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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  • Israel Still Occupies Most of Gaza; Still Holds Thousands without Charge

    Nesrine Malik writes in the Guardian: “Devastation’s perpetrators disqualified themselves long ago from any mandate over the people they have aided in killing and shattering. … The crimes that have been committed cannot be redressed, or even prevented from recurring, if the conditions that enabled their perpetrators continue.”

  • Trump at Knesset Credits Big Funder Adelson for Shifting Policy

    “I actually asked [Miriam Adelson], I’m going to get her in trouble with this, but I actually asked her once. I said, ‘So Miriam, I know you love Israel, what do you love more, the United States or Israel?’ She refused to answer. That means, that might mean Israel.”

  • Public Health Association Bars Leader After Peaceful Protest for Gaza Ceasefire

    The American Public Health Association (APHA) has barred public health leader Amy Hagopian from APHA meetings and removed her from her elected position after she engaged in a silent, peaceful protest against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in 2024. The protest occurred at APHA’s annual meeting, after the organization’s governing council declined to consider a…

  • Using “Counterterrorism” Policy Against the Left

    Chip Gibbons writes that in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing, the Trump administration has seized the opportunity to attack the left through reinvigorated “counterterrorism” policy. 

  • Nobel Committee Pushes to Target Venezuela

    Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday morning.  DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson    Swanson is executive director of World Beyond War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.     He just wrote the piece “Nobel Committee Tried Its Best to Give Trump a Peace Prize,” which states: Trump is not the right type of warmonger. Nobody could do it with…

  • Israeli-Palestinian Agreement

    “While it is likely to save numerous lives, at least for the time being, and should be welcomed for that reason alone, it is hardly a peace agreement nor one that lays the basis for attaining Palestinian rights.”

  • Palestinian Prisoners, Propaganda Stressed by Gaza Flotilla Members

    * It’s up to the people of the world “to shut down this war machine.” He cited the general strikes in Italy and moves to use Uniting for Peace: “We have to use every tool that we have.” 

  • Taxpayers File Legal Charges Over Gaza Genocide Against U.S. Government

    “The groups assert that the United States government — through the actions of both the Biden and Trump administrations, as well as Congress — has been “complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and has violated its binding obligations under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. This is the only…

  • Working-Class Voters on “Key Issues”

    A new study from the Center for Working-Class Politics and Jacobin analyzed three comprehensive surveys in U.S. political science, revealing where “working-class voters stand on key issues.” The study found that “the message is clear: economic populism must be the core of progressive appeals to workers.” The data spans from 1960 to 2022, tracking long-term…

  • Israel’s Slaughter Continues

    On Friday, Trump called for Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza” and on Saturday said he appreciated “Israel has temporarily stopped the bombing.” Mosab Abu Toha noted then: “President Trump just claimed that Israel has temporarily stopped bombing Gaza. No, Mr. Trump. They haven’t. Please, take a few minutes to check reliable news sources, not just the information…

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