and more importantly, the Obama administration’s secret legal rationale for why it believes it can kill American citizens overseas with no due process. But why is this just happening now? It's been more …
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Talking to Reporters Is Not A Crime: New Leak Investigation Threatens Press Freedom
A disturbing report in Saturday’s Washington Post describes an FBI investigation of a large number of government officials suspected of leaking classified information to the press, engulfing an unknown group of reporters along the way. The investigation includes data-mining officials’ personal and professional communications to find any contact with journalists. …
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How Aaron Swartz Fought For Government Transparency
"Transparency can be a powerful thing, but not in isolation. So, let’s stop passing the buck by saying our job is just to get the data out there and it’s other people’s job to figure out how to use it. Let’s decide that our job is to fight for good …
