The Bay Area chapter of the Association of Heath Care Journalists and Society of Professional Journalists Northern California come to KALW for a live panel discussion supporting the rights of journalists.
In one of the most high-profile recent cases, FBI agents raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on January 14, confiscating her electronic devices, which they said were tied to a classified documents case. Press freedom groups called the action “a tremendous intrusion,” by the Trump administration. In another recent case, former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested on January 29 while covering an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.
The number of assaults on journalists in the United States in 2025 “nearly equals the last three years combined,” according to an AP article. The Trump administration’s attacks on press freedom and journalists is constant. As recently as March 17, President Trump, in social media posts accused news outlets of “lies” that might warrant “charges of treason,” for their coverage of the war in Iran.
In this panel discussion participants will learn:
- What kinds of security and safety issues journalists are experiencing
- How to assess their own risk
- How to fortify the security of their electronic devices to better protect themselves and their sources
- How one newsroom has implemented safety protocols for their journalists, sources and devices
The panel organizer and moderator, Laurie Udesky, is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in many outlets, including Nature, The New York Times, KFF Health News, the Los Angeles Times, MindSite News, Inside Philanthropy, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and Salon, among others. She’s also reported for KQED and for NPR while she was a foreign correspondent in Turkey.
Panelist Bill Budington is a longtime activist, cryptography enthusiast, and a Senior Staff Technologist on EFF's Public Interest Technology team. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and cited by the U.S. Congress. He is the lead developer of Cover Your Tracks, apkeep, led HTTPS Everywhere from 2015 to 2018, and has contributed to projects like Let's Encrypt and SecureDrop. Bill's primary interest lies in dismantling systems of oppression, building up collaborative alternatives and, to borrow a phrase from Zapatismo, fighting for a 'world in which many worlds fit.'
Panelist Martin Shelton is the deputy director of digital security at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF). As a member of the digital security team, Martin leads research into the security needs and concerns of journalists, including studies into how journalists and media organizations confront harassment, as well as digital security education in J-schools. He also leads FPF's security editorial efforts, the digital security digest newsletter, and the U.S. J-school digital security curriculum. As a UX researcher, he previously worked with Google Chrome and the Coral Project at The New York Times, where he learned from journalists and at-risk groups about their security concerns.
