HAMBURG – Edward Snowden is on the run. Chelsea Manning is in prison. Julian Assange is in limbo, otherwise known as the Ecuadorian embassy in London
Yet seen from the floor here at the Chaos Communication Congress (CCC), the whistleblower-support community has never been healthier.
The movement that broke into the public eye with WikiLeaks is now filtering into country after country at a smaller level, as local activist and media organizations work with technology providers to fine-tune the collection and solicitation of leaks to specific populations or subject areas.
Much of this work is being facilitated by the Italian GlobaLeaks, a project of the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights. Started in 2011, inspired by the release of WikiLeaks data, the group aims to help with the release of information on a different scale than WikiLeaks can address.
"We saw that there needed to be a solution or software that would enable any organization to engage in whistleblower solicitation, even at the local level," said Fabio Pietrosanti, one of the project's founding members.
GlobaLeaks, funded by U.S. Aid and the Open Technology Fund, provides a technology platform that enables other groups to create their own whistleblower platforms. Working over the Tor anonymity network where possible, it has created a system simple enough that even non-technically minded journalists and activists can use it with ease.
It has currently been deployed around Europe, by independent journalism and activist groups in Serbia, investigative journalism organizations in Hungary and Italy, and an anti-Mafia group in Italy.
A GlobaLeaks-powered whistleblowing site in Iceland, called Ljost, today released new documents on that country's 2008 financial collapse.
The largest implementation thus far is PubLeaks in the Netherlands, a foundation that counts 42 of the country's biggest media organizations among its members. There, each organization pays €500 per year, and in return receives a special laptop designed to access the leak system.
When accessing Publeaks from the web, whistleblowers can choose to send information to three of these media organizations. All participating organizations agree to honor embargo periods, enabling information to be examined without immediate publication pressure. The group has already had several high-profile leaks, including one that led to the resignation of a prominent parliamentarian.
Pietrosanti said GlobaLeaks is currently talking with organizations in a number of other countries, including several media groups that want to replicate the successful Dutch model. However, activists are also examining topic-specific leaks sites for issues such as human rights, wildlife crimes, surveillance, food safety in the United States, and censorship.
In essence, much of what GlobaLeaks is doing is reminiscent of the goals of OpenLeaks, the project created by former WikiLeaks member Daniel Domscheit-Berg and other WikiLeaks alumni. While that project has currently been shelved, Domscheit-Berg said he welcomed the other activity in the space.
"As long as these are fundamentally secure, and take a reasonable approach, the more diversity there is, the better," he said. "It's the same as with the publishers, you don't want to depend on just one organization."
