SecureDrop: New system in play to protect journalists’ anonymous sources

A new guide to the use of SecureDrop, conceived to protect journalists’ communications with anonymous sources, reveals that the tool has enabled journalists to better protect their sources. “Given its complexity, SecureDrop may appear at first like a radical new tool, but many reporters told me that it closely resembles many of the other channels newsrooms have traditionally made available for sources to contact them. The crucial difference is that SecureDrop restores the effectiveness of a reporter’s privilege to protect their sources through principled non-cooperation—such as refusing to testify in court—whereas pervasive digital surveillance has made this gesture effectively moot over the last decade. The reality is that when a reporter’s source can be identified through digital traces, the prosecution does not even need that reporter to testify. One of the explicit purposes behind developing SecureDrop has been to restore the possibility for journalists to protect sources whose communication devices might otherwise expose their identities,” writes the author of the guide, Charles Berret, GitBook, May 12, 2016.

The journalists are careful, though, not to reveal much about the specific instances in which they used SecureDrop, but about 14 news outlets, three journals and eight nonprofits are  using the tool and 80 other organizations are gearing up to use it. Barret did find out that many reporters used SecureDrop for the initial tip then went to “encrypted e-mail, PGP, or secure chat.” (NiemanLab, May 13, 2016, by Ricardo Bilton)