The idea for Courage was spawned in 2013 when Sarah Harrison, then Investigations Editor at WikiLeaks, sat in the Moscow airport transit zone with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

WikiLeaks had stepped in to help Snowden when everyone else had said they wouldn't, or couldn't. Harrison and WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, along with other members of the WikiLeaks team, had been working tirelessly to ensure Snowden got to asylum and safety.

Whistleblowers were making international headlines. Amid Snowden’s groundbreaking revelations about rampant surveillance of the American people, Chelsea Manning was being court-martialed in Fort Meade for leaking Iraq and Afghan War Logs, “Collateral Murder,” GTMO docs, and the State Department cables to WikiLeaks. She was convicted under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud & Abuse Act and sentenced to an unprecedented 35 years in prison. It was clear that more whistleblowers and truthtellers were coming, and we needed to create support networks to be ready for the next one.

But Snowden wasn’t in the clear just yet. WikiLeaks helped him leave Hong Kong, where he’d had been working with journalists to reveal NSA mass spying programs. As Harrison and Snowden were on their way to Ecuador to secure his asylum, the U.S. government cancelled his passport, trapping him en route in Moscow. Unable to enter or leave the airport it became clear that now even more things would be needed than just safe passage and an asylum application. A bank account to collect donations, and international legal team, a global grassroots campaign.

Whilst support for Ed was high, so was the wrath of the U.S. government. And all the global NGOs, even those that supported him, felt unable to assist him. How to set up a bank account to withstand political pressure? How to mobilize tens of thousands of people collectively globally? How to create a campaign and information source to counter government propaganda with the truth about Ed's situation? And how to do this all securely, against powerful governments and their ubiquitous spying capabilities. But one organization had this expertise: WikiLeaks.

But WikiLeaks is a publisher. It supports whistleblowing, and works hard at source protection. But its focus is publishing material. However, clearly there was a need to be filled. And so Courage was born. Harrison, Assange and their dear friend, and Director of the CIJ in London, Gavin MacFadyen came up with a plan for an international organization that would support truthtellers. Specializing in those difficult, politicized cases that no one else can take on, Courage was formed to help truthtellers stay free/safe. Anyone persecuted for helping get information into the public domain, for the public good, whether whistleblower, hacker, journalist or film maker, Courage is a strong resource of information, guidance and practical help in legal and public defenses.

Helping collect donations, put together legal teams and strategies, mount international public campaigns and forward the cause of all truthtellers, Courage aims to be a one-stop-shop for all aspects of whistleblowing advocacy and truthteller protection.

Courage launched in 2014 with Harrison as Acting Director and Snowden as its first beneficiary. Since then Courage has grown, with an independent team and new board. Some have now gone on to different things, or sadly died, but many people have been involved in the journey to build Courage to a successful international organization. They include not only the founding board Julian Assange and Gavin MacFadyen, but John Pilger, Naomi Colvin, Renata Avila and Nathan Fuller, who joined the team at Courage's inception and eventually became Director.

Along the way we have helped whistleblowers, journalists, and truthtellers, both individually and systematically. We successfully prevented Lauri Love’s extradition, creating a Forum Bar that will help future UK citizens avoid the U.S.’s long reach. We led Assange Defense, the U.S. wing of the global campaign to free Julian Assange that ultimately saw his release after 5 years in jail and avoided U.S. extradition. We advocated for Jeremy Hammond, imprisoned for a decade for releasing files exposing corporate surveillance. We defended drone whistleblower Daniel Hale, finally released after nearly 3 years in confinement. We’ve spoken up for several more truthtellers and journalists along the way, like Reality Winner and Richard Medhurst. More recently, we’ve co-organized campaigns in defense of the targeted journalists of Palestine, covering the assault on Gaza.

It feels like a different world than when we began just over a decade ago. And we are proud to have been a part of that change. Encryption which we advocated for is now standard in newsrooms around the world, and many countries have whistleblower protection laws (though many need improvements). Bitcoin, which Courage was an instant adopter of, has exploded in popularity. Truthtellers have been in and out of jail, including a number of Courage beneficiaries, and our founder Assange who was arrested and faced 175 years in prison, is now free, with the U.S. government confirming WikiLeaks had never caused any harm.

We are very much looking forward to the next decade to come, and we will continue to work tirelessly to protect and defend truthtellers everywhere.

As Harrison wrote, when she arrived in Berlin after ensuring Snowden's safety:

"When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it. Courage is contagious."