Clandestine Reporters Working Group

Clandestine Reporters Working Group, also called CR Working Group or CRWG, is a private firm based in Alexandria, Virginia that specializes in training journalists in a number of security and privacy methods to ensure their safety globally. Founded by United States Marine Corps veterans, the CR Working Group trains field reporters to secure their media, in both digital and non-digital platforms, in hostile environments.^[2][3]

Background

CRWG was founded by Daryl Baginski and Larry Jones, both ex-Marines, who had been trained in intelligence. After leaving the military, Jones became a private investigator while Baginski worked as an attorney. Concerned with the worsening climate for journalists both abroad and domestically, the two men founded the company "because they believe investigative journalism is a core American value".^[2] The two founders are adamant that human rights and right to privacy for journalists and whistleblowers are fundamental for democracy and accurate reporting, stating "[w]hen journalists must compete with spies and surveillance, even if they win, society loses."^[2] Bruce Schneier noted "Governments from all over the world are [acting] against journalists, human rights activists, human rights defenders and political dissidents", detracting from the quality of journalistic reporting.^[2]

Among the motivations for founding the CRWG were revelations that the Obama administration had used the Espionage Act more than any other presidency combined to prosecute government whistleblowers "who shared information with the press",^[4] as well the UK government's granting "authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications" to its surveillance agencies.^[2][5]

In an exclusive for Mint Press News CRWG noted that since 2009 the technology to monitor keyboard strokes has been present, since the "voltage fluctuations in the ground lines give keystroke signatures." Keystrokes can also be recorded from radio frequencies emitted from keyboards. CRWG also has shown that "lasers pointed at certain laptop points or nearby objects can detect modulations caused by vibrations from striking keys." Mentioned was the fact that federal and state law enforcement have been known to use spy cameras roughly the size of a fish eye to record keystroke activity.^[3]

CRWG recently recommended an alternative to encrypted phone calls, advocating low-tech, more conventional methods, such as recording voice data in a sound proof room, encrypting that data on an SD card or USB drive, and mailing the physical storage.^[6] The group claims that private and state actors do not target the transmission of data, encrypted or not, but targets end points.

Services

Noting that journalists are the most likely target of surveillance by governments, CRWG trains customers in a series of seminars and workshops to misdirect surveillance, plant false leads, and effectively operate undetected in plain sight. In addition attendees are taught practical cryptography and stenography for operating in hostile environments.^[2] CRWG encourages its students to practice encrypted shorthand techniques that "date back thousands of years, but even simple ciphers can stump today’s best code-breaking computers for days. A cipher called the “one-time pad” can defeat computer analysis entirely and is still used by spies."^[2]

The CRWG also trains whistleblowers how to properly operate without being detected. CRWG has criticized conventional methods of whistleblowing, likening it to “calling the local FBI branch and telling them you are a reporter who wants to leak documents to a news agency.”^[7] CRWG posits that following conventional methods will lead to almost certain detection, while their methods can ensure anonymity, while misleading a tracking agency.^[7]

Students are also instructed in a military Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program to prepare them for a hostile environment where they are in significant danger. They are taught “everything from water filtering and shelters, stalking and tracking, restraints, knife fighting, disarmament, lock picking, and resistance techniques, to surveillance and counter-surveillance and caches”.^[8] To preserve their human rights and journalistic pursuits, some journalists may find themselves in the scenario necessitating these measures.^[8]

The CR Working Group further establishes that federal law enforcement is known to infiltrate events related to controversial topics such as environmental reform or gun shows. As such, they have developed methods to identify law enforcement in crowds taught to students in their workshops.^[9] CRWG also provides training to misdirect the identification of one’s automobile by law enforcement.^[10]

CR Working Group has expressed the view that the media should stop using military acronyms in their writing. Noting that media watchdogs are often the most critical of the militarization of law enforcement and the government as a whole, the use of the military’s own terminology does not impede the process.^[11]

References