@Johanna_Wild and @obtusatum of the Bellingcat Investigative Tech Team discuss plans to collaborate with researchers and investigators to create new and exciting open source tools.
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This morning the home of Bellingcat partner Roman @Dobrokhotov was raided by Russian police, along with the home of his parents. Roman heads @the_ins_ru, which has partnered with Bellingcat on numerous investigations over the years. wired.com/story/roman-do…
This comes the week after Russian authorities added The Insider to a registry of "Foreign Agents". The Insider is one of many independent media organisations labelled this way as Russia cracks down on independent media ahead of upcoming elections. themoscowtimes.com/2021/07/23/rus…
Russian authorities claim today's raid was a response to a criminal complaint made on behalf of Dutch MH17 truther @maxvanderwerff by Russian lawyer Stalina Gurevich for defamation.
The Russian government has added @the_ins_ru to the registry of "foreign agents". This marks yet another instance of Russia cracking down on all independent media, especially those who have investigated the government's corruption and wrongdoing. theins.ru/news/243722
Since then, @the_ins_ru has worked to crack some of the biggest stories in independent investigative journalism across the world, mostly focused on the activities of Russia's security agencies. These stories have been done both with us and on their own.
This is an inaugural project by Investigative Commons, the new Berlin-based hub bringing together open source, legal and investigative experts to examine human rights issues. theguardian.com/law/2021/jun/2…
The new map can be seen below. It will be a useful resource for researchers and journalists covering Yemen’s humanitarian crisis, which has dragged on for over six years. yemen.forensic-architecture.org
@Newsy Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict is as complicated as it is brutal. A separatist-enforced boycott of schooling has seen classrooms shuttered. The aim, according to separatist leaders, is to force the Cameroonian government to the negotiating table.
@Newsy But as time has dragged on, enforcement of the boycott has become increasingly radical and the safety of students and teachers has deteriorated.
The report reveals that Leggeri personally handled the processing of a pushback which happened on 18-19 April, withholding information about it from the European Parliament and retrospectively classifying the incident in a way which bypassed Frontex’s fundamental rights officer.
According to internal emails, Leggeri instructed the fundamental rights officer to delete all information she had collected about the incident.
MEP @Tineke_Strik noted that “The action reveals that Leggeri does not hesitate to abuse his power to protect the Greek government”
Over the past year, Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team has begun creating its own open source research tools.
Now, the tech team is opening up to contributions from, and collaborations with, developers and open source investigators: bellingcat.com/resources/2021…
Open source investigations rely on the skills of human researchers. However, tools can help make the process significantly easier
Among the tools created by Bellingcat’s Investigative Tech Team so far are :
- A tool for finding Instagram "locations"
- An automatic video archiver for Google Sheets
- A Google Earth Engine application for finding small cloud-free subregions in cloudy satellite imagery.