Reform Government Secrecy

Pentagon Papers whistleblower (and our co-founder) Daniel Ellsberg held an expansive, seven-hour long Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session yesterday to explain why NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will join our board of directors. He also discussed many other subjects—including NSA surveillance, President Obama’s flip-flop on whistleblowers, Nixon’s dirty tricks, and …

House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers and his Democractic counterpart Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger published a press release today touting a classified Defense Department report alleging that Edward Snowden’s leaks—and by proxy, stories published by news organizations—threaten national security and “are likely to have lethal consequences for our troops in …

These two pieces, the first by Marcy Wheeler, in part commenting on the second by Amy Davidson in the New Yorker (along with Snowden himself, in his interview with Bart Gellman) are the first I've seen making a point I've been making for years: contrary to the frequent …

When President Obama announced last August that he would take steps to try and win back public confidence in the wake of a series of troubling disclosures by The Guardian and Washington Post about the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices he promised the public that his administration would be “transparent." …

On May 9, 2013, we made a bold claim on this website. We promised to crowd-fund enough money to hire independent court reporters to provide transcripts of the entire Manning court martial.  We knew that it was vital that the public have a virtual seat in Chelsea Manning’s trial …

It’s nearly impossible to gauge the full impact of harassment of the press. How do you measure the stories that go untold because a journalist felt intimidated? How do you quantify the corruption that won’t be exposed because sources are afraid to talk? When the impact of threats is silence, …

Score one for transparency. A federal court judge on Thursday—in response to a motion I filed in July—unsealed Guantanamo warden Col. John Bogdan’s six-page sworn declaration pertaining to a genital search policy he implemented at the height of a hunger strike in April. Bogdan and Justice Department lawyers had argued …

Last month, Barton Gellman published an explosive story in the Washington Post about the NSA's widespread privacy violations, based on documents he obtained from whistleblower Edward Snowden. Gellman also wrote a companion piece to his main article that serves as a fact sheet highlighting his efforts to obtain comment from …

The Department of Justice’s Office of Information Policy (OIP) is the top cop that’s supposed to ensure all government agencies—including DOJ—comply with an important law: the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).OIP is also supposed to make sure all government agencies—including DOJ—have implemented President Barack Obama’s January 2009 FOIA memorandum …

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s amended federal shield law bill passed today by a 13-5 vote, and importantly included Sen. Feinstein’s (D-CA) new amendment broadening the definition of who qualifies as a journalist. But as her condescending remarks about the purpose behind her amendment reveal—that it is intended to ensure that …