The Courage Foundation, which previously announced it opened an emergency fund for British activist Lauri Love, is now defending Love as an official beneficiary. FreeLauri.com has been relaunched, where you can read about Lauri’s case in full.
Love was first arrested in 2013 and his computers and other digital media were seized. He was released on bail, but had to take legal action to get 25 of 31 of his items back (the rest have not been returned). Now Love has been re-arrested in Britain by officials executing a warrant to extradite him to the United States, on allegations of hacking into multiple major US governmental agencies.
In addition to the persecution he’s already endured, Lauri fears he won’t receive a fair trial or treatment in the United States. The Obama Administration has cracked down harder than any administration before on digital activists, with unprecedented use of the Espionage Act, threats of extremely long prison sentences and solitary confinement.
Lauri thanks the Courage Foundation for its support in a statement:
The support and solidarity provided by the Courage Foundation since its inception to whistleblowers and activists facing political persecution for their efforts to bring transparency to state and corporate governance in the face of an unparalleled crackdown on perceived or actual dissidence is momentous and rivalled only by the stature and breadth of knowledge and experience of its advisory board. When vindictive, disproportionate and excessively-punitive reactions from government are likely consequence of taking action, the support of organisations such as Courage can make all the difference in giving individuals the faith the carry through their convictions and the wherewithal to endure the struggles that may result.
I am humbled and immensely thankful for their assistance and compassion. Solidarity is beautiful.
Love, Lauri
With a hearing to fight his extradition scheduled for 1 September, Courage has commenced a fund drive to finance Love’s legal defence team.
Courage is taking on Lauri Love as an emergency case: we are raising funds for the twice-arrested British activist and alleged hacker who was released on conditional bail after being charged with hacking into several governmental agencies’ websites, including the US Army, NASA and the Federal Reserve. Love has a hearing scheduled for 1 September to determine if he will be extradited to the United States.
Read about Love’s case, why he’s been rearrested now and what you can do to support him. Please donate to Love’s defence fund and help publicise his case — we must collectively oppose his extradition and end his persecution. Emergency fund is here.
Meanwhile, we are closing our emergency fund for UK Trident whistleblower William McNeilly, who was dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy but isn’t facing further criminal action. We are donating the collected funds to McNeilly to help with his resettlement. We will continue to update on his condition as we learn more.
Imprisoned journalist Barrett Brown is Courage’s fifth beneficiary
Courage is raising funds for Brown’s commissary, restitution and legal costs
Brown continues to write from prison, for D Magazine and soon for The Intercept
Currently in solitary confinement, Brown needs continued support and assistance
US journalist and satirist Barrett Brown, author of Flock of Dodos and Keep Rootin’ For Putin, is the Courage Foundation’s fifth beneficiary. Brown is currently serving a 63 month sentence after being persecuted for his work. In 2012, the FBI raided his house, and later that year Barrett was indicted on 12 federal charges relating to the 2011 Stratfor hack. The most controversial charge, linking to the hacked documents, was dropped, but in 2015 Brown was still sentenced to prison.
Courage will collect funds for Brown, who owes more than $890,000 in restitution and who needs money for commissary in prison and for lingering legal costs. Our first campaign is a $5,000 fund drive, which would cover two years of his restitution payments.
Additionally, Courage will update the public on Brown’s condition — he is currently in solitary confinement for an indeterminate length of time but continues to write his column and will soon report for The Intercept.
Brown is the founder of Project PM, a crowd-sourced investigation of the private intelligence industry. In 2011, Project PM released its research of Romas/COIN, “a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once.”
Courage’s Acting Director Sarah Harrison said,
Barrett Brown’s sentence is a scar on a country that likes to pride itself on a free press. Brown is an excellent journalist who has exposed corrupt and illegal practices. He should be rewarded, not punished. I am pleased to be able to support someone whose work for the public record I admire so much.
Courage Trustee Julian Assange said,
Barrett Brown’s 5 year prison sentence for exposing Bank of America’s corporate espionage campaign against WikiLeaks is the most odious domestic example of Obama’s war on journalism. But far from letting this imprisonment grind him down, every day is making Barrett’s pen sharper. Slowly but surely, and entirely against its will, the Obama administration’s profound injustice is producing America’s greatest living satirist. Anyone who cares about justice and sharp writing is obliged to support Barrett Brown.
Kevin Gallagher, who worked with Barrett on Project PM and who has run his support network for 2 & 1/2 years, said,
While Barrett serves the remainder of his sentence and continues to produce brilliant and hilarious dispatches from his prison cell, I am very grateful to be working with the Courage Foundation on finding new ways to support him. Courage has recognized that Brown’s work on crowd-sourcing the investigation of leaks and his related activism was pioneering and important, and represents the true reason for his imprisonment.
Courage has launched a new website for Barrett, which features his journalism, how to support him, and his ongoing columns from prison, for D Magazine and soon with The Intercept.
* Leading Azerbaijani press freedom campaigner travelled to Bern last night after being sheltered at the Swiss Embassy in Baku since August last year
* Courage has been working to provide support for Huseynov for over six months and will continue to support his application for asylum in Switzerland
* European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that Azerbaijan is guilty of serious infringments of Emin Husenyov’s basic rights, including the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment
While audiences around the world were glued to the opening of the European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, attended by European national leaders, a secret Swiss Air Force flight made its way from Baku to Bern, Switzerland. Inside was “Azerbaijan’s Julian Assange,” Emin Huseynov, who has spent the last year holed up in the Swiss Embassy in Baku after a government crackdown against journalists and activists. Courage, the international organisation dedicated to the protection of truth-tellers, has supported Huseynov’s case for over six months and aided in the successful procurement of a humanitarian travel visa application, which allowed him to leave his embassy refuge and fly out of the country late last night. He will now apply for asylum in Switzerland.
Courage runs Huseynov’s legal fund and will be supporting him in his asylum application. The organisation calls on the Swiss government to receive Huseynov’s application favourably and grant him asylum.
This is the second dramatic asylum flight on a case Courage has been involved in. Courage Trustee Julian Assange and Acting Director Sarah Harrison successfully obtained asylum for Edward Snowden in 2013, after ensuring his safe passage out of Hong Kong to Russia. Their assistance on the Huseynov case establishes Courage’s competence and expertise in assisting truth-tellers in getting asylum in high-risk political situations.
Belp airfield in Bern late last night
Courage supports and commends the diligent and longstanding efforts of Swiss officials and negotiators in ensuring Huseynov a safe exit from Azerbaijan. Courage urges the Swiss government to remain firm in its commitment to protect Huseynov from persecution in his home country, and to extend its support to other persecuted Azerbaijanis.
Emin Huseynov is chairman of the country’s leading press freedom organisation, the Institute for Reporters’ Freedom and Safety (IRFS), and the founder of award-winning online video channel Objektiv TV. He has long been at the forefront of promoting freedom of expression and free media in his home country and has accordingly been a target of reprisal from Azerbaijan’s repressive government. In May this year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Azerbaijan’s authorities were responsible for several violations of Emin Huseynov’s basic human rights, among them violations of the prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment and the duty to investigate it properly.
Huseynov was forced into hiding in August 2014, amidst serious repression against journalists and human rights activists. Facing imminent arrest on fabricated charges, Emin tried to leave the country for medical help in Turkey but was turned away at the border. IRFS’ headquarters were raided shortly thereafter and Huseynov sought protection at the Swiss Embassy, which is where he remained until late last night, with the building surrounded by police.
With the European Games in Baku now underway, the international community had in recent days intensified its calls on Azerbaijan to change its policy of repression.
Huseynov left his embassy refuge with a senior Swiss official late last night, and boarded a Dassault Falcon 900EX registered to the Swiss Air Force. The plane arrived in Bern aiport at 2.30AM CEST, after a brief stopover in Zurich. Huseynov was in good spirits after disembarking, and grateful for the help he has received.
Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of Courage, said:
“Emin was stuck in the Swiss embassy in Baku for almost a year, suffering from the very crackdown he has made it his life work to document. Just last month, the European Court of Human Rights has confirmed that Azerbaijan is responsible for severe violations of Emin’s basic rights, including the infliction of inhuman or degrading treatment.
“As Azerbaijan goes on a PR offensive, this is a perfect time for the Swiss government to recognise the obvious political repression Emin has been subjected to, the fabricated nature of the charges against him and the urgency of securing his continued protection. Having been granted safe passage to Switzerland, Emin deserves now to be granted asylum, so that his work can go on.”
Courage trustee Julian Assange said:
“Azerbaijan’s government has done everything it can to silence Emin Huseynov, up to and including a beating in 2008 which led to him being hospitalised for a time, as the European Court of Human Rights has recently reminded us. But we live in an age where exile and repression can no longer silence an effective voice. In the internet age, driving reporters from their homelands has the opposite effect, so even when Emin was driven into hiding, his body of work continued to speak. His arrival in Switzerland is a big step. It is incumbent on the rest of us now to support the call for Emin’s political asylum in Switzerland.”
Gulnara Akhundova, from International Media Support, said:
“It’s important to recognise why so many NGOs are standing up in support of Emin – it’s because we’ve worked with him over the years so we know exactly how important his contribution has been. Emin is one of several brave people the world has depended on for information about human rights and press freedom in Azerbaijan, information that Azerbaijan’s government has been trying very hard to suppress. Making a commitment to the protection of Emin’s rights now would be an important signal to Azerbaijan’s government that the world is not deceived by the glitz of international sporting competitions.”
Courage hosts the defence fund for Emin Huseynov and will provide regular updates on his case on a new support website at eminhuseynov.com. Courage ensured that Huseynov had legal representation from an esteemed Swiss human rights lawyer Marcel Bosonnet, and worked to coordinate with an international coalition of human rights and press freedom organisations, including International Media Support and Reports Without Borders, in the effort to secure his safety. Courage has also restored the IRFS and Objective TV websites, which were taken down in August 2014, so the archive of Emin’s work remains available online. They can be found at irfs.org and objektiv.tv respectively.
Whistleblowers and Courage Advisory Board members Thomas Drake and Daniel Ellsberg discussed the recent passage of the USA Freedom Act (following the expiration of the Patriot Act’s Section 215), pointing out problems with the bill while praising Snowden for a “symbolic victory” and for generating the global debate that has led to legal and technological reforms, surveillance inquires and an increasing opposition to mass surveillance.
Drake said, “This is the first time since 9/11 that any publicly known legislation has changed. Mitch McConnell was unable as majority leader to push through what he wanted.” He added, “This vindicates Snowden, even if it’s only symbolic vindication.”
Snowden is “responsible for the Congress refusing to simply rubber stamp the program,” Ellsberg said, while noting that the Act is “in the right direction, but very minimal.”
Both whistleblowers will be in Berlin on Sunday 7 June for a Courage-sponsored discussion on the digital surveillance state, which also features Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley, moderated by Courage’s Sarah Harrison.
What happens to the idea of democracy in an age of mass surveillance, data espionage and collaboration between the BND and NSA? How was the NSA scandal received in the United States and Germany and what can – and must – we learn from this?
Courage is proud to co-host a discussion between some of America’s most celebrated intelligence whistleblowers and some of the German politicians charged with investigating the extent of US and German surveillance cooperation. Thomas Drake, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley will be attending the event at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt on Sunday 7 June, along with members of the Bundestag surveillance investigation Konstantin von Notz, Martina Renner and former Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Peter Schaar. The event will be moderated by Courage Acting Director Sarah Harrison and introduced by Expose Facts’ Norman Solomon.
The event has been organised in association with ExposeFacts.org, DIE ZEIT, ZEIT Online and Transmediale and tickets will be available on the day on a first come, first served basis. The event begins at 3pm.
Missed the event? You can listen to the audio recording online here:
Courage Advisory Board member Thomas Drake is a candidate to be the next Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy for the United Nations. In 2006, Drake blew the whistle on the NSA’s fraudulent and abusive warrantless wiretapping. Courage wishes to congratulate Drake on his candidacy and fully supports his run.
Drake has already taken a stand for privacy in the global sphere. In September 2013, he testified to the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee on the threat that mass surveillance poses to privacy and human rights. In July 2014, he participated in the German Parliament’s formal surveillance inquiry, using his extensive knowledge as a former senior executive with the NSA.
The government persecuted Drake for speaking to the media about wiretapping, charging him with Espionage, bankrupting him with an extensive trial and ruining his career. But since then Drake has been an outspoken voice on civil liberties and privacy in the digital age. In 2011, Drake was awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Truthtelling and was given the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award. He was featured in the 2014 documentary Silenced, about the US government’s extensive retaliation against whistleblowers.
Rapporteur announcements will be made at the 29th session of the Human Rights Council, held 15 June – 3 July 2015. See other candidates and positions and more information here.
Former CIA director and retired US general David Petraeus has escaped with only a couple of years’ probation and a fine for distributing highly sensitive classified information, revealing “covert operatives, the coalition war strategy and notes about Petraeus’ discussions with President Barack Obama and the National Security Council.”
Meanwhile, Edward Snowden faces multiple Espionage Act charges for releasing information that has given the global public a far better understanding of the US’ mass surveillance apparatus, an act for which he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The US downed planes and cancelled Snowden’s passport in an effort to send him to jail. Why such an enormous disparity?
Those who release information of public interest should be celebrated, not punished. Petraeus’ “sentence” is perhaps the starkest example yet of how the powerful can break the rules they insist on for others, and do so with virtual impunity. In Obama’s war on whistleblowers, punishment is reserved for disclosures that speak truth to power, while the powerful are protected no matter what they do.
Courage trustee Julian Assange, acting director Sarah Harrison, and advisory board members Renata Avila, who is an internet rights lawyer, and Andy Müller-Maguhn, on the board of the Wau Holland Foundation, which collects donations for Snowden and Hammond on Courage’s behalf, participated in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session yesterday.
The AMA followed President Obama’s latest Executive Order, which authorises sanctions against ‘cyber-enabled activities’ and which journalists and supporters worry could affect those donating to WikiLeaks and Courage. In response to the order, issued 1 April 2015, Reddit supporters initiated a surge in bitcoin donations to Edward Snowden’s defence fund.
Overall, supporters have given 3.68 BTC to Courage, with 1.07 coming since the EO, and 1604 to Snowden’s fund. Supporters have given Snowden 24 BTC since the EO alone, through 236 separate donations, with the largest being nearly 8.5 BTC – worth $2000.
Questions covered Courage’s various beneficiaries, its goals and the participants’ outlook for addressing secrecy, the crackdown on whistleblowers and countering propaganda.
Harrison spoke about the ultimate effects of Snowden’s whistleblowing:
The long term effects of Snowden’s actions remain to be seen. What I hope is that the public around the world will stand up for their rights and demand change, and their governments will listen to them. I think a lot rests with users understanding the threats and protecting themselves against them.
I think the rest of Edward’s life will forever be complex, as it will for all that have stood up to the most powerful and speak the truth: Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning, Barrett Brown, Julian Assange and many others. However, he has been granted asylum which offers immediate protection. I hope that in the future more countries stand up to protect him, and all those that have worked for the public’s right to know.
Harrison responded to those who say whistleblowers are “traitors” who “support the enemy”:
This propaganda happens a lot. What is very important here is to explain that throughout the whole of the Manning trial the US government was desperate to prove that some “harm” had come. In fact if could prove none. What did happen, is that the US troops began to withdraw from Iraq. What has happened since Snowden’s revelations is that citizens around the world began to protect their communications. And still not one reported “harm”. In fact we still get bombs by known person’s of suspect. It is a matter of US interests the government is protecting, not US security.
Avila discussed how people in under-developed countries can raise awareness regarding whistleblowers and privacy:
Coming from a similar country, I will say that those are precisely the countries where advocates for the right to truth and access to information in hands of the powerful are crucial. You need to directly connect it as follows: the less the people know about their governments, the more opaque they are, the more they colude with corporations and divert their actions and increase the problems distracting funds to their pockets.
Assange explained why Courage is supporting Matt DeHart:
Matt DeHart has been the subject of significant abuse by the FBI, but the case is very important legally as it involves an interplay between asylum, crypto-extradition, deportation, anonymous, WikiLeaks, espionage and pariah charges. You can read more about Matt’s case here: https://staging.couragefound.org/2015/03/matt-dehart-named-as-third-courage-beneficiary/
Assange and Müller-Maguhn also discussed systemic problems.
