News Items

  • Media Advisory: Whistleblowers to Speak About Surveillance and Cyber Issues

    “President Barack Obama is set to sign an executive order on Friday aimed at encouraging companies to share more information about cybersecurity threats with the government and each other, a response to attacks like that on Sony Entertainment. … Obama will sign the order at a day-long conference on cybersecurity at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

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  • Delegation of U.S. and UK Whistleblowers in London: News Conference on “Special Surveillance Relationship” — News Advisory

    Whistleblowers from four American and British “national security” agencies will hold a news conference in London on November 21 in a direct challenge to surveillance policies of the U.S. and UK governments. The whistleblowers — from the NSA, FBI, State Department and GCHQ — will speak about the effects of their governments’ policies on freedom of the press and democracy. They are traveling as a delegation co-sponsored by the U.S.-based organizations RootsAction.org and ExposeFacts, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The news conference is being hosted by the Foreign Press Association.

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  • In Response to the Government’s Lynching of James Risen

    It has been a sharp learning curve for Jim Risen, but by having numerous grand juries and two administrations relentlessly hounding him, he has learned how deeply the government’s malevolence descends. But there was always one steadfast assertion he wound not compromise, Jim Risen assured his sources, from the very start of their first encounter, that he would never divulge their identities nor what information they provided him with.

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  • Militarization of U.S. Police: Ferguson, Mo.

    Community policing reforms came about as a corrective to the 1950-60s professional police model which created a large gulf between police and citizens. Few noticed that underlying all the CP rhetoric was a little noticed yet foretelling trend of para-militarism as found in SWAT teams. What we’re witnessing today, though, with the influence of the Dept. of Homeland Security since 9/11 — along with growing emphasis on military hardware and tactics — is the expansion of police militarization throughout entire police departments — and indeed, the entire police institution.

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  • Unconstitutional acts of war in Iraq

    President Obama ignored the wise direction of President George Washington when he casually told the nation — and Congress — that U.S. military forces will engage in acts of war in Iraq for an extended period of weeks and maybe months. Bombing, he said in a brief statement last week, is needed here and there, but he promised there will be no U.S. boots on the ground. … The announcement seemed almost an afterthought as the president headed for vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. He neglected to seek approval of Congress before authorizing bombardment of the military forces of ISIS, the…

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  • News Conference: Edward Snowden’s Passport, Political Asylum and Related Issues

    Ray McGovern, Coleen Rowley and Norman Solomon spoke at this news conference, sponsored by RootsAction.org and hosted by the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • NSA Veterans and Whistleblowers Respond to Obama Speech

    Minutes after President Obama’s major address on NSA surveillance on Friday, Jan. 17, the Institute for Public Accuracy held a news conference with noted NSA veterans and whistleblowers.

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  • The War on Poverty at Fifty

    Fifty years after Lyndon B. Johnson made it the centerpiece of his first State of the Union address on January 8, 1964, the War on Poverty remains one of the most embattled—and least understood—of Great Society initiatives.

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  • Edward Snowden: Profile in Courage

    Edward Snowden may go down in history as one of this nation’s most important whistleblowers. He is certainly one of the bravest.

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  • Obama’s Economic Race Legacy

    From the start, President Barack Obama has shown little interest or loyalty in the issues that affect the poor, working class and people of color in the United States. For almost his entire first term he didn’t utter the words poor or poverty. Early on he reminded African Americans: ‘I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America…’

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  • Exclusive: Leaked ‘Board of Peace’ Resolution Outlines U.S.-Led Plan to Rule Over Gaza

    “No Palestinians were included on the Board of Peace, though Trump did give a spot to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains under war crimes indictment and is subject to an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. The board, which critics say is an attempt to circumvent any meaningful U.N. oversight or even to…

  • Trump’s Planned “Weaponization of Aid” for Gaza

    “The U.S. military-led group supporting ‘stabilization efforts’ in Gaza has put forward plans for a housing block for Palestinians in Gaza in an area under full Israel military control. According to materials circulated by the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) and obtained by Drop Site News, the ‘planned community,’ if developed, would contain and control its…

  • Funding for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Programs

    Last week, the funding for thousands of programs offering mental health and substance use services was halted when the Trump administration suddenly cut $1.9 billion in funding to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Approximately 2,800 grantee organizations were impacted. But the Trump administration quickly reversed course, reinstating the funding just a…

  • Israel Literally Bulldozes Relief Agency, Trump Expands “Board of Billionaires and War Criminals”

    Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, just condemned Israel bulldozing the headquarters of the relief group in Jerusalem as Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated: “A new level of open and deliberate defiance of international law, including of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, by the State of Israel.”

  • Why Was Controversial Hepatitis B Vaccine Trial Halted?

    A controversial U.S.-funded study on hepatitis B vaccination of newborns in Guinea-Bissau has been cancelled. The $1.6 million project, funded under Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., drew outrage over its withholding of vaccines proven to prevent disease from hepatitis B. Guinea-Bissau has a high burden of disease from hepatitis B.

  • Assessing Trump Administration’s New Food Pyramid

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently released a new food pyramid for dietary guidelines  and commissioned a report justifying those guidelines. The report was reviewed by several individuals with financial ties to food companies as well as beef and milk industries’ trade groups, according to The Lever. “The updated guidelines put…

  • RFK Jr. Adds Anti-Vaccine Members to CDC Committee

    Following up on his firing of all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) last year and replacing them with new anti-vaccine members, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed two more anti-vaccine committee members this week.

  • Israeli “Ceasefire” Kills 100 Children; Plans to Resume Full Onslaught

    The Times of Israel reports this week: “The IDF has drawn up plans to launch renewed intensive military operations in Gaza in March, with an offensive targeting Gaza City aimed at pushing the Yellow Line ceasefire demarcation west toward the coast of the enclave, further expanding the IDF’s control of the territory, an Israeli official and an Arab…

  • Trump’s Threats to Iran: What’s the Record of “Humanitarian Intervention”?

    “President Donald Trump is threatening military intervention against Iran, based on reports that the Iranian government has massacred thousands of innocent demonstrators. However, we should not forget that previous U.S. interventions have also been justified by reports of mass atrocities, which later proved greatly exaggerated or fabricated altogether.”

  • Israel and ICE

    “Silicon Valley firms supplied the software and computing infrastructure that enabled Trump’s policies. Companies like Babel and Palantir entered into contracts with ICE in 2015, becoming the bread and butter of ICE’s surveillance capacities by mining personal data from thousands of sources for government authorities, converting it into searchable databases, and mapping connections between individuals…

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