How Whistleblowers Can Contact InsideClimate News

Want to share your story and documents with ICN's journalists? These steps will go a long way to protecting you.

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Credit: John Moore/Getty Images

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It’s simple: We need you.

Climate change imperils our communities, our country and our planet. But narratives that downplay climate risks and the absence of policies to curb emissions have slowed our response to this existential threat. Shedding light on how we got here will provide a profoundly useful public service.

Insiders from corporations, the government and private organizations are the best guides to understanding how action is stymied. Your voices dispel myths, ask urgent questions and offer critical insights. You help us keep officials, executives and institutions accountable.

We are aware of the risks people face in revealing information and internal documents to reporters. None of us know the level of surveillance that employers use with their staff. So you should assume that your employer is keeping tabs on you and all other employees.

If you want to share your story and your documents with InsideClimate News, these steps will go a long way to protecting you.

DONT’s

  1. Don’t use your work email, computer or nearby post office to contact us.

  2. Don’t contact us through social media.

  3. Don’t talk about what you’re doing with anyone else.

  4. Don’t contact us via a work-issued mobile phone. If you use your personal cell phone, consider installing an encryption app. Signal is most recommended. Try to avoid speaking to us on your home landline.  

DO’s

  1. Use U.S. mail to send documents. Don’t include a return address; if necessary, put one inside the envelope, not on the outside. Consider mailing it from one town over so the postmark doesn’t show your town. If you plan to communicate with us regularly, consider getting a P.O. box at that site. (Again, do not use a return address.) Our snail-mail address is below.

  2. Send paper documents, or digital media such as CDs and thumb drives. Please include an explanation of what you are sending and why it’s important for the public to see.

  3. To communicate with ICN via email, set up a new, anonymous account to be used only for our communications. Use a strong password. Don’t give your name or any other identifying information. Use an open wifi network you don’t frequent, like a coffee shop or a library, when setting up and using the account. (On a home wifi network, it’s easy to trace your location and identity via your IP address.) Ideally, use the anonymous Tor browser — instead of Chrome, Safari or Firefox.

  4. When communicating by email, we highly recommend using an encryption program like PGP. Our PGP handles are included in our profiles.

  5. If you want to speak to someone at ICN, also consider getting the Signal app on your smartphone. It encrypts voice calls and text messages.

  6. Consider buying a burner phone. Use cash.

      ADDRESS:

      InsideClimate News

       16 Court Street

       Suite 2307

       Brooklyn, NY 11241

About This Story

Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.

That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.

Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?

Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.

Thank you,

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