Published on May 20, 2025 3:34 PM GMT
2025-05-20
WARNING
This guide is currently a research draft. DO NOT follow the guide as of today, if you are a whistleblower. I do not yet endorse following this guide as being sufficient to protect your safety. I am only sharing this to get research feedback. I will update you once I do think the guide is good enough.
Main
Why this guide?
- My personal motivation here is especially focussed on whistleblowers working at an AI company in the US hoping to build superintelligent AI. The guide may also be useful for others.Some of the whistleblower guides online are IMO blatantly against your true interests, and in the interests of journalists or lawyers. I wanted to write a guide that's in your true interests as a whistleblower.A lot of cybersecurity guides online fail to acknowledge that the way to escape the NSA with high success rate is not to improve your opsec, it's to flee the country. But the latter is less fun for them to geek out about. So I wanted to write about that.
Disclaimer
- Geopolitical disclaimer
- This guide is based entirely on publicly available information.This guide is based on the geopolitical situation as of 2025-05. Some parts of this guide will no longer apply if the US govt were to enter a war (not via proxy) with the govts of Russia, China, Ecuador or any of the other countries mentioned in this document.Case study: Manhattan project spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed. This guide assumes US citizen whistleblowers are unlikely to be executed, which is likely true during peacetime but may or may not be true during war.
- This should go without saying, but I don't have credentials or expert-level knowledge on cybersecurity or international law or psychology or any other subject. I have above-average knowledge on cybersecurity and below-average knowledge on all the other subjects.
- After reading this guide, you should also do your own independent research on any steps you're uncertain about.Also you should eventually involve someone else to give you personalised advice for your specific situation. For legal topics, a good lawyer will almost certainly give better advice than what's in this document (assuming you trust them to not prioritise their self-interest above yours).
I broadly categorise whistleblowers into three categories:
- corporate whistleblowers - possess incriminating information about a companypolitical whistleblowers - possess incriminating information about a political party or groupgovt whistleblowers - possess incriminating information about intelligence agencies, military, judiciary, etc
Who?
- This guide assumes you're a govt whistleblower living in the US with US citizenship.This guide assumes you're a software developer (above-average IT skills) and have >$100k in funds.My personal motivation here is especially focussed on whistleblowers working at an AI company in the US hoping to build superintelligent AI. The guide may also be useful for others.
Picking a strategy
As a whistleblower, you have a few available strategies:
leak summary, stay anonymous in the US
leak summary, become public in the US and
leak summary, become public outside of the US
leak summary, stay anonymous outside of the US
leak US classified information, stay anonymous in the US
leak US classified information, become public in the US
leak US classified information, become public outside of the US
leak US classified information, stay anonymous outside of the US
A summary would include broad overview of the situation as you see it, but not a lot of details or any classified documents or recordings.
As per my reading of all the past NSA whistleblower cases: 2 is slightly better than 1 3 4, 7 is far better than 5 6 and 8 is unlikely. Therefore this document is actually a guide for 7. (Leak US classified information, become public outside of the US)
2 is slightly better than 1, 3 and 4.
- In almost all cases of 2 and 3, people were fired, house raided, social circle investigated, and spent funds on legal case. In almost none of these cases, people spent time in prison.Being public is slightly better as you can then control the media narrative of your story.Maybe if you lack funds for a legal case or finding another job, then staying anonymous is an option. Consider not becoming a whistleblower if you don't have atleast 6 months savings.
- (I haven't researched this enough.)
7 is better than 5 and 6
- In almost all cases of 5 and 6, people spent atleast 3 years in prison. How good their opsec was did not matter, although some had much better opsec than others. IMO do not trust all the opsec guides on the internet that suggest otherwise.
- The sysamdmins working for the NSA leadership internally track who downloads a document from a central database. If you make a document public, the NSA now has a small list of suspects who have downloaded that particular document from their databases in the last few months.
- The only recent case of someone avoiding prison while leaking US classified information is Edward Snowden, who got asylum from Russia. Leaving the US geopolitical sphere of influence is by far your best bet if you look at historical data.
8 seems very unlikely
- If you've already obtained asylum in a foreign country, that govt is willing to protect you from the US govt. The main reasons I can think of to continue wanting to spend your life in anonymity from the US govt inspite this:
- possible illegal assassination by US
- this is a real threat, for instance Assange expressed concern that Snowden could be assassinated if he lived in asylum in a Latin American country
- this seems unusual and also not something I will currently be providing a guide for
- There is no public case in last 25 years of this situation happening.
Case studies
- List of people who may not have been imprisoned if they had attempted to fly out of their country on the same day they leaked the documents.
- (This is complete speculation on my part. Someone with more knowledge please correct me.)Chelsea Manning
- Chelsea Manning was living in US military base in Iraq. She talked to Adrian Lamo during time period 2010-05-21 to 2010-05-25, who tipped the NSA. She was arrested on 2010-05-27.Hypothetically, someone with more foresight could have waited till they had a valid flight ticket and a plausible excuse for it, smuggled an SD card on their person until then, and leaked the documents on the same day as the flight.
- Reality Winner was living in US. She sent leaked documents by email to the Intercept on 2017-05-09. The Intercept contacted the NSA for document verification (blunder on the Intercept's part) on 2017-05-30. She was arrested on 2017-06-03.Hypothetically, someone with more foresight could have gotten approved travel first and then leaked the documents on the same day they flew. Since they were not identified as the source, it is quite likely their travel outside the US would have been approved.
How to leak classified documents and leave the US
The more complex a plan you're following, the more planning is required. If you are willing to follow a more complex plan, you can ensure a slightly large window of time for yourself, from when you steal the documents to when you are deanonymised.
Objective: leak US classified documents, leave the US, reveal identity to public outside the US, neither you nor anyone in your circle gets imprisoned
Case studies of worst case outcome
- None of the recent NSA whistleblower cases faced the death penalty. Your worst case scenario that's not unrealistic is a prison sentence between 5 years and life imprisonment.Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed as Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project during the cold war. There is a possibility you may face death penalty if caught during wartime scenario. As mentioned already, this guide assumes a war is not ongoing.
Minimmum not-anonymous plan
Here's the minimum plan you should execute. The order of steps in this plan is deliberate.
- walk out of the building with classified documents or recordingsredact documents yourself (don't trust a journalist)send snail mail to >100 journalists a few hours before the flight
- (Minimum plan skips trying to encrypt or anonymise the messages, the good plan below does both.)
Consequences
- Above plan is easier to execute so I'm guessing there's a >80% probability you'll escape the US without being arrested.Depending on your skills my guess is there's a >50% probability your identity is made public within one month after you send the documents to journalists.
Good anonymous plan
Here'a a more advanced plan that might get you a few more months of anonymity. The order of steps in this plan is deliberate.
- walk out of the building with classified documents or recordingson airgapped computer:
- redact documents yourself (don't trust a journalist)encrypt the documents twice, first with your symmetric key and second with various journalists' pgp public keyscopy the encrypted documents to printed paper (or else USB)
Consequences
- Above plan requires you execute more steps correctly before you leave the US. Your probability of being caught and imprisoned before you leave the US increases.The benefit is you might remain anonymous for a few months maximum before the NSA identifies you, because they need more to time to narrow down the pool of all suspects who downloaded that specific document. Depending on your skills my guess is there's still a >20% chance your identity is made public within one month of you sending the documents to journalists.
Case studies
- Snowden did not execute either of these plans. He took the documents with him to Hong Kong on a (presumably encrypted) disk drive. He met journalists in-person.
- US border and airport security has increased in subsequent years and they're a lot more likely to confiscate your electronics or demand decryption keys. (Snowden leak may or may not have influenced this.) I currently do not recommend carrying encrypted SD cards with you on your flight leaving the US. I recommend leaving encrypted information back in the US and either carrying decryption keys on paper or memorising the decryption keys.I do not recommend trusting any journalists with your identity if you have the time and energy and skill to redact documents yourself. You can always involve journalists in the plan after your identity is public.
Social circle guide
Specific advice for you
- Spend time to take a clear decision on who is in-the-loop on your plan to whistleblow. See below for my recommendations.If you have sufficient funds, leave some funds behind for your family members in the US. They will need this for legal expenses, until you have revealed your identity and can direct more funding towards them.Read mental health resources as required. Do not contact a mental health practioner or friend or any other person for mental health reasons, as mentioned below.
Grand strategy - flow of information
- You have broadly 3 options if you want to inform anyone in your social circle in the US about your plan, before you have gotten permanent asylum in another country. This includes immediate family members such as your spouse or children.
- Don't inform anyone living in the US geopolitical sphere. Let them stay behind and get investigated.Inform someone living in the US geopolitical sphere. Let them stay behind and get investigated.Inform someone living in the US geopolitical sphere. Ask them to fly with you and apply for asylum together.
Whether to execute 1
- If you only want to maximise success probability of whistleblowing while ensuring you and your social circle avoids being imprisoned, I would strongly recommend executing 1.Important: There is a possibility you will lose people including immediate family members who will not be ready to continue the relationship when they understand the decisions and risks you've taken. This is a risk you must be ready to accept if you go ahead with this plan.
Whether to execute 2
- If you feel you have an inflexible moral obligation to inform someone in your social circle about your plan, I currently strongly recommend 3 over 2.If you execute 2, there is a significant likelihood that they will be imprisoned as an accessory to your crime, for not reporting you immediately.There is a low likelihood they will be able to successfully deny that they were informed, if they were in fact informed.
Whether to execute 3
- Executing 3 also reduces your success probability significantly, compared to executing 1.This person will also need to learn considerable opsec skills just like you.They will need to psychologically adjust to complete social isolation and constant fear of imprisonment, just like you. A single word spoken by them to wrong person can lead to both of you being imprisoned.Since you are the person who took the initial decision to whistleblow, it is possible you are psychologically more ready for these adjustments than they are.You likely have a good understanding of the psychological makeup of the person you are considering involving in your plan.However, you are also an emotionally biased judge of how much your success probability drops by involving them in the plan. You might want to do your own research and attempt writing down an actual number for how much you estimate your success probability to drop if you involve them. My naive guess is success probability will drop by atleast 40% for a majority of people, if they were to involve their spouse in their plan.
Case studies
- There is no recent example of someone doing 2 or 3 successfully. Snowden is the only recent example of doing 1 successfully.
I would strongly recommend distancing from your social circle over a period of multiple months, and not informing them about your plan. It is important not to raise any suspicion, as doing so could lead to you and them being imprisoned.
Apart from your lawyer, I do not recommend keeping anyone in-the-loop by default until you have obtained asylum.
- I do not recommend contacting a lawyer until you have the left the US geopolitical sphere. This document and similar resources already contain most of the generic advice you require. It is unlikely they will have a lot of situation-specific advice you cannot get otherwise. Hence it may not be worth risking informing them.Once you have left the US geopolitical sphere, you can contact your lawyer.Your lawyer may be able to provide better advice on what information is appropriate to share with other people in your circle including your family members.
Psychiatrists, extended family, work colleagues, journalists and so on will be part of the people investigated. I do not recommend informing any of these people.
Until your identity is safe to publicly reveal (and likely even after that), you cannot support anyone in your social circle living in the US sphere in any way. It could take many months before you can support them.
- You (and any orgs supporting you) will not be able to financially support their legal expenses.You will not be able to inform them of any of the upcoming consequences in their life, or inform them of any strategy to protect themselves.You will not be able to emotionally support them.
Consequences for social circle living in the US geopolitical sphere (who are not informed about your plan)
- When I say social circle this includes but is not limited to immediate family, extended family, neighbours, work colleagues, etc. Immediate family members are likely to face more severe consequences.Consequences
- Your immediate family members living in the US geopolitical sphere are likely to be interrogated, wiretapped and have their houses raided.They are likely to be intimidated and followed.They are likely to be cut off by members of their social circles who would like to avoid being caught in the investigation.They are likely to receive hate mail.They will almost certainly will not be imprisoned in the US. The investigation will almost certainly successfully prove their innocence at the end.
- Almost every single US govt whistleblower leaking classified documents has family members who faced every single one of the above listed consequences.I have not yet found a case of a US govt whistleblower leaking classified documents whose family member (or other person in social circle) went to prison if they were not informed about the plan to whistleblow.
Family visits
- Exact details here depend on the country you go to. Ask your lawyer for advice.If you go to prison in US/Europe, you will likely be allowed family visits in prison.If you get asylum in Russia, your family will likely be allowed to leave US and enter Russia.
- Once in Russia, their safe stay and potential return will depend on decisions of the Russian govt.
- Snowden's wife (then girlfriend) was allowed to leave the US 13 months after he left. As of 2025, Snowden's wife lives with him in Russia along with their son (born in Russia).I could not find any documented case of family members or friends being indefinitely held in the US and prevented from travel out of the US.Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner and Julian Assange were allowed in-person family visits in prison in US and UK respectively.See the whistleblower database document for more detailed case studies.
Mental health
- I do not recommend informing a mental health practitioner, spiritual/religious mentor or friend about your plan for mental health reasons.
- They will likely be investigated using illegal tactics, and will not be able to protect your information.Any such existing person in your life should be slowly distanced from, as mentioned above.Case study: Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office was broken into, as part of a (failed) strategy to prove him mentally unstable in court.
Mental health resources
- Secret life of secrets by Michael Slepian
- Consider whether you believe you are morally correct or incorrect in keeping this secret.Consider whether your actions in the long term (not short term) benefit or harm people you care about.
Pre-planning security guide
Even before you actually start planning, you should consider setting up a relatively secure machine to do research and planning.
- You may or may not yet have made up your mind on whether to whistleblow or not.Setting up a secure machine running tails does not by itself incriminate you. You are allowed to change your mind afterwards and decide not to whistleblow.
- As of 2025, I have not been able to find any case with public evidence of a person becoming a person of interest due to search results alone. Usually search results are used to investigate only after you are already a person of interest.Increase in NSA surveillance activity and AI capabilities could change this in future however. It is, in theory, possible that are you already a person of interest for having read my guide on clearnet.I'm unsure about giving concrete advice on this point.
How to setup secure machine for planning and research
Purchase a new windows/linux machine.
- Physically disconnect the wires to the mic, camera, wireless adapter. Open the case and use a plier.Only connect ethernet cable to router. No wireless signal.
Purchase a USB drive and install tails on it.
Reserve a separate room in your house where this machine is kept.
No mobile phone or other device allowed in this room.
- Even better, physically dismantle and destroy your phone, if you can manage to still keep your job and manage your life without a phone.
No other person allowed in this room.
Important: Resist the urge to search whistleblower related info on your other devices or on home or corporate network in clearnet.
"Walk out of the building" guide
Do not raise any complaints whatsoever via internal channels.
- This is possibly the single biggest blunder made by all the historical NSA whistleblowers.This guarantees you'll be on a suspect list even before leaving the US. Your networks may be monitored by a person. You may be followed. You may be prevented from travelling. You may be (unofficially) interrogated.This almost guarantees you'll be doxxed within the first month of leaving the US
- The intersection of people who downloaded a specific document and people who raised complaints via internal channels uniquely points at you.
- Thomas Drake raised complaints via internal channels and this may have shortened the time interval to him being doxxed. Complaints via internal channels did not have major impact on NSA afaik.Thomas Tamm raised complaints via internal channels and this may have shorted the time interval to him becoming a person of internet, with his house raided and communications tapped. Complaints did not have major impact on NSA afaik.John Crane sued claiming internal channels of NSA are being used to hunt down whistleblowers. Fired as a result. Complaints and legal cases did not have major impact on NSA afaik.Russ Tice claims NSA uses internal channels to hunt down whistleblowers.William Binney raised complaints via internal channels and publicly. Complaints did not have major impact on NSA afaik.James Robertson, a judge on the US FISA court post-9/11 made complaints via internal channels, and resigned. Complaints did not have major impact on NSA or the FISA court system afaik.
Select which documents to release.
- More documents means more work.
- More manual work to redact them, including higher probability of human error.Might become less feasible to print on paper, mandating disk storage.If there's a large amount of video data, any copying or file processing you wish to do could take multiple hours.
- If you are willing to undertake personal risks involved in redacting and transferring a larger dataset, prefer releasing a larger dataset over a smaller one.
Plausible deniability
- Increasing size of initial pool of suspects could give you more lead time before your identity is found out by the NSA.Make sure to access a large number of documents from the database, not just the ones you will be publishing.Make sure no camera or person is watching you while you access the documents or copy them
Hardware
- A standard SD card will do, as it is easy to smuggle. A USB drive or hard disk drive will also do.If you are releasing a lot of video content you may need to purchase multiple disks. As of 2025, it is not common to get disks larger than 12 TB. Prefer purchasing a disk with high throughput like 1 GB/s instead of 100 MB/s.As always, make sure to have a plausible alternate reason for any hardware purchases you make under real name or credit card.
Video recording guide
You can consider hiding a camera and mic on you to record important interactions you see. This could include leadership admitting to any actions or values they would not admit publicly.
Should you make recordings yourself?
- I strongly recommend you only make recordings yourself if there is no existing documented evidence that would be straightforward to obtain. In most situations, there will exist documented evidence that is available to atleast a few people.Cons
- Remember that you do not have a second person to help you, and you do not have prior experience with undercover work.Attempting to make recordings noticeably reduces the success probability of leaking information without being imprisoned.
- Video recordings of the leadership making unpopular decisions might be more influential in subsequent politics than leaked documents of the leadership making the same decisions. Average citizen has limited attention span and hence prefers video over text.
Video recording guide
- Prepare to be doxxed
- Audio and video are harder to redact. If you are making recordings you should be aware of this.You may or may not be a participant in the conversations being recorded. If you are a participant in the conversation, you may be doxxed soon after the recordings are released publicly.
- It may take multiple months of effort before you obtain access to such people and discussions. Every additional month of time taken decreases the success probability of the plan, as there is more potential to make a mistake.Until you have made the recordings, there is some probability you will avoid being imprisoned even if caught. (I don't have legal background to comment on the exact boundary here.) You can spend a fair amount of time preparing to make the recording, before actually making it.You may find it difficult to mentally adjust to your new role, your motivation levels may reduce and your work performance may be affected. All this is detectable by people working with you.You will likely need to take a significant amount of self-initiative to get access to people.It is best to continue playing your old role at the company, and invent plausible reasons why a person in your role would need access to the leadership or to a specific meeting. For instance you may want to volunteer for additional responsibilities or attempt getting promoted.Don't carry recording hardware with you while you're still in the process of increasing your access.Don't possess any incriminating evidence on you while you're still in the process of increasing your access. Assume you can be caught and interrogated at any moment.
- Warning: Your building may contain scanners, including metal detectors, X-ray scanners, millimetre-wave scanners and infrared scanners.
- Security may be able to detect equipment you carry even while switched off.Assume the security team has read this guide and installed scanners in all buildings, unless you have evidence otherwise.
- You should have a plausible excuse for why the hardware is on you, if interrogated by security. You should have a plausible excuse for why you purchased it, as all purchases are recorded and can be questioned.It might therefore be better to use a regular phone or mic to do the recording, instead of specialised "spy" hardware.
- Spy hardware typically is designed to be hidden (in your shirt, in the wall etc) with an almost invisible opening.Spy hardware may also have pickup and sensitivity higher than regular use.
- Distance of mic from the speaker is by far the most important variable to ensure good pickup.Mics are best carried on person to ensure better pickup. Place them at 30 degree angle or pointed at other person's mouth to maximise pickup.Mics may have digital or analog filters to remove low-decibal noises, make sure those are not present or disabled.Mics may accumulate lint or dust, clean as required.Ensure less ambient noise in the area.Parabolic mics are designed for surveillnce and can pickup at >1 metre distance.Laying blankets or padding behind the talker can help, for recordings taken at >1 metre distance.
- Room lighting is the most important variable for good quality video.Ensure sufficient ambient lighting in the recording. Ensure there's no window creating glare.Assuming good lighting, most camera models perform well. Pick any camera with good resolution.Cameras may also accumulate dust or lens scratches, clean as required.Cameras can be carried on person or placed in the room.Camera placement is important. Minimise blind spots in the room not captured by the camera.
- Attempt multiple test runs of your recording equipment by secretly recording lower-stakes conversations.
Resources
- The Sting Book (1994) by Steven Frazier
- (Don't purchase a hard copy using your real address or credit card. Get a soft copy using your tails setup)Many sections of the book is irrelevant, some sections are outdated, but some sections are useful.Informed by real empirical data but in a different context.
Redaction guide
Time investment
- If you can do the redactions yourself within 1 month, I would strongly recommend doing it yourself instead of trusting a journalist to do it. (Exceptions exist.)
Generic information
- You need to do redaction (removal of private information) and metadata removal. Always do metadata removal first, redaction second.Metadata
- Almost every file format leaks some other the other metadata. Could be docx, jpeg, pdf, html, whatever.Possible metadata in input files
- Useful metadata - for users of the application, but may end up doxxing youJunk metadata - that no one notices or uses, but may end up doxxing youSteganographic - deliberately inserted by organisation to doxx whistleblowers like you
- There may be information in the documents that is incriminating either to you or to third-parties. You might prefer to remove this information for either moral or strategic reasons.
Text
- Suggested programs: vim, nano, emacs
- Also likely safe: Gedit (linux default), Notepad (windows default), TextEdit (mac default), Sublime Text
- Output format should be plaintext.Use ASCII not UTF-8.
- If you suspect your file contains steganographic metadata, consider not submitting the file, and rewriting its contents in your words. If not, continue.Remove all non-printable characters.
- Replace with
[REDACTED]Don't use different placeholders for different types of information. Use same placeholder across all content.Use common sense when redacting documents. Redacted content is sometimes easy to guess based on surrounding content.- Generate hexdump and verify no extra characters present. All chars must be within accepted byte range.
Images
- Suggested programs: GIMP, hexdump, Tails metadata cleanerStep 0: File format conversion
- Output format should be bitmap (.BMP), with low resolution.GIMP supports converting many image formats to BMP.
poppler-utils on linux can convert pdf to image, which can then be converted to BMP.Linux screenshots are a sufficiently safe way to convert any file to image, which can then be converted to BMP.- If you suspect your file contains steganographic metadata, consider not submitting the file, and rewriting its contents in your words. If not, continue.Remove any image metadata such as EXIF/XMP data. (EXIF can include location data, which is important to remove.)Image resolution
- Camera lenses may have scratches that uniquely identify the camera used. These are hard-to-detect with naked eye in an image, but can be seen using graphics processing tools. Lowering resolution helps prevent this analysis.Lower resolution down a minimum resolution that ensures documents are still readable.Keep this minimum resolution constant across all your images.
- Guide to making black boxes
- Use GIMP to make black boxes.Use black fill with opacity 100%.Click Image -> Flatten layers. (This is optional, layers get flattened by default if you use .BMP as save format)Save as .BMP. Uncheck saving EXIF/XMP data.
- .BMP format includes a 54-byte header followed by RGB values, with no compression, no encoding and no metadata.Generate hexdump and check that bytecount matches expected bytecount based on header size and number of pixels.
Audio
- As of 2025-05, my recommendation is to not do audio redaction unless you have previous expertise. I will update the guide once I have more experience with audio redaction.Your audio files may also require mixing and editing to improve quality. Trust that someone else will do it once the files are released publicly.If you are submitting audio
- Use tails metadata cleaner.Accept that there is increased risk of the file containing information about both - the people recorded in the audio, and any devices and people that transmitted the file including you.Methods can depend on encoding method used. You may want to delete entire frames or delete / voice-change voices within some frames.
Video
- As of 2025-05, my recommendation is to not do video redaction unless you have previous expertise. I will update the guide once I have more experience with video redaction.Your video files may require editing to improve quality. Trust that someone else will do it once the files are released publicly.If you are submitting video
- Use tails metadata cleaner.Accept that there is increased risk of the file containing information about both - the people recorded in the video, and any devices and people that transmitted the file including you.Methods can depend on encoding method used. For visual, you may want to delete entire frames or black fill polygonal regions within some frames. For audio, see above.
- Extract a few important frames as .BMP. Then follow the image guide above.Programs: ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i video.VOB -vsync 0 -ss 01:30 -to 01:40 %06d.bmpAirgap and encryption guide
To do for self
- Write this
Anonymous dead drop guide
To do for self
- Write this
House cleaning guide
To do for self
- Write this
List of recommended countries
Travel paths
My naive guess is your best bet is going to the Ecuador embassy in Moscow, Russia and requesting asylum in-person, not anonymously. You are likely to be imprisoned only if both Ecuador govt and Russian govt reject your requests.
My naive guess is that contacting consuls requesting asylum before reaching foreign soil is a bad idea. You should first fly out, before contacting your lawyer and making asylum requests.
If you are flying from US to Russia, my naive guess is it makes more sense to fly to a third country that has flights from both Russia and US. This will raise less suspicion when you apply for visa or book tickets. This is especially important if you hold a security clearance. Once you are in the third country, you can book the second ticket.
Ask your lawyer for advice, after you have landed in Russia.
(It is possible to ask for more information from a lawyer before you leave the US. There is a low probability your lawyer will get you imprisoned. There's also a low probability they offer you useful personalised information which you cannot otherwise obtain from guides such as this one. Ideally someone who is not affiliated with you, such as me, should be getting this information and publishing it publicly in a guide.)
Case study: Snowden was approved for asylum in Russia, after being rejected by 20+ countries including countries in Latin America, countries in Europe, India and China. Later he was granted Russian citizenship.
Case study: Assange was approved for asylum in Ecuador embassy in UK. His room was bugged by cameras and eventually Ecuador govt revoked their approval, letting UK govt arrest him.
Along with the leaked documents, you can request govts to unilaterally promise asylum to the whistleblower without knowing the identity of the whistleblower.
- You can also include a pgp public key in your leaked documents. This allows a government to start an encrypted conversation with your lawyer without knowing the identity of either you or your lawyer.My guess is there's <20% probability this will work. My guess is all countries have a strong enough negotiating position to demand you reveal your identity and reach their soil, before they take a decision on your asylum application.No govt in the world cares to keep you alive on humanitarian grounds but they may do it if it helps strengthen their reputation as a country that can defy the US.
Funding guide
You need funding for the following:
- Secure computers, while in the USLegal expensesLiving in foreign country while you apply for asylumLiving in foreign country after you have asylum, but not an alternate jobEmergency funds, such as funds for emergency flights, purchasing new computers
Legal expenses are by far your biggest expense, as per case studies.
Being cut off from your own funds is a potential risk.
- Soon after the first meeting with your lawyer outside the US, they should help you contact organisations that can fund expenses on your behalf.
- It is ideal if someone else is making the payments on your behalf, as your cash on hand can be seized and accounts can be frozen. This is high probability.Case study: Assange paid for Snowden's stay in Hong Kong and onward flight tickets.Case study: Assange received payments via cryptocurrency after all bank accounts were frozen.
Cryptocurrency
- Having an organisation willing to send you funds is better than managing your own funds. Once you have left the US, there should ideally be atleast one such organisation willing to support you and bring cash to you in-person as required.Using cryptocurrency or cash by yourself is only a worst case option if you and your lawyer are unable to find an organisation willing to fund you.
- If you have never purchased cryptocurrency before, I would strongly recommend not learning to do it now.
- Having cryptocurrency with you instead of cash will only help you in a small number of scenarios. It is not worth significantly increasing the risk of being caught, and if you have not done this before, your risk of being caught before leaving the US goes up significantly.
List of recommended lawyers
To do for self
- write this section
List of funding sources
To do for self
- write this section
List of high-attention media operators (such as journalists and youtubers)
To do for self
- write this section
As mentioned multiple times in the document, prefer making a plan that does not involve trusting any journalists.
List of somewhat trustworthy high-attention media operators (with securedrop/signal/email IDs)
- ?
Exhaustive list of high-attention media operators (with securedrop/signal/email IDs)
- ?
Discuss
