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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  • Calls to Remove Head of DNC, Debbie Wasserman Schultz

    “In addition to her recent attempt to deny the Bernie Sanders campaign access to its own voter files, Wasserman Schultz has tried in other ways to minimize competition for her candidate, Hillary Clinton. She has done this by scheduling very few primary debates, and scheduling them at times of low TV viewing.”

  • Saudi Executions, Weapons and Influence

    “The execution sends a clear message that the Saudi regime does not care for Islamic and international public opinion and for hundreds of millions of Sheikh Nimr’s lovers who would be hurt by his execution. … Al Saud [the Saudi royal family] are also explicitly telling people that they can either live under the dictatorship…

  • Clinton: The “Temporary Populist”

    “Her Wall Street proposals may sound tough and detailed, but they’re merely technocratic tweaks that don’t get to the heart of the vast increase in the power of Big Money over the last 35 years. And her many supporters on Wall Street know this.”

  • Anger in Streets of Baltimore

    “There are multiple layers of law enforcement incentives, from increased overtime, to easier access to funding for equipment (including riot gear), for law enforcement to produce a large show of force. That serves both to intimidate folks in the community, a so-called ‘deterrent’ which is designed to create a climate where police messages about being…

  • CNN: Must a President Kill Thousands of Children?

    “It’s horrifying to see our leading cable news network offering, as a litmus test for becoming president of United States, a willingness to kill thousands of innocent children. To equate that with toughness and seriousness about protecting the United States is a violent fantasy of the sort that motivates the people who carry out mass…

  • Paris Agreement: Is Massive Military Emissions Bootprint Still Exempt?

    “We need to open up a debate about how to cut record world military and homeland security expenditure and invest that money instead into climate adaptation for the world’s most vulnerable people. That is the only way to deliver real human security, the security of a safe and sustainable future for everyone.”

  • Trump’s Islamophobia is Tip of Iceberg

    “For more than a decade now, they’ve been told the main thing that we need to be scared about is crazy Muslims coming to kill us. The statistics tell a very different story. Some conservatives hate me for saying it, but the truth is, since 9/11, more people have been killed by right-wing terrorists than…

  • 9/11 Whistleblower Rowley on Visas and Mideast War Root Causes

    “In its mad rush to push something out to look as if they were quickly remedying the problems, the House skipped normal debate that comes from holding committee meetings, passing its bizarre ‘Trump-lite’ blanket discriminatory provisions in H.R. 158, the Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act of 2015 [passed on Tuesday 407-19], that would bar citizens…

  • Paris Climate Deal a “Fraud”

    “While fossil fuels production continues to get incentivized and subsidized to the tune of trillions of dollars per year, the rich developed world, responsible for 75 percent of historic emissions, can barely muster a commitment to $100 billion annually (let alone the actual cash), in climate finance to help developing countries transition from fossil fuels.”

  • Dow – DuPont Merger: Perpetuating GMOs, Squeezing Farmers and Consumers?

    “Just a handful of large chemical companies including Dow and DuPont already control most of the seed supply used to grow crops like corn and soybeans, as well as the herbicides that genetically engineered seeds are designed to be grown with. Any merger that consolidates this market into fewer hands will give farmers fewer choices…

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