Surveillance expansion threatens press freedom – and everyone else's
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Mass surveillance is widespread. Congress must rein in government spying powers.
In 2013, whistleblower and longtime Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) board member Edward Snowden’s stunning revelations of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency shocked the world. Since then, we’ve learned even more about the alarming scope of surveillance by the U.S. government.
Mass surveillance undermines everyone’s privacy, and it threatens press freedom by allowing the government to spy on communications between journalists and their sources.
Take Action
Tell Congress to Fix Section 702 of FISA.
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Call or Email Your Senator or Representative
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Call or email your senator or representative and urge them to fix Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A recent change to the law has vastly expanded the government’s spying powers.
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Write to Your Local Paper
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Help advance press freedom by writing newspaper op-eds or letters to the editor in support of fixing Section 702 of FISA.
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Featured Items
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Fact-Checking Hillary Clinton's Comments About Edward Snowden and the NSA
Hillary Clinton made her first extended public remarks about Edward Snowden late last week, and unfortunately she misstated some basic facts about the NSA whistleblower and how events have played out in the last year. Here’s a breakdown of what she said and where she went wrong: Clinton: "If he …
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State Dept Launches 'Free the Press' Campaign While DOJ Asks Supreme Court to Force Reporter James Risen Into Jail
The US State Department announced the launch of its third annual "Free the Press" campaign today, which will purportedly highlight "journalists or media outlets that are censored, attacked, threatened, or otherwise oppressed because of their reporting." A noble mission for sure. But maybe they should kick off the campaign by …
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A Vindication for the Public: The Guardian and Washington Post Win the Pulitzer Prize
I am grateful to the committee for their recognition of the efforts of those involved in the last year's reporting, and join others around the world in congratulating Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, Ewen MacAskill, and all of the others at the Guardian and Washington Post on winning the …
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The Operating System That Can Protect You Even if You Get Hacked
We wrote about the importance of the Tails operating system to all of the NSA journalists last week, but there’s also another little-known operating system that journalists should consider using if they find themselves in high-risk scenarios. It’s called Qubes. I've only been using Qubes for a few weeks, …
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Help Support the Little-Known Privacy Tool That Has Been Critical to Journalists Reporting on the NSA
Edward Snowden famously first contacted Laura Poitras using GPG email encryption, which eventually led to her, Glenn Greenwald, and Barton Gellman breaking the biggest story in decades. However, another tool has been even more critical to all of the main NSA journalists, and many people outside the digital security …
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Judge Orders FBI to Conduct New Search for Documents on Internet Activist Aaron Swartz
A federal court judge on Monday ordered the FBI to conduct a new search for documents on Aaron Swartz, the late Internet activist who was being aggressively prosecuted by the federal government for downloading millions of academic articles. Swartz committed suicide in January 2013 before his case had gone to …
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Watch Some of the Nation's Best Journalists and Media Lawyers Discuss Today's Threats to Press Freedom
The New York Times and the George Polk Awards held an excellent one-day conference two weeks ago entitled "Sources and Secrets," in which a number of all-star panelists discussed issues related to secrecy, national security, whistleblowers, and the state of journalism in the age of mass surveillance. The videos have …
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Lessons for Journalists and Sources from the Microsoft/Blogger Privacy Fiasco
Privacy-conscious Internet users were aghast last week when court documents showed that Microsoft looked at the content of a blogger’s Hotmail account without a warrant—or any legal process whatsoever—in an attempt to root out a employee within Microsoft who was allegedly leaking the source code of Windows 8. The move …
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Renowned Technologists, Journalists Join Freedom of the Press Foundation Technical Advisory Board
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFreedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to supporting and defending public-interest journalism, is announcing a new technical advisory board that includes top-notch journalists, technologists and academics.The new board’s mission, according to foundation director Trevor Timm, is to function as a think-tank for digital …
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Suspicionless Searches at the US Border: A Growing Problem for Press Freedom
On The Media dedicated its whole program this week to addressing a growing and disturbing problem: the suspension of constitutional rights at the US border, where Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) can detain US citizens for hours and seize their electronic devices without any suspicion of wrong doing. Perhaps worse, …
