Blueprint for Free Speech
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Blueprint for Free Speech is an Australian non-governmental organisation working on whistleblower protection, and the body that brought John Kiriakou into the business of writing other countries' laws.

What it is

Asked how one would build an organisation to protect whistleblowers without it becoming captured, Kiriakou answered that such an organisation already exists. Blueprint for Free Speech is based in Australia and its board members are "mostly academics and some of them are transparency and privacy activists." He had worked with them for years.

The method

The organisation's product is legislation. "They've been able to write draft legislation, draft whistleblower protection legislation, and market it around the world." Beyond Greece, Kiriakou credits it with pushing such laws in Canada, Zambia, Jamaica and Ukraine. His assessment of the method is neither cynical nor triumphal: "it's hard work, and it's a very long and drawn-out process, but it actually works in the end, in most places that are serious about that kind of legislation."

Kiriakou's commission

"They hired me in 2015 to help the Greek government write a new whistleblower protection law." It was drafted in 2015, passed into law in 2018, and a version of it was then adopted by the European Parliament for implementation across the European Union, imperfect, he says, because it had to survive layers of amendment, rewriting and approval by many countries. The Greek statute is treated separately at the Greek whistleblower law.

Its founder

Kiriakou names the founder and director as Dr Suelette Dreyfus, "who was the co-founder of WikiLeaks with Julian" Assange, and says she is "definitely serious about transparency." The auto-caption renders the name "Salette"; the surname is unambiguous in the audio.

See also

- Kiriakou Greek whistleblower law
- Julian Assange
- Whistleblower Protection Act
- The Eu Whistleblower Directive
