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Courage News Daniel Hale News

Daniel Hale is Courage’s newest beneficiary

Pardon Daniel HaleCourage is excited to announce whistleblower Daniel Hale as its newest beneficiary. Hale is a former Air Force and NSA intelligence analyst who is serving nearly a four-year prison 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.”

On May 10, Daniel’s support team is hosting an online meeting for supporters to write letters together to Hale in prison.

Courage will continue to report on Daniel’s conditions and experiences in prison, in addition to actions you can take to support him.

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Courage announcement – new director Nathan Fuller

The Trustees of the Courage Foundation are pleased to announce that they have appointed Nathan Fuller as Executive Director. Nathan has been with Courage since 2014.

We thank Naomi Colvin for her work as Courage Director over the last year, including the successful campaign to resist Lauri Love’s extradition to the US, which was widely publicised in the UK and abroad. Naomi joined Courage in 2014. We wish her all success.

Courage defends those who are subject to serious prosecution or persecution. It is designed to increase the power of defence campaigns through mutual aid, sharing basic financial and internet infrastructure and solidarity.

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Courage News Events News

Courage returns to HOPE!

We’re hugely pleased to confirm that – yes – Courage will be at HOPE later this month. The conference will be held at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City on 20-22 July.

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Courage News Events News

Courage at RightsCon 2018

Going to the conference? Come find us!

This year’s RightsCon, a privacy rights conference bringing together activists, journalists, government representatives, and security researchers from around the world, will be held in Toronto, 16-18 May. Read more about the conference and its participants here.

Courage Director Naomi Colvin participated in a Pursuance Project panel, entitled “Effective 21st Century Organizing: Learning From the Past, Building the Future,” along with Barrett Brown, Jesselyn Radack, Thomas Drake, Diani Barreto, and Birgitta Jónsdóttir.

 

Watch the full panel video here.

Read more about Pursuance, Barrett Brown’s innovative software to crowdsource investigative journalism, here.

Watch Pursuance’s lead developer Steve Phillips give a tech demonstration of how Pursuance will work here.

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Courage News News

Announcing the all-new Courage Shop

Browse merchandise by category or by beneficiary, more products and designs coming soon!

Courage is excited to announce a completely revamped Courage Shop, currently featuring t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with Courage’s logo as well as quotes and images of our beneficiaries. You can also find a link to Women, Whistleblowing, WikiLeaks (OR Books), a book-length conversation with Sarah Harrison, Renata Avila, and Angela Richter, the proceeds of which go to Courage.

Brow’s the shop’s inventory by filtering items by product type or by beneficiary. We’ll be adding new designs and products to the shop in the coming weeks, and we’ll announce those on Twitter and Facebook when we do. If you have a design or idea you’d like to submit, get in touch at our contact page here.

Browse the new shop here.

 

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Courage announces new director Naomi Colvin

The Courage Board of Trustees are delighted to announce that Naomi Colvin is taking the position of Director of Courage from 4th April.

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Statement: Courage Trustee Renata Avila on new developments in Julian Assange’s arbitrary detention

 

Courage Trustee Renata Avila:

Ecuador’s decision to grant nationality to Julian Assange is a welcome step, but we’re still a long way from resolving this situation. In the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency, we’ve seen the US rhetoric against First Amendment activity, and the threats of prosecution, reach new, dangerous heights. When the Director of the CIA uses his inaugural speech to declare a publisher’s arrest a “priority”, we should all take seriously the threat posed to press freedoms in America. With alleged NSA whistleblower Reality Winner’s Espionage case coming to trial in March and dozens of leak investigations underway, it is clear that the Trump Administration will only intensify the war on whistleblowers and the journalism they make possible.

 

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Courage News News

2017 – a year in Courage

As we approach the end of a year that saw increased threats on freedom of the press, right-wing governments on both sides of the Atlantic launch attacks on civil liberties, and the continued persecution of hackers, whistleblowers, and truthtellers of all stripes, we look back on the highlights and lowlights from the front lines of the war for information and the public’s right to know.

We can only continue this work with your support. A donation keeps us fighting for our beneficiaries through 2018 and beyond. 

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Courage welcomes Zcash donations

Courage, the international organisation that supports truthtellers, will begin to accept donations in Zcash (ZEC) from today. Supporters can make donations to the organisation, or to our individual beneficiaries at the
following URL:

https://staging.couragefound.org/donate

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Courage News News Reality Winner

Courage launches emergency appeal for Reality Winner

Alleged NSA leaker charged under Espionage Act, has pled not guilty

Courage has launched an emergency legal defence fund for Reality Winner, the first alleged whistleblower to be charged under the Trump Administration. The federal intelligence contractor from Georgia has been linked with the disclosure of an NSA report about Russian military intelligence’s efforts to hack US voting software in the 2016 presidential election.

Donations to Courage’s fund for Reality Winner can be made at CourageFound.org/Reality-Winner

Winner, 25, worked as a translator for the US Air Force for six years before taking a job as a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation. She has been charged with mishandling and releasing classified information under the Espionage Act, a felony charge that carries a potential 10 years in prison.

Winner appeared in court in Augusta, Georgia on Thursday 8 June, where she pled not guilty. She was denied bail and will be back in court for a discovery hearing on Thursday 22 June.

Naomi Colvin, Beneficiary Case Director at Courage said:

It was only a matter of time before the Trump Administration brought the full force of an Espionage Act prosecution against someone who isn’t sufficiently high-ranking to leak with impunity. Reality Winner is pleading not guilty and recent history suggests she can expect to incur significant legal costs. Public support will as be vital in her case as it has been for Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.

Andy Stepanian, an organizer with whom Courage co-hosted a demonstration for Reality the day before her arraignment, said:

Reality Winner is a compassionate young veteran who understands service and sacrifice. Her indictment may be only the first of many in the Trump Administration’s ‘war on leaks’ and it’s on all of us who value government transparency and accountability to make sure she is not fighting this battle alone.

Edward Snowden, Courage’s first beneficiary, spoke out via the Freedom of the Press Foundation when Reality’s arrest was announced:

The prosecution of any journalistic source without due consideration by the jury as to the harm or benefit of the journalistic activity is a fundamental threat to the free press. As long as a law like [the Espionage Act] remains on the books in a country that values fair trials, it must be resisted.