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.
Featured Items
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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, …
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Why It's Vital For Users to Fund Open-Source Encryption Tools
We’ve been crowd-funding donations for several open-source encryption tools for two months now. We've discussed before why these tools are so important from a press freedom perspective, but we’ve also repeatedly heard one question from readers who have come across the campaign for the first time: “why should I …
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Will the US State Department Condemn the UK Government For Using Terrorism Laws to Suppress Journalism?
In a disturbing ruling for democracy, a lower court in United Kingdom announced today that the detainment of journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda was lawful under the Terrorism Act, despite the fact that the UK government knew Miranda never was a terrorist. This disgraceful opinion equates acts of journalism …
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Highlights from John Cusack's Reddit 'Ask Me Anything'
Our board member John Cusack held an expansive Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) yesterday and took a variety of questions on freedom of the press, the Obama administration, acting, directing, and activism. Here are some of the highlights that touched on issues he is involved with at Freedom of the …
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