14 DAY TRIAL // The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warns whistleblowers against using Wall Street Journal's and Al Jazeera's whistleblowing platforms because they make false promises of anonymity.
Seeing WikiLeaks' success in convincing whistleblowers to leak information and documents that generate true media storms, Al Jazeera and the Wall Street Journal decided they want a piece of the pie.
Therefore, earlier this year the two news organizations launched their own whistleblowing platforms. Al Jazeera was first with its Al Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU) and WSJ followed with a submission site called SafeHouse.
The EFF claims that, aside from the technical issues that security experts have already pointed out, particularly in the SafeHouse project, the legal aspects of the two websites raise even more problems.
"We read through the Terms of Service for both SafeHouse and AJTU. Don't fall for the false promises of anonymity offered by these sites," the foundation warns.
The civil rigths watchdog points out that Al-Jazeera reserves the right to "share personally identifiable information in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary," without revealing what would guide its decision.
On the other hand, SafeHouse not only reserves the right to disclose any information to law enforcement authorities, but also to any requesting third party in order to "protect the property or rights Dow Jones or any affiliate companies" and "safeguard the interests of others."
"Whistleblowing by definition threatens 'the interests of others.' Every time someone uploads a scoop to SafeHouse, they jeopardize someone's interest in order to inform the public of what’s actually going on. That's the whole point," says EFF's Hanni Fakhoury.
The two organizations go even further and force whistleblowers to make promises they can't possibly keep. These include not violating any laws or the rights of other persons (SafeHouse) and having the full legal right, power and authority to share the information (AJTU).
"This isn't a representation most whistleblowers can make honestly. The whole point of a leak is to expose internal information to the public. Even if your documents aren't stolen, you might be violating someone's rights," the EFF explains.
Furthermore, despite public claims of anonymity protection, both organizations disclaim any guarantees of confidentiality, anonymity, and security in their terms of service. The AJTU website even goes as far as to plant a trackable cookie inside visitors' browsers.
It seems that for the moment there is no secure international website to leak documents to. WikiLeaks' submission system has been down since last year, OpenLeaks has kept silent since January, and the submission sites set up by media organizations cannot be trusted.