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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  • “Debt Shaming” Has Dampened Democracy

    “The single and most simple thing President Biden can do to help save the Democratic majority this midterm, while stimulating the economy, is cancel student debt; and he should do it without delay.”

  • Pandemic Poverty and Government Policies

    Inflation is hitting poor families hard, but pandemic economic policies that support families have largely run out. Research shows that the child tax credit helped millions get enough to eat, but it expired at the start of 2022. Shawn Fremstad says: “Today’s high inflation is being driven by excessively powerful corporations. Until recently, strong employment…

  • Albright’s Legacy and Ukraine War

    “Albright’s policies of expanding NATO, bombing Yugoslavia and falsely claiming that the bombing of the Chinese embassy there was not intentional helped set the stage for the extraordinarily dangerous situation now with Russia and China, despite recent claims from the Clintons. These policies may have actually helped lead to the rise of Vladimir Putin —…

  • * Mexico Voting to Nationalize Lithium * Pakistan’s Ousted PM Challenged Corporate Investment Agreements

    “The reasons for the former cricket star’s political downfall are not entirely clear. His economic policies were a mixed bag at best, but he deserves credit for one thing: he’d taken a bold stand against international investment agreements that give transnational corporations excessive power over national governments.”

  • Refuting Anti-Vaccine Disinformation on so-called “VAIDS”

    Online anti-vaccine influencers are claiming that Covid-19 vaccines cause “Vaccine-Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome”, or “VAIDS.” Dr. John Moore, who is widely known for his research on HIV/AIDS, says that “bringing AIDS into the existing web of deceit is a blatant attempt at fear-mongering.”

  • Mask Mandate on Public Transportation

    The Biden administration announced it will appeal the ruling that called the federal mask mandate on public transportation unlawful.

  • Earth Day: Military Degradation of the Environment

    Pat Elder, founder of MilitaryPoisons.org, said that on Earth Day, we should consider the U.S. military’s contribution to environmental and human destruction: “Let’s consider what causes cancers, immeasurable suffering, and early deaths for millions. And then we can talk about per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and how the military has known these are killer chemicals since…

  • Will Congress Stop the Worst Humanitarian Crisis, the Saudi Attack on Yemen?

    A just-published piece in Forbes, “Time to End the Forgotten War in Yemen,” states: “The scenes of carnage in Ukraine have sparked anger and concerted action against the Russian invasion of that country, now in its eighth week. But there is another conflict, now in its eighth year, that has resulted in the deaths of nearly half…

  • Pentagon Contractors Cashing in on the Ukraine Crisis

    [T]he tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.’ …

  • Future of Covid-19 Vaccine Patent Waivers Is in Doubt

    More than a year after the first Covid-19 vaccines went into use, only 15 percent of people in low-income countries have received a single dose of the vaccine, and no agreement has been reached on any proposal for intellectual property waivers for the vaccines. Tahir Amin, the cofounder of an organization attempting to reshape patent…

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