Freedom of the Press Foundation

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The FPF is a non-profit organisation founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press. Its mission includes "protect and promote the basic human right of freedom of the press, both in the US and abroad, in a world where surveillance, censorship, and manipulation are becoming more sophisticated and more pervasive". It also runs crowd-funding campaigns for independent journalistic organisations. Although FPF is based in San Francisco, freedom of the press acknowledges no geographical boundaries.

FPF's founding was inspired by the WikiLeaks financial blockadeWikipedia-W.svg, when payment processors cut WikiLeaks off in late 2010.[1][2] After 5 years of processing donations on WikiLeaks' behalf, FPF's board unanimously found that the blockade was no longer in effect, and severed ties with WikiLeaks as of Jan.08.2018.[3]

Guides and Training

FPF's Guides and Training section offers digital security training to news organisations, freelance and citizen journalists, and other at-risk groups.
The Guides section is chock-full of useful info, for example: Locking down Signal, Mobile Security Prevention Tips, What to do if your phone is seized by police, and much more.

Projects

The FPF accomplishes their mission by leading development on secure communications applications, encryption tools, training, and public and legal advocacy. "For news organisations, digital security is a critical press freedom issue in the 21st century. it is imperative that newsrooms use best-available security tools and practices, including encryption of sensitive communications and materials, anonymization of sources, and distribution of news through secure and censorship-resistant channels."
Below are just two examples of what's on FPF's project page.

SecureDrop

SecureDrop is an open source whistleblower submission system that media organisations can install to securely accept documents from anonymous sources. FPF is sponsoring the development of a prototype of a new SecureDrop workstation based on Qubes, a free and open source operating system that separates activity into different domains. "We are hopeful that this transition will improve user experience and while preserving and enhancing security".[4] SecureDrop's website page is here. See also SecureDropWikipedia-W.svg.

Sunder

Sunder is an open source digital security tool that divides secrets into pieces distributed among multiple participants.[5] So you can split passwords and passphrases in such a way that multiple parts are required to recover the whole. Until a quorum of participants agrees to combine their shares (the number is configurable, eg, 5 out of 8), the individual pieces are not enough to gain access to any of the information.[5]

Sunder is still in development, and FTPF is actively seeking community feedback, especially from media organisations and activists. The documentation is excellent; read it here.

Articles

References

  1. ^ New press freedom group is launched to block US government attacks. Nothing is more vital than enabling true transparency and adversarial journalism, and preventing further assaults on them. Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, Dec.17.2012.
  2. ^ Why we all have a stake in the Freedom of the Press Foundation. This new nonprofit to protect WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers from payment systems blocking deserves our support. Dan Willmor, The Guardian, Dec.17.2012.
  3. ^ Beyond the blockade. The primary impetus for the formation of this group was to block the US govt from ever again being able to attack and suffocate an independent journalistic enterprise the way it did with WikiLeaks. These efforts were ultimately successful. Last month, FPF’s board unanimously concluded—based on the available evidence — that the financial blockade by Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal is now over and likely has been for some time. We strongly oppose any prosecution of WikiLeaks or Assange for their publishing activities. Whether one likes WikiLeaks or not, the grand jury investigation into their publications is a grave threat to the press freedom of all media institutions. Freedom of the Press Foundation, Dec.20.2017.
  4. ^ The road towards an integrated SecureDrop Workstation. SecureDrop, May.24.2018.
  5. ^ a b Meet Sunder, a New Way to Share Secrets. Conor Schaefer, Freedom of the Press Foundation, May.10.2018.