Secrecy, scale of PRISM raise alarms
Government surveillance of electronic communications “should be regarded as a highly intrusive act that potentially interferes with the rights to freedom of expression and privacy and threatens the foundations of a democratic society,” Frank La Rue, U.N. special rapporteur for freedom of expression, warned in a report issued less than two months ago. “States should…
Medill digital security guide helps fill journalism void
One day, every journalism school in the United States and beyond will offer a full three-credit, 15-week course in digital safety, along with more advanced classes. But that day has not yet come. Only a year ago, Alysia Santo reported in the Columbia Journalism Review that no American journalism school offered formal digital safety training.…
In 2 major efforts, journalist security tailored to fit
In the past, donors and groups providing security to journalists in less-developed nations tended to export a Western, military-style of training designed for a war-time environment. But the danger of covering combat is one thing. Being fired upon by a motorcycle-riding assassin is another–as is being sexually molested in a crowd, discovering a video camera…
Attacks on Knight Center sites reflect digital dangers
The two websites at the University of Texas at Austin, at first blush, seemed to have been unlikely targets for attack. The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and its blog cover news about journalism, press freedom and journalist safety throughout the Western hemisphere, with an emphasis on trends in Latin America. The website…
Don’t get your sources in Syria killed
Because foreign journalists have been virtually banned from Syria during the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, news coverage has relied heavily on citizen journalists and international reporters working with sources inside the country. Syrians who communicate with foreign news media run the risk of being threatened, detained, tortured, or even killed.
Internet giants submit to external free expression scrutiny
Journalists and bloggers in authoritarian countries have their work cut out thwarting governments that try to restrict their writing and reporting. The last thing they need to worry about is the provider of their publication platform helping authorities with censorship or surveillance. Cue the Global Network Initiative (GNI), a voluntary grouping of Internet companies, freedom…
UK surveillance plan must be watched carefully
When journalists make enemies in high places, they become vulnerable to the powers those figures wield. One such power is the state’s capacity to wiretap and obtain personal records from communications companies. From Colombia’s phone-tapping scandal to last year’s case of Gerard Davet–a Le Monde reporter whose phone records were obtained by the French intelligence…
Farsi guides to the surveillance attack in Iran
As we’ve reported before, there’s strong evidence that forces with widespread access to Iran’s internet infrastructure have been engaged in large-scale surveillance of https traffic in July and August, certainly of Google traffic, and perhaps many more websites, including Facebook and Yahoo! If you used the Internet in Iran during this period you should, at…
Spying on media exposes French government’s dark side
“The freedom of the press and the lie of the state.” The headline Thursday in the influential newspaper Le Monde was bound to make a big splash. While President Nicolas Sarkozy was basking in the glory of his Libyan intervention and celebrating the virtues of democracy, the French “paper of record” was denouncing the dark…