The Freedom of the Press Foundation has launched a new system for accepting documents from whistleblowers called SecureDrop.

SecureDrop is an open-source whistleblower submission system managed by Freedom of the Press Foundation that media organizations use to securely accept documents from anonymous sources. It was originally coded by the late Aaron Swartz.

Any organization can install SecureDrop for free and can make modifications if they so choose… Freedom of the Press Foundation also offers technical assistance to news organizations wishing to install SecureDrop and train its journalists in security best practices.

The New Yorker already created a secure system called Strongbox (also designed by Aaron Swartz) for whistleblowers.

What I would like to see is a flood of whistleblowing, tremoving the lid off all manner of government corruption and wrongdoing so that the excesses of the secrecy system, which has taken on a life of its own that seeks to protect itself well beyond any reasonable concerns about terrorism or crime, is exposed.

Meanwhile in an interview today with the New York Times (which took palce vi an encrypted system) Edward Snowden has said that he did not take any of his secret documents to Russia, and rejected arguments that the Russians (or the Chinese) had gained access to his files.

And in other news, it has been announced that the head of the NSA Keith Alexander and his chief deputy, the equally appalling John Inglis, will both leave the agency in early 2014.

I say good riddance but given that president Obama is as guilty of the NSA abuses as these people, I do not expect him to replace them with people much better. But I would be glad to be proven wrong.