Author: Nathan
IMPORTANT NOTE:
We have limited places available for press. if you would like to attend please email courage.event@couragefound.org and we will confirm if you have been able to register successfully.
Courage – LAUNCH PRESS RELEASE – Monday 9th June 2014
http://couragefound.org
@couragefound
Courage – the organisation running Snowden’s defence fund – launches in Berlin this Wednesday, 11th June
- speakers include Wolfgang Kaleck, Edward Snowden’s German lawyer; Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of Courage; WikiLeaks Publisher Julian Assange
- Edward Snowden – Courage’s first beneficiary – will send a message to the event
- a new campaign to show the breadth of international support for Edward Snowden will be announced on the night
Courage, a new international organisation dedicated to providing support to truthtellers, holds its official launch event in Berlin on the evening of Wednesday, 11th June. Courage runs Edward Snowden’s official defence fund. Courage also advocates for the protection of journalists’ sources and the public’s right to receive their information as guaranteed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Wednesday’s event will also mark the beginning of a new campaign for Edward Snowden as his temporary asylum in Russia approaches its end. Edward Snowden’s German lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck will explain his client’s current legal situation. Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of Courage, who facilitated Edward Snowden’s exit from Hong Kong and spent four months in Russia, including 40 days in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport securing Snowden’s freedom in exile, will underline the importance of ongoing public pressure.
Courage launches with an advisory board that includes former intelligence whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Thomas Drake (NSA), Ray McGovern (CIA) and Annie Machon (MI5), along with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation John Perry Barlow and professor of law and legal history at Columbia University Eben Moglen. For further details on Courage advisory board members, see https://staging.couragefound.org/advisory-board/
Gavin MacFadyen, a Courage Trustee and Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, says:
The Trustees started Courage because it is imperative for free speech and an open independent press to support whistleblowers, particularly those who risk their lives and freedom to bring critical information to the public. At the time Courage started there were no international organisations providing the support Edward Snowden needed to remain free and none organising support for whistleblowers to come. Knowing the central role whistleblowers have played in the major ground-breaking disclosures of our time, it is clear that without freedom and protection for truthtellers, there is no freedom or protection for journalists. And none for the public. Courage has never been more needed and essential to a free press.
The other two Trustees of Courage are Julian Assange, Publisher of WikiLeaks and Barbora Bukovská, Senior Director for Law and Policy at Article 19.
The organisation’s launch comes a year after Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source of NSA revelations on mass surveillance and takes place in one of the countries where the reaction has been most significant. In the past week, the German federal prosecutor has announced the re-opening of a formal investigation into allegations that the German Chancellor’s mobile phone was monitored and a parliamentary inquiry into mass surveillance is ongoing.
Sarah Harrison says:
Snowden performed a heroic act and should be supported. Courage will show the world that the public stands with Snowden and they want their governments to help protect him. For the last year people associated with Courage have worked to assist and defend Snowden against injustice. We found him safety and asylum in Russia and we raised funds to pay for his lawyers in the US, Iceland and more widely. But we are just starting – Courage is not here just for Snowden but for future Snowdens.
Additional special guests will be announced on the night. Their comments, as well as those of the others speaking, will be made available on Courage’s website and Twitter feed.
Courage originally began in August 2013 as The Journalistic Source Protection Defence Fund and has run Edward Snowden’s defence fund since that time. Courage’s official Edward Snowden support site, previously located at http://freesnowden.is will move to http://edwardsnowden.com to coincide with the launch. The related Twitter account will also move to @CourageSnowden from @free_snowden.
To mark the one-year anniversary of NSA revelations, several privacy and whistleblower groups have taken a look back at what we’ve learned since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on mass surveillance.
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union created a video, entitled, ‘The NSA knew our secrets. One year later, we know theirs.’
The ACLU also published a letter from Edward Snowden, remarking on what’s happened thus far and encouraging further action:
In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.
That’s why one year ago I brought evidence of these irresponsible activities to the public — to spark the very discussion the U.S. government didn’t want the American people to have. With every revelation, more and more light coursed through a National Security Agency that had grown too comfortable operating in the dark and without public consent. Soon incredible things began occurring that would have been unimaginable years ago. A federal judge in open court called an NSA mass surveillance program likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.” Congress and President Obama have called for an end to the dragnet collection of the intimate details of our lives. Today legislation to begin rolling back the surveillance state is moving in Congress after more than a decade of impasse.
Finally, the ACLU has a timeline of the revelations thus far.
EFF
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Katitza Rodriguez recounted what we’ve learned about various NSA surveillance programs, and concludes:
…now that a year has passed it’s clear that we need to update both our global technical infrastructure and local laws, consistent with long-standing international human rights standards, in order to regain any reasonable degree of privacy. Specifically, we must end mass surveillance. Politicians in every country need to stand up to the NSA’s incursions on their territory; the United States needs to reform its laws to recognize the privacy rights of innocent foreigners, and the international community needs to set clear standards which makes any state conducting mass surveillance a pariah.
GAP
The Government Accountability Project’s Dylan Blaylock, in a piece titled, ‘On One-Year Anniversary of Snowden Disclosures, IC Contractors Lack Whistleblower Protections,’ writes:
One of the great lessons of the Snowden disclosures has been that members of Congress have not been adequately overseeing these programs. Contractors on intelligence operations must have real protection for legitimate whistleblower disclosures made to Congress, congressional staff with appropriate security clearance, or government watchdogs. Further, it is not adequate only to protect disclosures made to the intelligence committees. Such a monopoly in information needed to conduct congressional oversight does not exist in any other context in the federal government.
There cannot be any doubt about the consequences from congressional action, or inaction, on whistleblower rights. Without authentic legal protections for making disclosures to Congress and government watchdogs, enforcement of the Constitution and privacy rights will remain an honor system for agencies that have been secretly abusing their power. To identify government abuse, Congress must extend best practice whistleblower protections to IC contractor workers.
Just before the one-year anniversary of the NSA revelations, Pentagon Papers-whistleblower and Courage Advisory Board member Daniel Ellsberg defended Courage beneficiary Edward Snowden on MSNBC from Defense Secretary John Kerry’s claim that he’s “cowardly” for not returning to the United States. Ellsberg explains why Snowden wouldn’t get a fair trial.
Categories
Meet the Courage Advisory Board
Part one of PBS Frontline’s new documentary, The United States of Secrets, recounts Edward Snowden’s disclosure of thousands of NSA documents detailing rampant surveillance, and how the United States came to spy on millions of innocent Americans’ every communication. The film features interviews with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman, NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, Senator Ron Wyden, and many more.
You can watch each of the interviews here.
Part two will air Tuesday, May 20, on PBS, and can later be found here.
Alexa O’Brien, an independent journalist who has documented Chelsea Manning’s trial at length, interviewed WikiLeaks’ Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of Courage, at the 2014 re:publica conference.
Harrison, who escorted Edward Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow as he pursued political asylum, discusses publishing secret documents, the public’s right to know, and how her involvement with Snowden prevents her from returning to the UK.