![](https://thefreethoughtproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pursuance-696x366.jpg)

<p>&nbsp;Digital rights activist and award-winning journalist Barrett Brown’s &nbsp;Pursuance Project is close to becoming a reality, as the Kickstarter &nbsp;crowdfunding campaign for the creation of this ambitious suite of &nbsp;interconnected digital tools, including virtual conference rooms, calls, &nbsp;video, text, project management — all protected by military-grade &nbsp;end-to-end&nbsp;<a href="https://tresorit.com/blog/zero-knowledge-encryption/">zero-knowledge</a> encryption – closes in on its goal needed to fund the project’s development costs.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Pursuance Project is a software platform that Brown designed to &nbsp;help journalists, researchers, and activists collaborate securely – &nbsp;without fear of government or private contractor surveillance. The &nbsp;software offers the same protection that&nbsp;<a href="https://securedrop.org/">SecureDrop</a>&nbsp;provides but extends that level of security to your team communications, emails, texts, video and more. Brown explained the extreme importance of this project, stating:&nbsp;</p>
<h2><em><strong>“No activist should have to entrust their life to Facebook. No one should have to choose between security and &nbsp;the ability to organize large numbers of people. No one should have to &nbsp;use platforms designed to waste your time in the course of trying to &nbsp;make their lives count. When Pursuance launches, things will be &nbsp;different.”</strong></em>&nbsp;</h2>
<p>For those unfamiliar with Brown’s history as a prolific digital activist, a bio by the Courage Foundation provides insight:&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>Barrett Brown is a US journalist and the founder of&nbsp;<a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/project-pm/">Project PM</a>, &nbsp;a crowd-sourced investigation into the cyber-industrial complex who was &nbsp;imprisoned for charges relating to the 2011 Stratfor hack. He was &nbsp;described as an unofficial spokesperson for Anonymous before he &nbsp;renounced his ties to the collective in 2011. He’s written two books, in &nbsp;addition to several articles about politics and journalism in the &nbsp;digital age. In 2012, the FBI raided his house, and later that year &nbsp;Barrett was indicted on 12 federal charges. The most controversial &nbsp;charge, linking to the hacked data, was dropped, but in 2015 Brown was &nbsp;still sentenced to 63 months in prison. Reporters Without Borders cited &nbsp;Barrett’s prosecution among its reasons for the United States dropping &nbsp;14 spots on its press freedom rankings in 2014… <em>Barrett was released from prison to a halfway house on 29 November 2016.</em></blockquote>
<p>Brown explains the goals of the Pursuance Project in the video below: &nbsp;</p>
<p>https://youtu.be/iLZ38_ou014</p>
<p>It’s clear that with ever-watchful eye of government surveillance, &nbsp;working in unison with social media giants, has created a landscape for &nbsp;mass surveillance that leaves those whose work requires anonymity at &nbsp;risk. The Pursuance Project says that they are “the world’s first &nbsp;platform specifically designed for process democracy.”&nbsp;</p>
<p>The importance of a platform from which individuals can collaborate &nbsp;and communicate in a secure digital environment cannot be overstated, as &nbsp;the current paradigm is that of a freedom suffocating mass surveillance &nbsp;society.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The Pursuance Project allows for groups and individuals to privately &nbsp;create, without fear of their worked being spied upon by outside actors. &nbsp;This project will allow for those engaged in human rights work, &nbsp;investigative journalism, whistleblowing, activism, etc. to operate in a &nbsp;private and secure environment, where governmental entities that view &nbsp;these activities as threats are kept out.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Please donate to this important project <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/85883596/barrett-browns-pursuance-project">here</a>.&nbsp;</p>