Index magazine launch: “We have reached peak indifference to surveillance”

28 Oct 16 | Event Reports, Magazine, Volume 45.03 Autumn 2016 Extras

Words: Mariam Ameri
Videos: Kieran Etoria-King
cory-doctorow_launch

The current issue of Index on Censorship magazine looks at the issue of anonymity and the pros and cons of masking identities. At the magazine’s launch at the offices of VPN provider Hide My Ass, Index readers and contributors gathered to listen to writer Cory Doctorow and tech journalist Geoff White lay out the importance of online privacy and protecting personal data.

Experienced hackers can attain such data in seconds as White, technology producer at Channel 4 News, demonstrated.

No one in the audience will “look at [their] phone in the same way again,” he added.

Doctorow debriefed the audience on the stifling practices which we adhere to every day.

anonymity_launch1

The latest issue of Index magazine is available for free on Sage until 23 November. In it, former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson writes on the damage done when her cover was blown; journalist John Lloyd looks at how terrorist attacks have affected surveillance needs worldwide; Caroline Lees looks at how local journalists and fixers can be endangered, or even killed, when they are revealed to be working with foreign news companies; and more.

You can order your copy of the latest issue here, or take out a digital subscription via Exact Editions. Copies are also available at the BFI, the Serpentine Gallery, MagCulture, (London), News from Nowhere (Liverpool), Home (Manchester), Calton Books (Glasgow) and on Amazon. Each magazine sale helps Index on Censorship continue its fight for free expression worldwide.

Index Freedom of Expression Awards: Journalism nominee Callum Macrae/Channel 4 News

06 Mar 14 | Awards, News and features, Sri Lanka

Callum Macrae, in collaboration with Channel 4 News, has made three films uncovering the truth about Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses in the final months of its decades-long civil war in 2009.

Macrae’s most recent film No Fire Zone, containing carefully authenticated video evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, gained particular attention as it was aired just before the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka last November. “Both sides in that war committed crimes, although the most of those who died did so as a result of shelling by forces under the ultimate command of President Mahinda Rajapaksa,” Macrae wrote recently. The film tells this story, and that of the government’s attempt to cover it up.

Macrae has been continuously smeared in Sri Lankan media, with claims that he is a Tamil Tiger supporter and that he and Channel 4 receive funding from the disbanded rebel group. He has received death threats, and the team has been followed by the secret service as well as impromptu pro-government protesters, while in the country. “I am probably the most hated man in Sri Lanka at the moment” Macrae recently wrote, but added that based on his experiences in the country, “it is very clear there are a lot of people in Sri Lanka who are very happy to see their increasingly despotic ruling family coming under pressure.

Index Freedom of Expression Awards
#indexawards2014 The nominees are…

Nominees: Advocacy | Arts | Digital Activism | Journalism

Join us 20 March 2014 at the Barbican Centre for the Freedom of Expression Awards

This article was posted on March 6, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org