Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press now accepts donations in five cryptocurrencies. It will now accept bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, litecoin and zcash.
The organization’s board members have well-known people such as Glenn Greenwald, Daniel Ellsberg, Laura Poitras, and Edward Snowden. According to the official release, The FPF believes that donations will support their projects to advance press freedom, including SecureDrop, the open source whistleblower submission platform used by more than 60 news organizations worldwide and other projects like the US Press Freedom Tracker, and the archival of threatened news outlets.
According to its website, Freedom of the Press Foundation believes in transparency journalism like publishing the pentagon papers and exposing Watergate, to uncovering the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and CIA secret prisons. It requires dogged work by journalists, and often, the courage of whistleblowers and others who work to ensure that the public actually learns what it has a right to know.
The official release said that
“Decentralized technology has great potential to advance the ability of individuals to resist surveillance and censorship. As with all emerging technology in this space, we look forward to evaluating the Mainframe platform as it develops with an eye to its potential to advance press freedom”
Following the announcement to accept cryptocurrencies, the blockchain communications firm Mainframe donated 1000 ETH to the nonprofit. The FPF tweeted:
A HUGE thank you to @Mainframe_HQ, who is helping kick off our cryptocurrency donation page with a donation of 1000 ETH! We are thrilled @Mainframe_HQ shares our goal of protecting journalists and whistleblowers in the digital age. https://t.co/P8q6aEZJ14
— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) June 18, 2018
Mainframe’s official blog said that
“As everything in our lives becomes more digitized, we’re faced with a choice: will we be masters of our tech, or will our tech be used to control and exploit us? Recent history suggests the latter, in the form of mass surveillance, data collection, manipulation, and censorship. But the war’s not over yet. We’re at a historic crossroads, and the choice will be ours to leverage technology to either save privacy and security, or see it float away as a fleeting memory”
You can read Mainframe’s complete announcement about the donation here.
FPF has asked people to visit its cryptocurrency donation page for information on how to donate using cryptocurrency, including their wallet addresses. It is also planning to add more cryptocurrencies soon, including support for donating to a shielded Zcash address.