What we cover
We follow power and money: who holds them, how they’re used and what the record shows about it. Our home turf is surveillance and technology: the contracts, procurement, laws, lobbying and companies behind the systems used to watch and sort people.
The name
A countersignature is a second signature on a document, added to confirm the first. That is the job we’ve given ourselves: to check what the powerful put on paper.
Our stories start from the documents themselves, such as filings, contracts, court records and official data. We publish those sources with every story, so you can check them too.
How our stories are made
Every story is researched and drafted with an AI assistant. A human editor of record then reports, fact-checks and edits it, and reads every source before it’s published. Each story says so at the top, in plain words, and names that editor.
The editor named on each story is responsible for it. AI tools don’t get bylines and don’t appear on any masthead. Our standards set out the rest.
Privacy
This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and makes no requests to other sites: its fonts, images and styles are all served from thecountersign.org. It is hosted on Cloudflare, which handles the requests that deliver these pages.
Get in touch
Write to hello@thecountersign.org. Our contact page has more, including what to do if you have sensitive information.