Today marks the 10th anniversary of whistleblower and longtime Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) board member Edward Snowden’s stunning revelations of mass surveillance by the National Security Agency.
Over the course of several weeks starting June 5, 2013, Snowden, through a series of stories in The Guardian and The Washington Post, exposed the alarming scope of the data the NSA and other agencies collected on people’s phone calls, text messages and online activities. Snowden’s disclosures prompted other media outlets to investigate the NSA and further develop the disturbing picture the leaked documents painted.
The ramifications of Snowden’s disclosures — both cultural and political — continue to this day. They range from the prevalence of encryption in our everyday communications, to the bipartisan pushback lawmakers can now expect when they seek to expand the government’s surveillance powers, to legislative accomplishments like the 2015 USA Freedom Act and the sunsetting of surveillance powers conferred by the PATRIOT Act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation recapped some of the other major progress attributable to the Snowden disclosures.
The series of stories, which later won the Pulitzer Prize for both the Guardian and Post, offers a case study in the power of whistleblowers and journalists to alter the course of history (as well as an early illustration of the importance of digital security and encryption for journalists). Unfortunately, that’s exactly why our...
The Southeast National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Barr. Ray Nnaji said that widespread claims of a leadership crisis in the party stem from misinterpreting recent court r...