Today, a group of free expression advocates and journalists are launching the Freedom of the Press Foundation to promote aggressive, public interest journalism that takes aim at excessive government secrecy. Its goal is to crowd-fund donations for a variety of organizations that work to expose government mismanagement, corruption, and law breaking. EFF is proud to serve as legal counsel for this new nonprofit, which will allow the public to support transparency journalism through funding "bundles."
As part of EFF's overall focus on the role of online intermediaries in facilitating and protecting free speech online, we've long noted that pressure on payment processors can result in censorship that is just as effective as direct government censorship. And of course the loss of payment processors also hurts the people around the world who want to exercise their free speech rights to donate to these organizations. Part of the Freedom of the Press Foundation's mission is to serve as a bulwark against this kind of payment censorship by pooling financial support for a range of organizations that engage in journalism and publishing on transparency issues, from whistleblowers to websites to investigators.
Comments