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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  • Why to be Wary of Fox News’ Reinvention of Exit Polling Tonight

    “The last time Fox decided to make a similar rush to judgment was in the 2000 Election, when — at 2:30 in the morning after Election Day — it projected George W. Bush the winner in Florida. This projection caused all the other networks to follow suit, only to rescind the projection two hours later.”

  • Bangladeshi Community in NYC

    “I’m following the Bangladeshi media as well and it’s important to see how this will play out there. There are certainly Islamic groups that support ISIS in Bangladesh, but the government there has used that as a pretext to clamp down on people they claim are part of the opposition.”

  • Bethlehem and the “Altar of Imperial Politics”

    “The Christmas story starts with an imperial decree signed by Caesar Augustus. As I was watching President Trump’s address yesterday evening on our TV, I could not help but think of the so-called Balfour Declaration signed 100 years ago when the British empire promised Palestine to the European Jews as their national homeland. Trump’s address…

  • Is the Democratic Party Anti-Democratic?

    “The DNC gave less than 48 hours notice — waiting until late in the day on Dec. 6 — to publicly disclose the times when the final meeting of the Unity Reform Commission would take place. Even then, although the DNC had stated that ‘the meeting is open to the public’ and required an online…

  • News Conference on Key Issues at Dec. 8-9 Final Meeting of Democratic Party’s “Unity Reform Commission”

    The report warns that allowing any remaining superdelegates “would still represent a barrier to a democratic Democratic National Convention.” The report concludes: “The superdelegate system, by its very nature, undermines the vital precept of one person, one vote. The voting power of all superdelegates must end.”

  • Will Democrats’ Unity Commission Abolish “Undemocratic” Superdelegates?

    “The system of superdelegates lends itself to manipulation of the nomination process. In the last primary presidential campaign, by mid-November 2015, fully 11 weeks before any state primary or caucus, Hillary Clinton had already gained a commitment of support from 50 percent of all superdelegates.”

  • Leading Russia Analyst in D.C.

    The “self-imposed blackout on news FROM Russia enables the proliferation in U.S. media of phony threats that serve domestic political games such as the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections while the existential threat from the modernized and highly potent Russian military, both conventional and nuclear is largely ignored, as are the confrontations…

  • * Jerusalem * Can the Palestinians Launch a “Legal Intifadah”?

    “Trump’s move is a symbolic but still critical step in Israeli designs to control not just Jerusalem, but all of historic Palestine. The Palestinian leadership needs to deal with this threat by all available legal means, including what I call a legal intifadah. The U.S. has prevented full Palestinian membership at the United Nations. ”

  • Why is Israelgate Being Downplayed?

    “There are no editorials or opinion pieces denouncing Israel’s ‘Plot Against America,’ or ‘War on America,’ or warnings that ‘Odds Are, Israel Owns Trump,’ or explorations of ‘What Israel Did to Control the American Mind.’ … In fact it is more than likely that going forward, the media will give Israelgate the same treatment as…

  • Is Flynn/Kushner Actually Israelgate?

    “Mr. Mueller’s investigators have learned through witnesses and documents that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel asked the Trump transition team to lobby other countries to help Israel, according to two people briefed on the inquiry. Investigators have learned that Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kushner took the lead in those efforts.”

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