Chilling Effect

Abstract

Despite reports of widespread interception of communications by the UK government, and revelations that police were using surveillance powers to access journalists' communications data to identify sources, regional newspaper journalists show few signs of adapting source protection and information security practices to reflect new legal and technological threats, and there is widespread ignorance of what their employers are doing to protect networked systems of production. This paper argues that the 'reactive' approach to source protection, that seeks to build a legal defence if required, is no longer adequate in the context of workforce monitoring, and that publishers need to update their policies and practice to address ongoing change in the environment for journalists and sources.

Coping with the Murder: The Impact of Ján Kuciak’s Assassination on Slovak Investigative Journalists

“…First, journalists seem to be convinced that digital security is not necessary in their daily journalistic work, and that they need to take more advanced security measures only when they handle sensitive materialsa mental model called "security by obscurity" (Henrichsen 2020; Tsui and Lee 2019; McGregor and Watkins 2016; Bradshaw 2017). Curiously, even major securityrelated events, like Edward Snowden's revelations of the widespread interception of communications by the US government and its partners, did not prompt journalists to reinforce their security practices (Bradshaw 2017;McGregor and Watkins 2016). As put by Bradshaw (2017, 344), journalists exhibit "a fatalistic resignation to the fact that certain organisations would be able to access their communications regardless of anything that they did".…”

“…Lastly, journalists tend to delegate security practices to sources (Bradshaw 2017;McGregor et al 2015).…”

“…At the same time, despite the severity of this event, the journalists showed clear signs of a mental model called "security by obscurity" (Henrichsen 2020;Tsui and Lee 2019;McGregor and Watkins 2016;Bradshaw 2017). Some openly admitted that the changes they mentioned were not lasting, that they were not applied consistently, and that stricter safety and security measures are used only when dealing with sensitive data and topics.…”

“…Subsequently, it may affect the everyday practices and routines of the journalists (e.g., the way they communicate with their sources and colleagues, the way they store and secure their data, the practical safety measures taken to stay safe when reporting). Research suggests that journalists differ considerably in their security practices (Tsui and Lee 2019), many of them lack awareness of the security risks (Caliskan 2019), security is not something that they always consider necessary (McGregor and Watkins 2016;Henrichsen 2020), and they are reluctant to adapt their security practices to reflect new threats despite reports of the widespread interception of communications by governments and police (Bradshaw 2017). However, the assassination of a colleague could be a powerful impetus for strengthening security and safety measures in newsrooms.…”

Ownership at stake (once again): housing, digital contents, animals and robots

“…Regardless whether it is convenient, feasible or acceptable through legal reasoning, a further step could be to acknowledge them as subject of rights [71]. Even it has been recently proposed [72] that they can hold property rights (either held on trust for them by humans or attending to their customary rules in the wild) over land and chattle, to go beyond classical welfarists (they belong to humans but with anti-cruelty laws) and rigths (extend some human rights to animals) theories. If animals are not granted those rights soon, our siliconmade friends might take the lead.…”