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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  • Protesting Saudi Crimes

    “The last anyone has heard from prominent Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was October 2, when he walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to get some papers needed for his marriage. Turkish investigators have leaked what they believe happened: A 15-person hit team was sent from Saudi Arabia to Turkey to murder Khashoggi, who had been…

  • Roots of Kavanaugh’s Agenda

    “Hand-picked by the Federalist Society and backed by the Koch network, Kavanaugh is an emblem of the right-wing takeover of America outlined by historian Nancy MacLean in her 2017 book, Democracy in Chains. He is part of a movement, never stronger in America, to reorient the legal system away from the influence of ordinary citizens…

  • Is Brazil Slipping Back into Fascism?

    “The election results in Brazil show the risk of a discourse based on fear and manipulation, which benefited a candidate who is openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic, who defends torture and the return of the military dictatorship. Brazilian women have organized against him in the social media campaign #EleNão (#NotHim) that has attracted more than 4…

  • Why the Rush on Kavanaugh? Why the “Presumption of Confirmation”?

    Responding to pressure from Sen. Jeff Flake, a swing vote on Kavanaugh, the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee ordered a perfunctory FBI ‘investigation,’ which failed to interview several critical witnesses. Now Flake and Sen. Susan Collins, another swing vote, say the FBI report contains no corroboration of Dr. Blasey Ford’s claim. They are setting up political…

  • Kavanaugh Showcases “Persecution Complex”

    “Kavanaugh emerged from the hearing looking guiltier than ever, and his apparent history of sexual violence seemed to make the GOP Judiciary members embrace him more fervently. The motives underneath this empathy for Kavanaugh are frightening. In the days since the allegations first leaked, GOP men fell all over themselves to make male sexual violence…

  • Kavanaugh Coverups

    “In her prepared testimony, Christine Blasey Ford said that she was assaulted in the summer of 1982 at a house party attended by her friend Leland Ingham, as well as ‘Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P. J. Smyth and one other boy whose name I cannot recall.'”As the Washington Post article summarized: “During her testimony, Ford made…

  • Is Kavanaugh a War Criminal?

    “While there’s substantial attention being paid to the serious charges of sexual assault by Kavanaugh, there’s been very little note that he is a putative war criminal. Specifically, recently released documents show that while Kavanaugh worked for the George W. Bush administration, one of the people he attempted to put on the judiciary was John…

  • Who’s the Terrorist: Trump Praises Saudi Arabia, Demonizes Iran

    “In Trump’s speech, as is often the case from U.S. government pronouncements, the emphasis is on counter-terrorism with Saudis. Among other things, this ignores how U.S. and Saudi policies have enabled groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. We saw this same ‘us vs. them’ approach in the State Department ‘report on terrorism’ that was just…

  • Trump at the UN and the “P1”

    “The U.S. is in clear breach of an earlier SC resolution endorsing and implementing the Iran nuclear deal. Will other SC members remain silent…? Russia and China are likely to point out this discrepancy. Iran will be in the room and likely to speak.”

  • Suing Over Israeli Nuclear Coverup That’s Allowed $222 Billion in Funding

    “The New Yorker in June reported Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barak Obama and Donald Trump all issued letters at the beginning of their terms promising never to pressure the Israeli government into signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [NPT] or publicly discuss Israel’s nuclear weapons program.”

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