Cool to hear my feedback is appreciated! Spreadsheet is an improvement. I think the ultimate form of this project would be some kind of SQL database with a website and fancy UI built on top of it—but that’s not my area of expertise so I wouldn’t even know where to start. Maybe you have 2 components—a spreadsheet/database that lets you search for names based on categories and filters, and then each gives a link to a Wiki-style page on the person with the full text of their story, notes on what they did right/wrong and all the other stuff you would want to write out long form? I’m kind of envisioning a website with 3 parts: the Database side which is a tool to search whistleblowers by category, the Profiles side which is the wiki-style long form posts about each individual, and then an Articles or Blog side which is the meta part where you draw conclusions from the data and write posts such as guides for prospective whistleblowers, guides on infosec, any other high level analysis and discussion of the whole topic. Maybe
Unfortunately I’m not in a position to help financially and I certainly don’t have legal expertise—though I don’t think hosting it comes with any legal risks like you seem to suggest, all this information is public and First Amendment protected, and I think any cheap domain registrar would do. I do have a couple more points of feedback though:
-I don’t think the Category A/B/C etc. system is necessary or helpful. Those categories are just filtering by multiple other categories—so instead of “Category A”, you can just filter by “Whistleblower, Classified, no prison”. which are other existing, hopefully filterable categories. If you had a website with a nice UI down the road, you might make them quick buttons for popular filters which might more or less match your categories, but it doesn’t need to be a separate field of its own in the data.
-I would add a field for “Synopsis” with just a 1 or 2-sentence blurb about what the whistleblower is known for. Example for Edward Snowden: “NSA whistleblower, leaked documents to the press pertaining to illegal government surveillance, currently in asylum in Russia”.
-Current Status field. If I’m reading it correctly it looks like your “Imprisoned” field is just for whether or not the person has ever been imprisoned, not whether or not they’re in jail right now. I would separate that out into multiple fields, for legal status and current physical status. Legal status could be things like “Wanted”, “Convicted”, “Pardoned”, and “Clear”, current status could be “Free”, “Fugitive”, “Incarcerated”, “Exile/Asylum” etc.
-More links to published works—maybe a separate field for works from the press, and their own works? I can see you’re already starting on that. In particular I know Daniel Ellsberg released a couple books, I have read one of them, about his experiences with game theory and nuclear deterrence at the RAND corporation instead of the Pentagon Papers, but it’s related to whistleblowing and I think it deserves a link.
-Links to organizations related to whistleblowing and whistleblower protections. The ACLU to start, I’m sure there are others. Maybe even reach out to those organizations directly and see if they’re interested in sponsoring the project?
I think someone hosting this in the US has a high probability of being sued regardless of first amendment protections. I would prefer discussing legal risks only in private with someone who is actually interested in hosting.
I made up the category names to point out specifically that leaking classified documents, as opposed to just a summary in your own words, makes a large difference for your probability of being imprisoned.
The additional info you would like to me to add in the UI to make it more presentable makes sense!
I’m right now thinking of moving on to another project, but I could get back to this in future, especially if this project gets more funding or an institutional home.
Update: After 2 seconds of Googling I realized what I’m talking about is literally just a Wiki and I’m trying to reinvent it. MediaWiki which powers Wikipedia is open source and would be a perfect fit for this project I think. Besides, “The Whistleblower Wiki” has a nice ring to it.
Cool to hear my feedback is appreciated! Spreadsheet is an improvement. I think the ultimate form of this project would be some kind of SQL database with a website and fancy UI built on top of it—but that’s not my area of expertise so I wouldn’t even know where to start. Maybe you have 2 components—a spreadsheet/database that lets you search for names based on categories and filters, and then each gives a link to a Wiki-style page on the person with the full text of their story, notes on what they did right/wrong and all the other stuff you would want to write out long form? I’m kind of envisioning a website with 3 parts: the Database side which is a tool to search whistleblowers by category, the Profiles side which is the wiki-style long form posts about each individual, and then an Articles or Blog side which is the meta part where you draw conclusions from the data and write posts such as guides for prospective whistleblowers, guides on infosec, any other high level analysis and discussion of the whole topic. Maybe
Unfortunately I’m not in a position to help financially and I certainly don’t have legal expertise—though I don’t think hosting it comes with any legal risks like you seem to suggest, all this information is public and First Amendment protected, and I think any cheap domain registrar would do. I do have a couple more points of feedback though:
-I don’t think the Category A/B/C etc. system is necessary or helpful. Those categories are just filtering by multiple other categories—so instead of “Category A”, you can just filter by “Whistleblower, Classified, no prison”. which are other existing, hopefully filterable categories. If you had a website with a nice UI down the road, you might make them quick buttons for popular filters which might more or less match your categories, but it doesn’t need to be a separate field of its own in the data.
-I would add a field for “Synopsis” with just a 1 or 2-sentence blurb about what the whistleblower is known for. Example for Edward Snowden: “NSA whistleblower, leaked documents to the press pertaining to illegal government surveillance, currently in asylum in Russia”.
-Current Status field. If I’m reading it correctly it looks like your “Imprisoned” field is just for whether or not the person has ever been imprisoned, not whether or not they’re in jail right now. I would separate that out into multiple fields, for legal status and current physical status. Legal status could be things like “Wanted”, “Convicted”, “Pardoned”, and “Clear”, current status could be “Free”, “Fugitive”, “Incarcerated”, “Exile/Asylum” etc.
-More links to published works—maybe a separate field for works from the press, and their own works? I can see you’re already starting on that. In particular I know Daniel Ellsberg released a couple books, I have read one of them, about his experiences with game theory and nuclear deterrence at the RAND corporation instead of the Pentagon Papers, but it’s related to whistleblowing and I think it deserves a link.
-Links to organizations related to whistleblowing and whistleblower protections. The ACLU to start, I’m sure there are others. Maybe even reach out to those organizations directly and see if they’re interested in sponsoring the project?
Thank you for the detailed reply!
I think someone hosting this in the US has a high probability of being sued regardless of first amendment protections. I would prefer discussing legal risks only in private with someone who is actually interested in hosting.
I made up the category names to point out specifically that leaking classified documents, as opposed to just a summary in your own words, makes a large difference for your probability of being imprisoned.
The additional info you would like to me to add in the UI to make it more presentable makes sense!
I’m right now thinking of moving on to another project, but I could get back to this in future, especially if this project gets more funding or an institutional home.
Update: After 2 seconds of Googling I realized what I’m talking about is literally just a Wiki and I’m trying to reinvent it. MediaWiki which powers Wikipedia is open source and would be a perfect fit for this project I think. Besides, “The Whistleblower Wiki” has a nice ring to it.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki