Into the ether

Two years since he first released documents revealing a global mass surveillance programme, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden talked to us about how he and the political landscape have changed. What do you think has changed over the...

In March 2014 a grainy cell phone video came across my desk that seemed to show a Nigerian soldier murdering an unarmed man in broad daylight. It took me a day and a half to pinpoint the location of this apparent war crime to a...

In 2013 I wrote enthusiastically that you should go and watch The Act of Killing – an extraordinary documentary that asked members of Indonesia’s ‘death squads’ to re-enact their violence in the style of their favourite films. It was...

'Every border you cross, every purchase you make, every call you dial, every cell phone tower you pass, friend you keep, article you write, site you visit… is in the hands of a system whose reach is unlimited but whose safeguards are...

This week we released satellite images that show the impact of a horrific Boko Haram attack in northeast Nigeria last week. The images, combined with several testimonies, provide shocking evidence of how the conflict is dramatically...

Journalism has always played a vital part in uncovering human rights abuses and corruption around the world. Film is a powerful way to bring these issues to life – it can educate, expose, galvanise, amuse, terrify, and even hold to...

Where were you on your 27th birthday? A question that takes most of us a minute or two to stab a guess at; maybe you’re not yet 27 (lucky you!), but the chances are you’ve spent various birthdays in different places, with different...

There's so much pressure to spend big at Christmas, we don’t always have the chance to take a step back and think about the impact our cash has. As consumers we're accountable for our spending, but making ethical shopping choices isn't...

Lawyer Mohammed al-Roken is well-known in human rights circles in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – if you’ve been at the receiving end of the government repression that rears its head in the Emirates, you’ll want him defending you...

This Friday, we’re honoured to have two founding members of the Russian feminist protest art collective Pussy Riot with us to talk about art, activism, Russia, freedom - and help us launch our annual Write For Rights campaign . Nadya...

Instagram might still have a bit of a reputation for being full of vintage photos of cupcakes , but with more than 200 million active users around the world, it's a window into every aspect of our lives - if you know where to look. If...

In January 2013, filmmaker Laura Poitras was several years into the making of a film about abuses of national security in post-9/11 America. She started receiving encrypted e-mails from someone identifying himself as ‘citizen four’...

Happy Birthday, Mister President! Vladimir Putin, 62 years old today, will be celebrating his birthday in Siberia , apparently. I have some ideas for presents, should any relatives or friends of the President be searching for last...

Reading this from North Korea? No? Didn’t think so. The big weird world of the interweb is completely off limits for the average North Korean. In many countries, a blog like this one would be considered way too risky for public...

During a crisis or disaster, YouTube is widely used to share footage—including a host of videos that are old or, in some cases, staged or faked. An enormous challenge for human rights workers, journalists or first responders alike is...

I was in court on Monday to hear first-hand the ludicrous decision to continue the trial of 29 young women and men in what has been coined the ‘Twitter trial’. The prosecution – based solely on tweets about the Gezi Park protests last...

The Twitter shutdown started at about 11pm on Thursday night. My telephone started to ring: had I heard that Twitter was blocked? There was confusion about who could access Twitter, who couldn’t, and why. And would the government...

Donald Rumsfeld: canny genius who deftly maneuvered his impressive political career into existence with one hand on the steering wheel of US foreign policy in the defining decades of the American century? Or cruel Machiavellian master...

Just last night, we launched an urgent action to UK MPs, asking them to vote to allow the resettlement of Syrian refugees. In less than 24 hours you've sent over 5,000 emails, and almost every MP in the country has been contacted at...

If you’re gay and live in Africa, this hasn’t been a good couple of weeks . Both Nigeria and Uganda, instead of setting an example with their laws (such as South Africa in the 90s), are going backwards towards state-sanctioned...