Campaigns

Courage has been a leading advocate for whistleblowers, journalists, and other truthtellers for over a decade. Along the way, we’ve scored some decisive victories, created the most comprehensive database of Snowden’s documents, and made substantial contributions to public debates around whistleblower protection, online freedoms, and citizens’ access to information.

When U.S. Air Force whistleblower Daniel Hale was sentenced to prison for exposing the drone war, we were in the courtroom to hear his impassioned defense for conscientious objection. We advocated for Azerbaijani journalist and human rights worker Emin Huseynov as he fled to asylum in Switzerland amid a crackdown in Baku. We saved Lauri Love from a virtual death sentence in the United States, winning an important battle for UK encryption rights along the way.  We’ve made sure that Edward Snowden’s revelations have a permanent impact by making every document published easily accessible, searchable by category, country, and keyword. We’ve funded commissaries and legal costs for our beneficiaries who are enduring abusive retaliation in prison. 

More recently, Courage led Assange Defense, the U.S. face of the global campaign to free WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. We coordinated a network of volunteer activists across the U.S., toured the country with the documentary Ithaka and Roger Waters’ concerts, and hosted rallies, webinars, and panel events, spreading the word about Assange’s prosecution and the threat it posed to press freedom internationally.

We’ll continue to support Assange as he fights for a pardon, but we’re also working to repeal or reform the Espionage Act, the draconian law used against Assange and the favored weapon of the national security establishment to silence journalists, whistleblowers, and dissent.

We’ve also teamed up with likeminded press freedom and civil liberties organizations to create a new coalition of journalists and press freedom defenders to speak out in unison in solidarity with the journalists of Palestine, under widespread and unprecedented attack by the IDF as they attempt to cover the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza and Lebanon.

Courage is dedicated to supporting individual beneficiaries as well as the principles they support. We’ve testified at trials, submitted public comments, and have appeared in media interviews about how our beneficiaries’ cases apply to their countries at large and the wider fight for the public’s right to know.

Assange Defense

Assange Defense

A project of the Courage Foundation, the Assange Defense Committee is a U.S. coalition fighting to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Comprising human rights defenders, press freedom advocates, civil liberties lawyers, and supporters across the United States, Assange Defense organized public rallies, provided essential resources, and raised awareness about the unprecedented prosecution against Julian Assange and the threat it posed to the freedom of the press around the world.

In supporting journalists’ right to publish, the Assange Defense Committee upheld the public’s right to know what its government is doing in its name.

Now that Julian Assange is free from prison, Assange Defense calls for an immediate pardon for Assange, to clear his name and to remove the dangerous precedent of a plea deal under the Espionage Act for practicing journalism.

See the full campaign site in support of Julian at AssangeDefense.org.

Palestinian Journalists

The Courage Foundation has co-organized a new coalition of news outlets, press freedom groups, and more than 100 journalists to speak out en masse against U.S. complicity in the Israeli killing of Palestinian journalists covering the ongoing assault in Gaza and Lebanon. The U.S. must immediately cease sending weapons to Israel in light of the country’s unprecedented killing of Palestinian reporters and refusing entry to foreign press, a clear attempt to shield its actions from public scrutiny.

Daniel Hale

Daniel Hale is a former U.S. Air Force and NSA intelligence analyst who was recently released from prison after serving a nearly four-year sentence for passing classified U.S. military documents to reporters at The Intercept. In 2015, The Intercept published “The Drone Papers,” giving the public an unvarnished window into the incredibly secretive U.S. remote assassination program, including how it selects targets to kill and how the government “masks the true number of civilians killed in drone strikes by categorizing unidentified people killed in a strike as enemies, even if they were not the intended targets.”

Repeal or reform the Espionage Act

Department of Justice SealThe U.S. Espionage Act of 1917 is the preeminent weapon against truthtellers in the modern era. The World War I law, concocted by Woodrow Wilson to penalize spies, has been used to cast whistleblowers, leakers, and even journalists as agents of espionage. The Espionage Act carries 10 years in prison for each count and allows for no public interest defense. It’s been used against Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, Air Force whistleblower Daniel Hale, and WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, among many others.

The Espionage Act must be repealed or reformed immediately. Courage supports legislative efforts to ensure the Act cannot be used against journalists, whistleblowers, or any other truthtellers exposing crimes, corruption, and wrongdoing in the public interest.

Press Freedom Blog

At the end of each week, we publish our recap of the latest attacks on journalists, their right to publish, and our right to know. Here are the latest updates:

  • January 25-31
    Senate should not confirm Patel for FBI director, says FPF; Palestinian-American author and journalist Ali Abunimah arrested in Switzarland; Charges dropped against Portland journalist Alissa Azar
  • January 18-24
    Portland reporter on trial for covering pro-Palestine protest; Three journalists released by Israel as part of ceasefire deal; CPJ: Israeli now among top jailers of journalists; Article 19: ceasefire should end attacks on freedom of expression; Former CIA analyst pleads guilty to 2 Espionage Act counts; Journalists’ right to source protection under threat in France
  • January 11-17
    State Department removes accredited journalists from press briefing; Last chance for Biden to pardon Assange; Israel and Hamas agree on ceasefire; RSF calls for journalists access and an end to impunity for Israel’s war crimes; Israel blocks medical evacuation of Al Jazeera cameraman; Incarcerated journalist in Texas prison struggles under ever-harsher conditions

See the full archive of press freedom blog posts here.

Edward Snowden

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was Courage’s first beneficiary and an inspiration for our inception. Snowden exposed massive surveillance on U.S. citizens by the NSA and facilitated by major telecoms, passing classified documents to journalists at the Washington Post and The Guardian. Snowden, indicted under the draconian Espionage Act, remains in exile in Russia. The charges against him should be dropped immediately.