A guide to the charities we support in our own annual giving.

There's no one else on Earth who's more familiar with the surveillance capabilities of governments, spy agencies and criminals who is also willing to discuss those capabilities. Edward Snowden's wide-ranging conversation with the Freedom of the Press Foundation's Micah Lee on operational security for normal people is a must-read for anyone who wants to be safe from identity thieves, stalkers, corrupt governments, police forces, and spy agencies.

An important story out today confirms that SecureDrop, the open source whistleblower leak system originally programmed by Aaron Swartz and maintained by Freedom of the Press Foundation, works. — Read the rest

Journalist/educator Lisa Rein is looking for $20,000 to complete a documentary called "From DeadDrop to SecureDrop," which chronicles the development of the last technology project that Aaron Swartz worked on: a tool to help whistleblowers and journalists communicate and exchange documents in secret.

In the past few days there have been a flurry of stories about the Russian plane that crashed in the Sinai peninsula, which investigators reportedly think may have been caused by a bomb. Notably, anonymous US officials have been leaking to journalists that they believe ISIS is involved, and it's a perfect illustration of the US government's rank hypocrisy when it comes to the Edward Snowden disclosures. — Read the rest

The latest Humble Books Bundle features more than 11 Peanuts collections and storybooks, including "Waiting for the Great Pumpkin," "Snoopy vs the Red Baron," "Snoopy's Thanksgiving," "The Complete Peanuts 1950-52 v1" and volumes 1-6 of the Peanuts collections. Name your price, support two great charities (The Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) and get $171 worth of DRM-free comics to treasure on any device you own, now and forever!

Lisa Rein writes, "While the San Francisco Aaron Swartz International Hackathon is going on downstairs at the Internet Archive, we're having a little privacy-enabling mini-conference upstairs."

The crooks that Edward Snowden outed (and their complicit overseers in government) like to talk about how Snowden violated an oath when he gave journalists documents that established that security services in at least five countries were breaking their own laws in order to pursue unimaginably aggressive mass surveillance. — Read the rest

The Intercept just published an amazing article by Jim Bamford yesterday talking
about how the NSA exploited a backdoor in Vodafone to spy on Greek
politicians and journalists during the 2004 Olympics.

Bamford is an American author and journalist best known for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, and in particular the National Security Agency. — Read the rest

Reporters and press freedom advocates from around the world have signed on to support Netzpolitik and condemn the German government's outrageous investigation.

Freedom of the Press Foundation this week filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department over their unpublished rules for using National Security Letters and so-called informal "exigent letters" to conduct surveillance of journalists.

Chelsea Manning's extraordinary act of whistleblowing continues to enrich journalism, the public, and the historic record to this day. Chelsea is currently appealing her unjust conviction and 35-year jail sentence under the Espionage Act, but her legal team is deeply in debt. Freedom of the Press Foundation is helping to raise money for her appeal by offering a way for people to donate to her legal defense here.

The day after this year's American Library Association conference in San Francisco, the Noisebridge Hackerspace will host lawyers, hackers, librarians, and privacy ninjas in a two-day workshop on reinventing libraries' mission in the age of surveillance.

It seems pretty clear the next battle in Congress will almost certainly be over encryption.

Writing in the NYT, Snowden celebrates the second anniversary of his disclosures by celebrating the "profound difference" in the surveillance debate since then.

While the bill has many significant flaws, it is historic: it’s the first time since the 1970s Congress has indicated its intention to restrict the vast powers of intel agencies like the NSA, rather than expanding them.

“Instead of trying to build off the details of his story, or to disprove his assertions with additional reporting, journalists have largely attempted to tear down the messenger.”

Congress is expected to vote on two 'cybersecurity' bills sometime in the next week that are essentially surveillance bills in disguise. Trevor Timm writes in this editorial, cross-posted on the Freedom of the Press blog, about how they affect journalists and whistleblowers.

Facebook's growing monopolistic power over news organizations' traffic + their censorship policies + their new plan to get news orgs to publish directly on the site all adds up to a major threat to press freedom.

“It is hypocritical that some leaks will land you in jail, while others just lead to a slap on the wrist,” says Trevor Timm.