Deep Web for Journalist: Counter-surveillance, Search

Being a journalist in 2013 is more dangerous than it ever was. In addition to the usual threats, beatings, murders and war casualties we are now being actively targeted online by intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

These days it is not just journalists working in repressive regimes that need worry. Increasingly, outwardly-democratic governments are tightening control over the Internet and those who use it. All sophisticated security services monitor Internet traffic within their own countries. The US monitors all Internet traffic if it passes through US-owned “processing services”, which the bulk of it does.

Legally, just the bare bones of the communications are monitored – the who sent what and when. But, although they may not be open about this, many agencies are now looking directly into the message itself, looking for the expected and the unexpected in all our online communications and activities.

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