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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  • Sanders, Bezos and the Washington Post

    “Bernie Sanders set off the latest round of outraged denial from elite media this week when he talked to a crowd in New Hampshire about the tax avoidance of Amazon (which did not pay any federal income tax last year). Sanders went on to say: ‘I wonder why the Washington Post — which is owned…

  • * Honduras * Hong Kong * Kashmir

    “Ahmad says India’s revocation of Kashmir’s autonomous status not only increases tensions between India and Pakistan, but is designed to lead into a situation where India encourages colonial settlement in the region and eventual annexation, along the lines of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.”

  • Epstein: Blackmail?

    “Other investigations have made it increasingly clear that Epstein was running a blackmail operation, as he had bugged the venues — whether at his New York mansion or Caribbean island getaway — with microphones and cameras to record the salacious interactions that transpired between his guests and the underage girls that Epstein exploited. Epstein appeared to have…

  • More FBI Powers: Won’t Be White Supremacists Bearing Brunt

    “A new domestic terrorism statute would allow the agency to investigate and prosecute far-right violence. But this approach is misguided — and dangerous.”

  • No First Use: “It Makes the World Safer”

    “Most Americans don’t want our nation to start a nuclear war; in fact, most Americans think we already have an official policy that we will never start a nuclear war. It’s time to make No First Use a reality.”

  • Emmy-Winning Actor Takes Pro-BDS Stand in Hollywood

    “Two of the creative executive producers of the new series, Avi Issacharoff and Lior Raz, are also the creator-producers of the Israeli Netflix series ‘Fauda,’ an action-adventure drama set in Israel and the Occupied Territories. I was aware that the show had been criticized for its portrayal of Palestinians and for its tendency to justify Israel’s human rights abuses.”

  • “If Guns Made People Safer U.S. Would be Safest Country”

    “The evidence is clear. If guns made a country safer, the U.S. would be the safest country in the industrialized world. But the opposite is true. Per capita, you are six times more likely to be murdered in the U.S. than in Australia, and 25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun.”

  • Anti-Nuclear Activists Facing 25 Years in Prison Urge Dismissal of Charges

    “A number of the activists’ supporters are planning to fast from August 6 through 9, the 74th anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.”

  • Petition Urges CNN to Add Progressive to Democratic Debate Panel

    “By refusing to broaden its Democratic debate panels to include progressive journalists whose views better reflect the Democratic Party’s base, CNN is reminding everyone of this history of favoring unapologetic rightists over unapologetic leftists.”

  • House Condemns Boycotts for Palestinian Rights

    “All but one of the representatives who voted against the resolution are Democrats. They included a mix of longtime proponents of Palestinian rights such as Minnesota’s Betty McCollum, Indiana’s André Carson and Barbara Lee of California.”

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