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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  • U.S.-China Trade Relations: Cooperation or Confrontation?

    “The widespread criticism of China’s economic policy focuses on its industrial policy, through which the state encourages technological upgrade by investment in science and technology and by directing financing to key industries of the future. It is claimed that this leads to unfair state promotion of its industries as well as the theft of American…

  • Corporations Are Profiting From Immigrant Detainees’ Labor

    She writes: “There’s reason to believe thousands of the roughly 35,000 people in immigrant detention are currently being coerced into labor. … “Within the past year, four lawsuits have been filed by seven people who say they were victims of trafficking at the hands of the nation’s two largest private detention center operators: CoreCivic and…

  • Israel Stops Palestinian Freedom Flotilla

    Newsweek reports Tuesday: “Boat Carrying Wounded Palestinians Breaks Gaza Blockade, Gets Towed to Israel.” AP reported late last week: “Israel’s supreme court rejects human rights group’s request to declare it unlawful for soldiers to shoot at unarmed civilians.” Abusaid, Tayeh and Bailey are with the group We Are Not Numbers. The group tweeted: “Update on the Al-Hurriyeh…

  • Poor People’s Campaign and Military Spending

    “The Pentagon says the war in Afghanistan will cost us $45 billion this year alone. If we didn’t spend that money on an unwinnable war thousands of miles away, what could we do with it instead? “For starters, we could hire 556,779 well-paid elementary school teachers in struggling states like Oklahoma, Kentucky and West Virginia,…

  • * Korea Policy: Disarm, Then Attack? * Saudi Bombing Yemen

    “As Yemeni civilians’ lives become increasingly desperate, they become increasingly isolated, their suffering made invisible by a near-total lack of Western media interest or attention. No commercial flights are allowed into the Sana’a airport, so media teams and human rights documentarians can’t enter the areas of Yemen most afflicted by airstrikes. The World Food Program…

  • Is U.S. Meddling in Venezuela?

    “Our delegation observed four different polling stations [Sunday]. All were compliant with CNE [National Electoral Council] specifications. Not all parties were present at every center as opposition parties failed to recruit and send enough witnesses to polls we observed. The day was slow compared to prior years I have observed. CNE reported 46 percent turnout…

  • Israeli and Gulf Collusion with Trump Team

    “Michael Flynn plead guilty to lying to the FBI about his efforts with Jared Kushner to torpedo a United Nations Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements. These included lobbying the Russian ambassador to help in this campaign by delaying or cancelling a vote on the matter.” 

  • 50 Years After Catonsville: “Resistance Needed to End Empire”

    “The best we can do is to encourage each other to muster the resistance needed to end empire. Nuclear weapons threaten us with omnicide, but that’s only part of it. Nuclear weapons kill every day by their mere existence — we see the billions of dollars it takes to build and maintain the Trident system…

  • Israel, Religious Bigotry and Liberation

    “On this day 70 years ago, Israel began its ethnic cleansing campaign against more than 400 Palestinian villages, displacing over 700,000 people. As the names of those murdered in Gaza yesterday by Israeli snipers continue to grow we, as Palestinian Christians, remember: ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (Exodus 20:13). Zionist forces engaged in at least two…

  • As U.S. Moves Embassy, Israel Massacres Palestinians

    Israeli attacks on nonviolent protests there have resulted in at least 37 Palestinians killed today. He adds that medical personnel are now reporting that Israel is using fragmentation ammunition, which breaks up on impact, resulting in gun wounds as large as fists. Israeli soldiers are “picking people off with sniper fire.” Kouddous also reports on…

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