Who's behind the news?
Who's behind the news?
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Newsjunkie.net is a resource guide for journalists. We show who's behind the news, and provide tools to help navigate the modern business of information.
Use of Data
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1.5.2
San Francisco, California, USA
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation founded in 2012 to protect, defend, and empower public-interest journalism in the digital age. It operates at the intersection of civil liberties, digital security, and press freedom advocacy — building and maintaining open-source security tools for journalists and newsrooms, training reporters in digital security practices, tracking and documenting press freedom violations in the United States, and engaging in policy advocacy on behalf of journalists, whistleblowers, and the public's right to know. FPF was born in a specific moment of alarm — the WikiLeaks financial blockade of 2010–11, in which Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal cut off donations to WikiLeaks under US government pressure without any judicial order or legal process — and has since grown into the primary US institution at the nexus of technology and press freedom. Its board has included Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower; Laura Poitras, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and NSA revelations partner; Edward Snowden, who joined the board in 2014 and began serving as board president in early 2016 before Rainey Reitman succeeded him in that role in late 2022; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery; and actor and activist John Cusack. Executive Director is Trevor Timm, a co-founder, who has led FPF's day-to-day operations since its founding.
FPF was founded in December 2012, with its creation announced by co-founders Daniel Ellsberg and others in an op-ed in The Guardian by Glenn Greenwald titled "Why we all have a stake in the Freedom of the Press Foundation." The immediate impetus was what the founders described as the US government's extrajudicial strangling of WikiLeaks' finances: in late 2010, following WikiLeaks' publication of US diplomatic cables, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America, and Western Union had all stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks — without any court order, conviction, or even formal charge — in what FPF characterized as an unprecedented privatized censorship mechanism. FPF's launch in late 2012 re-enabled donations to WikiLeaks through its platform, using Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, demonstrating that the financial blockade could be circumvented via a US-based nonprofit intermediary.
FPF processed donations on WikiLeaks' behalf for five years. In December 2017, after the organization determined that the original financial blockade was no longer in effect, FPF's board unanimously voted to sever its relationship with WikiLeaks, effective 8 January 2018, citing concerns about WikiLeaks' public statements and conduct in the intervening years. FPF continues to support other WikiLeaks-adjacent journalism institutions and to advocate for Julian Assange's rights as a publisher, separately from any formal organizational relationship.
The co-founders of FPF — Daniel Ellsberg, John Perry Barlow, Trevor Timm, and Rainey Reitman — won the 2013 Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award for their role in founding the organization. Barlow, the lyricist for the Grateful Dead and author of the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, died in 2018.
FPF's most consequential technical contribution to press freedom is SecureDrop — the open-source whistleblower submission system that newsrooms install on their own servers to allow sources to send documents and messages to journalists without leaving a digital trail connecting the source to the newsroom. SecureDrop was originally developed by Aaron Swartz — the programmer, activist, and open-access advocate who died in January 2013 — working with Kevin Poulsen and James Dolan under the name DeadDrop. In October 2013, following Swartz's death, FPF took over development of the system and renamed it SecureDrop. FPF provides the open-source software, on-site installation support, and ongoing technical development, maintenance, and security auditing.
SecureDrop is now used by newsrooms around the world, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, The Intercept, ProPublica, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and dozens of other major and mid-size investigative organizations. It routes source communications through the Tor anonymity network, encrypts all documents end-to-end, and is designed so that the newsroom's system administrators cannot identify who submitted a document even if they wished to. FPF has worked with the Columbia Journalism School and other institutions to offer newsroom training on SecureDrop installation and operation. In 2025, FPF's priorities include enhancing the SecureDrop Workstation — a hardened hardware platform designed to make the system more accessible to smaller newsrooms — and expanding its adoption globally.
SecureDrop
Developed from Aaron Swartz's DeadDrop · FPF steward since October 2013
Open-source whistleblower submission system routing communications through Tor. Used by major newsrooms worldwide. FPF builds, maintains, audits, and supports installation. The SecureDrop Workstation adds hardened hardware to make deployment more accessible.
Dangerzone
FPF development assumed 2022
A free, open-source tool that converts potentially malicious documents — PDFs, Word files, images — into safe versions by rendering them in a sandboxed virtual machine and converting to a clean PDF, protecting journalists who open files from untrusted sources. Originally created by Micah Lee; FPF took over development in 2022.
US Press Freedom Tracker
Launched 2017 · 2,000th incident documented 2024
A database of press freedom violations in the United States, built and maintained by FPF in partnership with other press freedom organisations. Tracks arrests, assaults, equipment seizures, subpoenas, border stops, and other categories of interference with journalism. Documented 2,000 incidents total by 2024; in that year alone, 49 journalists were arrested and 80 were assaulted while performing their duties.
Digital Security Training
FPF trains journalists in digital security practices — secure communications, password management, device security, phishing resistance, and operational security — through workshops, online resources, and direct partnerships with newsrooms. Chief Information Security Officer Harlo Holmes leads this work. FPF works with Yubico's Secure it Forward program to provide hardware security keys to journalists at heightened risk around the world.
FPF's advocacy program covers the full range of press freedom threats in the United States: government secrecy, the persecution of whistleblowers, surveillance of journalists, Freedom of Information Act enforcement, the right to publish, and the protection of journalist-source privilege. The organization maintains an explicitly nonpartisan stance — it has held every US administration accountable regardless of political party since its founding. In 2024 and 2025 it continued advocacy for the PRESS Act — a bipartisan federal shield law for journalists, protecting them from being compelled to disclose sources to federal authorities — which passed the House of Representatives in January 2024 and remained pending in the Senate entering 2025.
FPF has also brought significant Freedom of Information Act litigation. In January 2016, an FPF lawsuit against the Justice Department revealed that the US government maintains secret rules for targeting journalists with National Security Letters and FISA court orders. In March 2016, a second FPF lawsuit revealed that the Obama administration had secretly lobbied against bipartisan FOIA reform in Congress — despite the administration's proposed legislation being based word-for-word on Obama's own stated transparency guidelines, a revelation that drew significant attention to the gap between rhetoric and practice on government transparency.
FPF has been a consistent advocate for Edward Snowden — whose disclosures, FPF argues, enabled a historic public debate about the constitutionality of NSA mass surveillance that would otherwise have been impossible, and whose ongoing prosecution under the Espionage Act FPF describes as a fundamental threat to the journalist-source relationship. It similarly advocates for the rights of other whistleblowers whose disclosures served the public interest. The 2024 Impact Report noted that the year presented "significant challenges to press freedom" and that the organisation remained "steadfast" in its nonpartisan commitment to holding all administrations accountable.
FPF's board of directors has historically been among the most distinguished in US civil liberties — combining whistleblowers (Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden), journalists (Laura Poitras, Wesley Lowery, Glenn Greenwald in early years), civil liberties advocates (Rainey Reitman, now Board President), and cultural figures (John Cusack, the late John Perry Barlow). In 2024, FPF reported income of $5.25 million, expenditures of $7.22 million, and net assets of $20.7 million. The organization receives philanthropic support, membership contributions, and cryptocurrency donations; in April 2021, Snowden raised approximately $5.4 million for FPF through the sale of an NFT titled "Stay Free" — the largest single donation in the organization's history, combining a landmark court ruling on NSA surveillance with his portrait by photographer Platon.
FPF's full library of training resources, policy publications, and technical documentation is freely available at freedom.press. Journalists seeking digital security training can access the resource library at freedom.press/training. Newsrooms interested in deploying SecureDrop can find installation guides and request support at securedrop.org. The US Press Freedom Tracker is at pressfreedomtracker.us. FPF accepts donations including cryptocurrency and maintains a membership program at freedom.press/donate.
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF)
San Francisco, California, USA
Executive Director: Trevor Timm (co-founder)
Board President: Rainey Reitman (from late 2022)
Board includes: Edward Snowden · Daniel Ellsberg (died 2023) · Laura Poitras · Wesley Lowery · John Cusack
2024 finances: Income $5.25M · Expenditures $7.22M · Net assets $20.7M
Website: freedom.press | SecureDrop: securedrop.org | Dangerzone: dangerzone.rocks
Press Freedom Tracker: pressfreedomtracker.us | Training: freedom.press/training