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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  • The Long History of Long Covid

    Writing for Truthout, Jesse Hagopian, a longtime educator with long Covid, details how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has harmed Americans with long Covid by shutting down the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice, gutting funding, and derailing trials and studies. Hagopian did extensive research to “situate this moment of disability caused by Covid, contextualized…

  • MIT, Palestinian Grandmother Among Targets of “Lawfare” Regarding Israel

    “There are differences, but the MIT case involves many of the same concepts as Ali’s case. In both, the plaintiffs are trying to use the courts to weaponize the law to attack protected speech. They are trying to prohibit protests against Israel’s actions using civil rights law. They are using different statutes, but both rely on much the same type…

  • Rabbis Are Not a Monolith in New York City Mayoral Campaign

    An open letter from rabbis across the country recently called State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani a threat to the “safety and dignity of Jews in every city.” But rabbis––and New York City-based rabbis in particular––are not a monolith, and many openly support Mamdani and his campaign for mayor. 

  • “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream”

    Michelle Fawcett’s new documentary, “Occupy Wall Street: An American Dream,” examines how a populist upsurge swept the nation, put oligarchs on their back foot, and revived working-class politics. 

  • U.N.: Gaza “Proxy Occupation Force” or Protection Force?

    “The colonial powers that carved up Palestine for their European settler colony, granted the colony full impunity as it carried out its bloody 100-year project of ethnic cleansing, and then supported it in two years of open genocide, are now plotting to finish the job with a U.S. and Western directed proxy occupation force manned…

  • Challenging Israel’s Impunity

    Jereski states that “the U.S. government has worked to subvert international law and we need to bring an end to Israel’s impunity.” He notes that while the U.S. is trying to legitimize Israeli control of more of Gaza, the UN Uniting for Peace resolution of Sept. 18, 2024 “Demands that Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in…

  • The Washington Post vs. Social Spending

    Writing for FAIR, Conor Smyth argues that the Washington Post has erred in its recent coverage of European social spending. In an article this month titled “Europe’s High Quality of Life Is Getting Hard to Afford. Just Ask France,” the Post argues that Europe needs to embrace cuts. 

  • Record Israeli Attacks on West Bank: Palestinians “Need to be Protected”

    “On the first day of the olive harvest in Turmus’ayyer, the Israeli Defense Force leads a group of farmers directly into a brutal ambush by armed settlers. These people need to be in prison by tomorrow, and the people of this village, and all across Palestine, need to be protected. Enough is enough.”

  • “Shadow President” Larry Ellison: Targeting Media and Gaza

    Israeli media outlet N12 reports in Hebrew that Larry Ellison is ready to put $350 million into a plan backed by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, along with Palantir boss Peter Thiel, to turn Gaza into a haven for billionaires. See summary by The Canary. 

  • Flotilla Activists Abducted by Israel Demand Release of Mohammed Ibrahim

    “Here & Now” reports: “more than 10,000 Palestinians remain in Israeli custody, and most are held without charges. Among the imprisoned is 16-year-old American, Mohammed Ibrahim. His family has been tirelessly trying to secure his release since he was taken by Israeli soldiers eight months ago.”

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