Brandon Smith is a builder of houses, researcher of fascism, and socialist policy writer. In the 2000s and 2010s, he spent more than a decade working as an investigative journalist in the accountability tradition. His retrieval and use of public documents broke stories on police brutality, surveillance of activists, public health and pollution, monopoly, and military spending, with work appearing in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, In These Times, and the Chicago Reader. Here’s a resume if you need. Smith is based in Lebanon, New Hampshire and nearby White River Junction, Vermont.

Smith’s work helped shed light on the real record of a leading neoliberal politician, Rahm Emanuel, while Emanuel was the mayor of Chicago. Emanuel is known to have met with healthcare executives and lobbyists shortly before advocating against a “public option” for healthcare in the Affordable Care Act. (No public option was included.)

Smith played a role in the Whitney Museum exhibition by documentary-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras, and was one of a half-dozen collaborators in creating the only (as of 2025) college-level curriculum on how to work with whistleblowers, by Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Brandon only discusses stories/possible stories via the app Signal, through which you can reach him at 740-505-0038. For stories with a possible nation-state adversary, if digital contact is necessary at all, create a plausible other reason for it. (And please read the page on blowing the whistle.) For non-story matters, email at hey -at- brandonsmith -dot- com.

ENCRYPTION AND WHISTLEBLOWER WORK Smith was one of the first English-language reporters to use digital encryption tools to communicate with whistleblowers. In this 2012 letter to Glenn Greenwald, Smith offers Greenwald assistance in setting up encryption. (Edward Snowden, pre-leak, also asked Greenwald that month to adopt encryption.) Later, Smith wrote about working with whistleblowers and encryption tools generally. Smith has taught source security to undergraduate and graduate students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

FOIA STRATEGY Smith has taught attorneys about the Freedom of Information Act for legal education credit in New York, Illinois, and Germany. He specializes in instructing FOIA responders on their burden under current caselaw before they make a poor finding and are forced to defend it. Smith’s wide-ranging FOIA requests to the Department of State and Department of Defense are poised to shed first light on massive programs.

REPORTING FOR SPECIALTY PUBLICATIONS While working at The Capitol Forum, Smith wrote for a niche audience of attorneys, regulators, and investors. His work moved markets dominated by large publicly-traded companies. The Intercept covered this newsroom’s work, which resulted in Congress’ calls to investigate and the opening of a Department of Defense IG investigation.

OTHERS’ COVERAGE OF SMITH’S WORK

New York Times and New York Times Magazine
ProPublica Podcast
The Intercept
Columbia Journalism Review

SELECT VENUES AT WHICH SMITH HAS SPOKEN

Investigative Reporters and Editors’ annual conference
Whitney Museum of American Art
Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism
University of Maryland
Chicago Headline Club FOIA Fest
ProPublica’s newsroom
Society of Professional Journalists regional workshops
Minnesota Coalition on Government Information
Ithaca College
Loyola University
Art Institute of Chicago
Bradley University

Smith is perhaps best known for investigating the case of Laquan McDonald. Laquan’s killer, a Chicago police officer, was charged with murder 405 days after the shooting, notably after Smith’s columns about the case and a successful freedom of information lawsuit to force the city to release the video. The officer was later convicted of second-degree murder.

Chicago’s top police officer was fired, as well as the top five detectives, and head of the police review authority. The state’s attorney lost her re-election bid after a massive campaign by activists. The U.S. Department of Justice shortly took up what it called its largest investigation of a city in American history. And on the eve of the officer’s murder trial, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced he would not seek a third term.

THE AUTHOR.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

“If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring.” – John Oliver