{"id":1129,"date":"2013-05-27T10:00:35","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T16:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2013-05-27T10:00:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T16:00:35","slug":"from-wikileaks-to-strongbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/from-wikileaks-to-strongbox\/","title":{"rendered":"From Wikileaks to Strongbox"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"leaks\"<\/a>Recent concerns about government prosecution of “leakers<\/a>” and journalists has reignited a conversation about the limits of 1st Amendment protection for journalists and sources. Journalists sometimes become recipients of very sensitive information that may have implications for national security. At the same time they feel an obligation to protect the identity of whistle-blowers to ensure the free flow of important information. Some are calling for a federal “shield law” that will provide additional protection for sources, and for the journalists who report on the information they provide.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0dilemma\u00a0involves very difficult situations where the intersection of national security concerns and “the public’s right to know” appear to be in conflict. Recent news out of Washington has been focused on the government going after the phone records of AP reporters<\/a> and investigating Fox News reporter James Rosen<\/a>. Many have viewed these actions as prosecution of the act of journalism which will have a chilling effect on future whistle blowers and other sources. While it can be argued that much of this hand-wringing is really politically motivated, there are plenty of examples of attempts to control information by both Republican and Democratic administrations.<\/p>\n

In February of 2013 Pvt. Bradley Manning plead guilty to 10 of 22 charges for his part in the release of what has been called the “biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history.” Manning uploaded the classified documents from the Iraq war to\u00a0Wikileaks<\/a>\u00a0after failing to get a response from the New York Times<\/em> or the Washington Post<\/em>. (See earlier blog post on Manning and Wikileaks<\/a>)<\/p>\n

What Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had attempted to do as a “radical\u00a0transparency activist” is now going mainstream with the release of Strongbox. The New Yorker<\/em> magazine has launched Strongbox as a way to provide a greater level of security and anonymity to sources who may fear reprisal if their identity were to be revealed. According to the Strongbox website<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Strongbox is designed to be accessed only through a \u201chidden service\u201d on the Tor anonymity network, which is set up to conceal both your online and physical location from us and to offer full end-to-end encryption for your communications with us. This provides a higher level of security and anonymity in your communication with us than afforded by standard e-mail or unencrypted Web forms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least one problem remains. Typically a journalist needs to independently verify the veracity of information\u00a0received\u00a0from a source, and this level of anonymity may make that difficult if not impossible. But it is one more tool in the arsenal of investigative journalists who are committed to rooting out corruption and wrong-doing at the highest levels of government and industry.<\/p>\n

Video resources:<\/p>\n

All the President’s Men<\/a><\/p>\n

All the President’s Men Revisited<\/a><\/p>\n

We Steal Secrets<\/a>\u00a0(trailer<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent concerns about government prosecution of “leakers” and journalists has reignited a conversation about the limits of 1st Amendment protection for journalists and sources. Journalists sometimes become recipients of very sensitive information that may have implications for national security. At the same time they feel an obligation to protect the identity of whistle-blowers to ensure … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “From Wikileaks to Strongbox”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,18],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment","category-journalism","category-politics","tag-investigative-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}