How a leaked USB stick became the Nauru files – a tale of brutality and despair told in 160,000 words. By Caitlin Cassidy and Marni Cordell, The Guardian

It was March 2016 and Paul Farrell, then a reporter at Guardian Australia, had agreed to meet an anonymous source.

He had been reporting on immigration for several years but still, when he was slipped a USB stick across the table and told, “I think it might be of interest to you,” he had no idea what to expect.

“I booted it up and what flashed on to the screen was most comprehensive archive I’d ever seen of what was happening at the Nauru [immigration detention] facility at the time,” he says.

How a leaked USB stick became the Nauru files – a tale of brutality and despair told in 160,000 words. By Caitlin Cassidy and Marni Cordell, The Guardian