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I find myself in an uncomfortable situation. I’ve written a long piece, a piece that I would very much like to post. I think that it is both timely and informative. But posting it would be extremely risky for me – and not just for me, but for my family.
Yes, here I’m known only as “Quasit”, which seems safe enough. But I ran a very simple check to see how hard it would be to link this persona to my actual identity. It’s far too easy.
In the old days, there were options for posting things anonymously. Usenet and even some websites were available. But one by one, the safe havens of anonymity have been stripped away. Yes, Usenet still exists, but posting there is like nailing an article to a telephone pole; you’re pretty much guaranteed that virtually nobody will read it. If you want to blow a whistle in a way that’s effective, the odds are very high that you will be uncovered and exposed to the full wrath of those you’ve exposed.
Now, what I’ve written doesn’t rise anywhere close to the level of whistleblowing. You won’t be seeing it on Wikipedia; I’m sure they wouldn’t even be interested. And it might not even attract the attention of those that it’s about. But if it did…well, I don’t feel justified in taking that risk.
So if anyone has made it this far, and if you’ve encountered anything like this situation before, do you have any suggestions? Because let’s face it; although we still have a First Amendment on paper, the increasing privatization of what used to be public venues of speech has left Americans at the mercy of powerful corporations, “persons” who are restricted neither by principles of fairness, respect for the truth, or the slightest hint of mercy – at least, not if it might conflict with their bottom line.
P.S. – I have a sinking feeling that some will tell me to suck it up and post the damned thing. If you’re inclined to be one of those people, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bother. I’ve done and written reckless and stupid things in the past, but I am older now and have responsibilities. I will not post the piece under my own name, or in any way in which it could be traced back to me – period.
17 Comments
Your dilemma is one faced by many people who know things that should be exposed but fear repercussions to them or their families. This is a sign of how repressive and degenerate the Regime that we live under is.
If you don’t expose this fact, are you safe, if it continues and all the other wrongs that it represents also are not exposed for the same reason.
I guess this shows just how a Fascist Corporate State maintains it’s power.
I tried privately contacting my representative and Senators, as well as Bernie Sanders. One of them even had an aide phone me. But I have no illusions that they’ll actually DO anything about this issue.
This was before both of my Senators voted against the Udall amendment to the AUMF, at which point I wrote both of them off completely.
Depending on your objective, privately contacting representatives and Senators works and can be kept quiet – although after they get you to the official in gov that deals with your topic, your identity is obviously exposed. IRS has a form for reporting wrong doing that promises to keep your identity secret.
If you are dealing with national security suggestions and need to violate your NDA, you have major problems – I don’t know of a solution beyond waiting for any secret in question to be exposed via a CIA/NSA leak to a favored reporter – and if you know that the leak is false and chose to expose the falseness you can expect a surveillance at the very least albeit I doubt it would go beyond that, It would be impossible to be “anonymous” to the CIA/NSA.
If it is corporate mis-behavior, wait till you are retired and they can’t hurt you makes sense, but even then there still may be some SOB’s that will go after your kids in other corporations if they learn you are the source. Trying to be a visible “stand up guy” and stopping illegal behavior in a corporation without at a minimum losing your job is not possible in my experience, so I agree with you that “anonymous” is a must.
If you have extra dollars, Friends have worked through lawyers – the client privilege does work to protect you.
If all you want to do is have a name “anonymous” to post on FDL, that concept opens the door to posting abuse and requires extra management effort FDL – I suggest you write them directly.
For an immediate solution I’d suggest having someone on FDL that you trust post it under their name (email contact I imagine could be arranged by the management of FDL) if they are so inclined.
Good luck.
Just a suggestion, but you might consider giving the information to Russ Baker at http://www.whowhatwhy.com
This paragraph on the Contact page seems applicable:
“To suggest a source or submit a story concept, please complete the form below. Credible, well-documented, fresh information, not previously reported, will get priority. Please be clear and concise. Due to the volume of submissions, we are not able to respond to all input. For general inquiries, you may reach us at info [at] WhoWhatWhy.com”
http://whowhatwhy.com/contact/
Best of luck; it’s a staggering pity that…we’ve come to this.
I don’t really see what the problem is. Are you an FDL member? If so, contact your rep and explain the situation and I’ve no doubt s/he will allow you to create a username for the express purposes of posting your piece. Unfortunately it would be rather self defeating if there was a way for the rest of us to know that it was actually from “Quasit”. Alternatively you could use the contact us button at the top right of the screen and explain your situation and perhaps a bit about what you want to post. If the PTB of this blog find it topical and important, I’m sure they would allow you to create a new username for the express purpose of posting your piece.
Unfortunately,both the Contact Us and Send Tips and Comments buttons go to Page Not Found. As recently as the day before yesterday, Contact Us showed Bill Egnor’s fdl email, not Kelly’s.
As far as discovering a person’s identity, isn’t IP address the determining factor? It might require posting from a computer at a Cafe or library to stay hidden.
If your faith in your senators was lost because they didn’t sign his amendment, you didn’t understand what it was. It allowed the status quo to continue.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/11/29/udall-amendment-fails-37-61/
They stuck the shiv in sideways and gave it good twist anyway.
Maybe if you explain the security hole exactly, something can be done. Otherwise you typed a lot of stuff to exercise your fingers.
I have lots of links you might want to check out before you decide how to proceed. There is no such thing as anonymous.
The best people to contact are in this organization. They’ve been there and done that. The linked page provides an email address and a phone number.
Then, check out the following two videos:
Jesselyn Radack
Thomas Drake
And finally, read this article.
No one can tell you whether to take the risk or not. We call those who do “heroes”. Some of them, especially now with the new NDAA provisions against habeas corpus, might get disappeared. Good luck and be careful.
I’ve had several widows hesitant to sign the Walker recall petition for fear of republican repercussions.
Each knew why they were there though, that small d democracy is participatory and they sense full well the evil we are trying to eradicate.
Talk about brave patriots!
Not knowing what it is you are trying to post, I can’t really offer advice. There are people to whom you can tell things that will take your comments in confidence, of course.
I can give you some advice from my own experience:
If you are worried about posting it because tracing it back to you, that’s one thing, and you can make that choice fairly easily. The answer is that you should assume that at least one person out there can do it, so if it is important enough, they will.
If you are worried about posting it because tracing it back may hurt others, then don’t post it, no matter how important you think it is. I’ve had this discussion in flames with several (including here at FDL). Just don’t. Use another medium and direct it to the person or persons that really need to have the information, only, or don’t say it at all.
If you’re worried that having now mentioned it, you may look silly or cowardly refusing to do so having thought about it? Trust me. It will pass, and you will get over it. There are millions of people in this world who do things with information that demands confidentiality who are no less honorable because they have to keep someone’s confidence for good reason.
The internet is absolutely no place for material that if traced back might hurt someone else. Putting that material out there does not make you a hero. Getting it, instead, to the right person via some other means, might.
You could also post it on Wikileaks, if the content itself is squeaky clean untraceable.
Just a note: the text in government and corporate confidential documents is sometimes (and increasingly more often) tagged… modified on a per-recipient basis… so that ten different people will receive ten different documents.
Each document will have the the same information but slight differences text, layout etc so that if that information gets out the PITA working for the PTB will know exactly which of the ten documents is the source of the leak.
Of course if the text in the piece by Quasit was written entirely by Quasit so that any quotes from source material have been paraphrased then that reduces that risk.
(… wondering if and when we’ll hear about such automatic taggers mucking up the tracking documentation in a facility that handles nuclear materials…)
I’d stay clear of Wikileaks. Even going there from home computers can result in job loss. I’ve heard reports that some companies are telling employees you could be fired for going there even from home. You can be sure Homeland Security is monitoring that site and which IP addresses are visiting it (and they may even be monitoring this one). I don’t want to sound paranoid, but the tools to monitor the internet are very sophisticated and one should just assume there is no privacy. You can be sure there is a “backdoor” to your operating system that allows Government access to your computer should it want to poke around.
That’s going there to browse, not to post.
The risk is also that the data in the disclosure constitutes an admissible set: it can be inverted to distinguish the identity of the discloser.
Yes, I should have been clearer on that. Browsing could result in dismissal. How would private companies know? No doubt some sort of information sharing with Homeland Security exists particularly with companies involved with Government contracts. Just my $0.02 worth.