27/11/2021
Join the chat at https://www.disruptionlab.org/whistle...
Barrett Brown (Writer & Activist, Founder of Project PM, US), Naomi Colvin (Programme Director at Blueprint for Free Speech, UK), Lauri Love (Computer Scientist, UK), Mustafa Al-Bassam (alias Tflow, Computer Security Researcher, Former Core Member LulzSec, UK). Moderated by Tatiana Bazzichelli (Programme Director, Disruption Network Lab, IT/DE).
What are the implications of speaking out in the networked society? Which are the personal consequences of revealing classified information and large datasets involving war, spying and corruption? How can we all empower whistleblowing and develop crowd-sourced civic action?
This panel reflects on how digital technologies and the grassroots re-appropriation of vigilance can be effective in impacting the whistleblowing phenomenon. In many cases, whistleblowers lose control of the narrative they set in motion, and it is a collective responsibility to take agency to guarantee the success of their disclosures, contextually inserting them into the civic consciousness in a manner that prompts substantive change. Barrett Brown, Lauri Love, Mustafa Al-Bassam and Naomi Colvin bring to public attention networked acts of whistleblowing, truth-telling, and publishing that contributed in making a deep change in society, and discuss cases of people, including themselves, that are still paying a high price for this.
By connecting hackers, activists, advocates and journalists that fight for a common cause in the light of freedom of speech, the panel starts with the live contribution of Barrett Brown, who is currently seeking asylum in UK following his persecution in the US for his journalism. In the book Whistleblowing for Changehe addresses the necessity of networked acts of whistleblowing and accountability developing crowd-sourced investigations into private intelligence contractors, to enable oversight of surveillance and disinformation methodologies.
Naomi Colvin highlights the unjust dimensions of whistleblower oppression, i.e. the US Espionage Act, describing the many cases of whistleblowers and truth-tellers that paid the price of having this draconian law still in use – including Julian Assange, who has been incarcerated at the Belmarsh high-security prison in the UK since April 2019. In the anthology, Suelette Dreyfus and Naomi Colvin trace important moments of the life of Julian Assange, from the early releases of WikiLeaks in 2010, and his meeting with Daniel Ellsberg, to the present.
The subject of pervasive invisible surveillance infrastructures informs the reflections of security engineer and activist Lauri Love, who discusses the notion of “Sousveillance'', to denote vigilance upwards from below. He provides an analysis on the current ethical issues concerning technological and intimate surveillance, reflecting on the urge of self-empowering ourselves from centralised power and authority.
Finally, Mustafa Al-Bassam, former core member of LulzSec, will bring his perspective on the matter, reflecting on the role of mass and corporate surveillance in the context of whistleblowing, and on the importance of advising human rights defenders around the world on protecting their data and communicating securely online.
More: https://www.disruptionlab.org/whistle...
