The Obama Administration used the Espionage Act to prosecute sources consistently, which they could only do after finding out who those sources were using broad, advanced, invasive surveillance to determine how journalists got their information. This same government surveillance, you’ll recall, cost General Michael Flynn his job as National Security Advisor, revealing his unauthorized warnings to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Obama’s sanctions prior to his taking office.
Now, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and ProPublica have all posted web pages that list a variety of ways that anyone can send them leaks. Two of these leaking methods are by way of SecureDrop—an anonymous, file-sharing, desktop application—and the encrypted messaging mobile app, Signal. The former was developed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation specifically to facilitate newsrooms receiving anonymous tips.
Moxie Marlinspike (pseudonym) is the cofounder of mobile app developer, Signal, and in an NPR interview, he explained that their premier app of the same name is frequented by leakers to encrypt information and get it from A to B whether by call or by text. To do this, it uses end-to-end encryption, which means, “You can ensure that when you send a message to someone or you call someone, that the thing that you write or say is only visible to yourself and the intended recipient,” according to Marlinspike.
