Chicago police ignore journalists’ rights
The Chicago Police Department repeatedly dispersed, arrested, and threatened journalists at protests during the first two days of the DNC.
Marion County Record raid, a year later
NewsletterLast week, special prosecutors cleared the Record’s reporters of wrongdoing, and this week, former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody was charged for obstructing the investigation of the raid.
Further accountability needed in Marion
NewsletterSpecial prosecutors this week finally released their report on last August’s police raid of the Marion County Record. The report recommends criminal charges against former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, and clears the Record and its reporters of wrongdoing.
Gag rules stifle financial journalism
NewsletterThe Securities and Exchange Commission requires defendants who settle cases it brings to contract away their right to deny the SEC’s allegations. So does the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That means potential sources can’t speak to financial journalists.
Pressure Netanyahu to protect journalists
NewsletterWith Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the U.S. this week, officials who claim to care about press freedom need to make clear to him that the U.S. will not tolerate killings, imprisonments, or censorship of journalists by its ally.
Don’t let prosecutors define journalism
NewsletterFederal prosecutors are claiming a startling new power: the ability to decide what is or isn’t “legitimate” journalism.
Police must protect press covering RNC
NewsletterAs journalists arrive at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum to cover the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC), we can expect the public to take to the streets to protest everything from Donald Trump’s nomination to the ongoing war in Gaza and the killing of Dvontaye Mitchell.
Platform cases uphold press precedent
NewsletterWith all eyes on the Supreme Court’s disturbing opinion on presidential immunity, you may have missed that the court also issued an important First Amendment decision this week about social media content moderation.
Assange freed, press freedom imperiled
NewsletterJulian Assange has finally been freed after reaching a surprising deal with U.S. authorities to plead guilty to violating the Espionage Act. The plea deal avoids the worst outcome of a court precedent that could be used against journalists, but it still threatens press freedom.
States keep public in dark
NewsletterA full-fledged assault on transparency is underway in the states. Recent changes to public records laws in New Jersey, Louisiana, and Utah are making it harder for journalists and the public to find out what government officials are up to.
Federal anti-SLAPP law needed ASAP
NewsletterRecent baseless lawsuits against liberal and conservative outlets show the need for a federal law counteracting strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs.
Sen. Durbin, advance the PRESS Act
NewsletterSen. Dick Durbin has a rare chance to strengthen freedom of the press right now by advancing the bipartisan PRESS Act, a bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality at the federal level. But he needs to act quickly. This week, Freedom of the Press Foundation led a coalition of 123 civil liberties and journalism organizations and individual law professors and media lawyers in a letter to Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham, urging them to schedule a markup of the PRESS Act right away.
Assange decision: A wake-up call for US
NewsletterOn Monday, the High Court in London granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal his extradition to the United States. The court’s decision is a welcome one. But as Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) wrote in The Guardian, it's "painfully ironic" that a U.K. court is defending the First Amendment against U.S. overreach. The ruling should be a “wake-up call” for President Joe Biden
California police violate press rights
NewsletterCalifornia police are violating state law “right and left” during the protests and police raids on campus encampments. That’s according to University of California, Irvine, School of Law professor Susan Seager. We interviewed her in the wake of arrests of two California journalists in recent weeks, among other press freedom violations. Suppression of the press isn’t supposed to happen anywhere in America, but especially not in California, where it’s explicitly against the law for police to intentionally interfere with journalists covering a demonstration.
‘A national embarrassment’
Arrests/Prosecutions • NewsletterThe flood of press freedom violations against journalists covering protests opposing the Israel-Gaza war is a national embarrassment. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented dozens of abuses connected to protests and counterprotests, and the numbers will likely grow. These recent incidents confirm what past data in the Tracker has demonstrated: protests are an especially dangerous place for journalists.
Cops on campus arrest, bully journalists
NewsletterAs police stormed several college campuses in recent days and arrested hundreds of students protesting the Israel-Gaza war, the free press was also under attack. Texas Department of Public Safety officers arrested Carlos Sanchez, a photojournalist for the local Fox affiliate, as he was covering protests at the University of Texas at Austin. But police can’t seem to make up their minds about what, exactly, they want us to believe Sanchez did wrong, repeatedly bringing then dropping charges against the photographer.
Biden signs off on ‘spy draft’
NewsletterLast week, we warned of a dangerous new bill that would expand the surveillance law Section 702 of FISA. Unfortunately, the Senate approved the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, or RISAA, over the weekend, officially reauthorizing Section 702 without any significant reforms and with dangerous expansions of the intelligence agencies’ spy powers. President Biden quickly signed the bill into law, authorizing intelligence agencies to essentially “institute a spy draft” that could require ordinary Americans and businesses to help the government surveil online communications, including those of journalists.
‘Spy draft’ bill threatens press freedom
NewsletterThe Senate is dangerously close to passing a bill that would allow intelligence agencies to essentially “institute a spy draft” and order everyone from dentists to plumbers to surveil their patients and customers’ communications. The RISAA would also allow the government to order commercial landlords who rent space to media outlets, or contractors who service newsrooms, to help it spy on American journalists’ communications with foreign sources.
Stop this horrifying mass surveillance bill
NewsletterThe House has slipped a horrifying amendment into its bill extending intelligence agencies’ already expansive spying powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Anyone who values press freedom — or their own freedom — needs to tell their senators TODAY to VOTE NO on the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, or RISAA, by calling 202-899-8938.
‘Imperative’ to pass PRESS Act
NewsletterVeteran journalist Catherine Herridge threw her full support behind the PRESS Act, the federal bill to put an end to surveillance and subpoenas to force journalists to out their sources, during Congressional testimony on April 11, 2024.
Government secrecy issues to watch during Trump’s presidency
Secrecy • NewsletterWill Trump keep trying to flush presidential records down the toilet?
Will DOGE be subject to transparency rules?
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: Be skeptical when government says the sky is falling anytime classified documents enter public domain
Join live FPF-New Yorker discussion on Haditha massacre reporting
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: Trump may fire the archivist. She can still fight secrecy
EPA has known for 20 years that it promotes toxic fertilizer
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: The CIA drugged unsuspecting Americans as part of its mind-control research programs.
Aliens, Gitmo, and the weather: Excessive secrecy affects everything
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: a look back at 2024
Gitmo, background checks, and drones: a busy week in secrecy news
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: U.S. government declassifies 1960 report stating Israeli nuclear site was for weapons
National security claims hide information from families separated at border
Secrecy • NewsletterPlus: how you can help preserve federal data at risk of being deleted
Russia blocks access to Signal
NewsletterThe latest move means that the app has been removed from Google Play and Apple App Store in Russia.
Cloudflare hides abusive websites
NewsletterThe Spamhaus Project has released a blog criticizing Cloudflare — a content delivery network and cloud cybersecurity provider — for providing security services to abusive domains. These websites could contain spam, phishing links, malware, and even botnets.
Android spyware flies under the radar
NewsletterThe cybersecurity firm Kaspersky disclosed that at least five Google Play applications contained Mandrake, a sophisticated cyberespionage tool.
Google backtracks on ad privacy plan
NewsletterGoogle has a habit of hitting the brakes on products and features — so much so that it’s become something of a meme to be “killed by Google.” This time it decided to backtrack on its long-standing plan to replace traditional tracking in its Chrome browser.
Beware fraudulent CrowdStrike emails
NewsletterLast Friday, computer systems worldwide were taken down by a defective update from enterprise cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike. In the wake of the outage, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency is warning of phishing emails, with attackers posing as CrowdStrike customer support.
What to do about AT&T breach
NewsletterAround 110 million AT&T subscribers were affected by a data breach from May 1 to Oct. 31, 2022, TechCrunch reported.
Massive Authy leak, plus Proton Docs
NewsletterThe parent company for Authy, an application for two-factor authentication, has issued a critical security update to its Android and iOS users. According to BleepingComputer, hackers utilized leaked phone numbers from past data breaches to identify up to 33 million Authy users.
Eavesdropping on AirPods?
NewsletterApple released a firmware update patching a critical Bluetooth vulnerability in AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Fit Pro. According to its support page, an adversary in Bluetooth range could spoof as an intended source device for these wireless headphones. When the targeted headphones send a connection request to the spoofed device, it could eavesdrop on confidential conversations.
Mail surveillance is widespread
NewsletterAccording to data unearthed in a congressional probe, more than 60,000 requests by federal investigators and police captured data on 312,000 letters and packages between 2015 and 2023.
When data brokers break
NewsletterWe often talk to newsrooms about dealing with data brokers — companies that aggregate and sell data from commercial and public records. According to recent reporting from TechCrunch, an alleged breach of a U.S. data broker impacted at least 300 million people. Their reporting suggests “mixed results” verifying the authenticity of the data.
Apple’s password app
NewsletterIn the hope of simplifying how customers can log into apps and websites, Apple has announced it will offer a new Passwords app in its upcoming versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15.
Oops, all breaches!
NewsletterData breach notification service “Have I Been Pwned?” has added the login information associated with 361 million email addresses. Have I Been Pwned owner Troy Hunt says as many as 151 million of these unique email addresses have never been seen in his database before. The website boasts tracking over 13.5 billion breach accounts. Some of these credentials are reportedly harvested from users’ devices infected with information-stealing malware.
Slack trains AI models on user data
NewsletterOver this past week, Slack published a blog post defending its privacy practices following widespread criticism over its use of customer data to train its global AI models. At the moment, organizations are required to opt out to prevent their messages, content, and files from being mined to develop Slack’s AI.
Crossfire over messaging security
NewsletterJohns Hopkins cryptography professor Matthew Green explains that “the cryptography behind Signal (also used in WhatsApp and several other messengers) is open source and has been intensively reviewed by cryptographers. When it comes to cryptography, this is pretty much the gold standard.” By comparison, Telegram does not provide end-to-end encryption protection by default and only offers it as an option in one-on-one “Secret Chat” mode.
Google Docs locks out writer
NewsletterWhile it’s powerful and convenient, Google Docs might not be right for all documents, including those that you consider sensitive, private, or that you can’t risk losing. Read more about newsroom privacy and security considerations when using Google Workspace.
Google details app violations
NewsletterAccording to its security blog, Google prevented 2.28 million — yes, million — Android apps from being published on its Play Store in 2023. The company says it also removed 333,000 accounts for attempting to deliver malware through the Play Store, as well as for “repeated severe policy violations.” These numbers have grown substantially since 2022, when the company disclosed it prevented 1.43 million apps from being published on the Play Store.
Bill expands US spying powers
NewsletterLast week, Congress reauthorized a controversial surveillance authority, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. While legislators considered reforms to FISA that would restrain the federal intelligence and law enforcement community’s abilities to spy on American communications without a warrant, they in fact expanded these surveillance powers to subject more electronic communications service providers, such as U.S. cloud computing data centers, to data collection.
Apple warns iPhone users of targeted malware
NewsletterOn April 10, Apple sent users in 92 countries warning of mercenary malware attacks targeting the iPhone. The notification did not provide details about the identities of the attackers. According to TechCrunch, Apple warned, “This attack is likely targeting you specifically because of who you are or what you do. Although it’s never possible to achieve absolute certainty when detecting such attacks, Apple has high confidence in this warning — please take it seriously.”
Preparing for election-related security issues
NewsletterThroughout this year, our digital security training team will share our thoughts on navigating security issues during the 2024 election season. Elections around the world experience distinct security issues that may change from year to year, but in the U.S. we look to 2020 for lessons on how to get ahead of likely issues, from surveillance of our sensitive communications to perennial phishing attacks and harassment for political reporting.
Google to delete old Chrome Incognito data
NewsletterFollowing a class-action lawsuit over Google’s handling of user data in its Chrome browser’s “Incognito” private browsing mode, the search company will expunge “billions of event-level data records that reflect class members’ private browsing activities” improperly collected before January 2024. It also updated its Incognito landing page to highlight that even Google can discern your activities in private browsing mode. Additionally, the company will be required to delete data that makes users’ private browsing data personally identifiable, such as IP addresses.
J-school security curriculum: Into the Dangerzone
NewsletterWe’ve added new slides to our Malware module to help instructors get started sharing the good word about Dangerzone.
J-School Digital Security Curriculum: September Update
NewsletterHello again!It’s Martin, principal researcher at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), with our regular update on the U.S. Journalism School Digital Security Curriculum.J-school security curriculum highlightsTo account for new username and privacy options in recent versions of Signal, we made some small changes to the …
J-School Digital Security Curriculum: July Update
NewsletterHello again!It’s Martin, principal researcher at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), with our regular update on the U.S. Journalism School Digital Security Curriculum.Before we jump in, I want to share that we’re hiring a Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) consultant to help us develop a …
