The Wau Holland Foundation promotes and supports moral courage in the digital realm. Donations for this project will be allocated to campaigns for hunted whistle-blowers, journalists and (political) hacktivists based on needs by the foundation board.
THe WHF cooperates with different help and support funds in this area (especially the Courage Foundation) to allow for a most efficient way to direct financial support to its receivers.
The Courage Foundation raises funds for the legal and public defence of individuals who show civil courage, risking life or liberty to make significant contributions to the historical record. Courage runs the official legal defense funds for Edward Snowden and Jeremy Hammond, as we will for others in the future who expose and document wrongdoing. We campaign for the protection of truthtellers and the public’s right to know, internationally.
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Former Projects
Julian Assange
Julian Assange is the founder and long-time editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. With its publications ranging from “Collateral Murder” to “Vault 7” WikiLeaks has contributed significantly to the fact that the public can inform itself about the secret machinations of military, secret services and governments first hand and unfiltered. Due to these publications, Julian Assange is persecuted by the American judiciary and is threatened by extradition to the USA and a trial there for his journalistic activities.
UPDATE: Julian was able to leave Belmarsh after signing a plea deal with the US. He has returned to Australia and is recovering from the last twelve years.
Barrett Brown
Barrett Brown is an American activist, author and freelance journalist. He is founder of “Project PM”, a distributed think-tank which analyzes leaked material about the inner workings of the cyber-military-industrial complex.
Brown was imprisoned on September, 12th 2012 because he allegedly published links to Stratfor material (that has been published by WikiLeaks under the name of “Global Intelligence Files”). In January 2015, Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison. He has since won major journalism awards, including a National Magazine Award, for his monthly column from prison in The Intercept. Barrett Brown was released from prison in 2017.
Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning is a former US Army intelligence analyst sentenced to 35 years in prison for providing the “Collateral Murder” video, the Afghan and Iraq war logs and classified US State Department diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, exposing war crimes, corruption and human rights abuses.
She was convicted on several counts of two abusive laws, the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Manning was held in solitary confinement for more than nine months in conditions condemned by the UN rapporteur on torture. Upon her sentencing, Manning (formerly Bradley) announced her decision to live as a woman, and has since fought and spoken out for transgender rights and equality. She was released from prison in 2017 on a decision from President Obama.
Jeremy Hammond
Jeremy Hammond, a former member of LulzSec, was sentenced to ten years in prison in November 2013 for allegedly leaking Stratfor files (that has been published by WikiLeaks under the name of “Global Intelligence files”).
Hammond was formerly prosecuted and sentenced because of his political activism during the Occupy movement and anti-fascist rallies - just like his brother.
Donations received under the keyword “Hammond” will be used for costs and expenses related to Jeremy Hammond; The WHF cooperates with the Courage Foundation in this matter.
Edward Snowden
Edward Snowden is a former National Security Agency contractor who blew the whistle on transnational mass surveillance by turning over tens of thousands of top-secret documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Barton Gellman.
These documents detail mass, indiscriminate spying of digital communications around the world, chiefly by the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ; collusion between governments and giant tech corporations; and the continuing erosion of privacy.
PayPal 14
Thousands of people world-wide participated in a non-violent digital sit-in against PayPal in December 2010, because PayPal shut down the on-line account of the Wau Holland Foundation for its support of WikiLeaks. Fourteen of these protesters were arbitrarily targeted and prosecuted in the US; they have to pay a restitution to PayPal or face up to 10 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.