Chilling Effect: Regional journalists’ source

protection and information security practice in the wake of the

Snowden and RIPA revelations @PaulBradshaw

Birmingham City University

What do journalists know? What do journalists do?

What could they be doing?

Not a lot. Nothing.

A lot.

Some history.

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“This application produced five telephone numbers, all of which were researched for connections with the

[Metropolitan Police Service]. One number was identified as the switchboard number for

Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Cambridgeshire. It was established that Officer 15 DPG’s wife Member of Public

3, was employed at that hospital

”Enquiries were made with Siemens in order to identify from the data on the exhibit, which extension within the

hospital the call to The Sun was made from.”

Some method.

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“Protecting the anonymity of interviewees and their projects

during data collection and analysis is particularly challenging in times of

tight cybersecurity measures and blanket cybersurveillance plans

Milan (in Della Porta, 2014)

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Some charts.

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“How much at all have you changed the way you…?”

“Do you think your home ISP would or would not share your data with…?”

Which of the following have you used…?

Some discourses.

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“Another planet”

“People are pretty savvy”

“They can get access to anything they want to”

Some findings.

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Everything has changed…

1. Pre-publication identification 2. Retrospective identification 3. Not just legal defence 4. Indirect targeting

…but journalists haven’t.1. No protection of social media 2. Unclear policies, reliance on visible problems 3. Legal ignorance 4. Network vulnerability 5. No training

“More research is needed…”• Use of law by other

authorities • Workplace surveillance’s

‘chilling effect’ • Ethnography • Source behaviour

Twitter.com/paulbradshaw Linkedin.com/in/onlinejournalist Slideshare.net/onlinejournalist

Some thanks.