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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  • Liberté?

    “Following a terrorism incident as shocking as the Paris attacks, it is no surprise that politicians and the intelligence establishment would want to widen American spying capabilities. But their arguments are conflating the forest — bulk metadata collection — and the trees: access to individual communications about the attack.”

  • Paris, Beirut and the “Weaponization of Grief”

    “It feels callous to question the allocation of outrage; empathy is in such short supply in this world that one hesitates to question it when it emerges. But as a long-time citizen of New York City, I’m all too aware of the weaponization of grief. The outpouring of no-context, ahistorical sympathy after 9/11 helped pave…

  • Protecting National Security Whistleblowers: A New Program

    “The government’s unprecedented crackdown on ‘national security’ whistleblowers using the Espionage Act has created a chilling atmosphere for sources and journalists, giving rise to a larger war on information that the public has a right to know. At ExposeFacts, our message from the beginning has been, ‘whistleblowers welcome.’ With the launch of WHISPeR, headed by…

  • After Paris: What Needs to Be Changed? * Interventions * Saudi

    “In the wake of the latest terrorist outrage in Paris, the big question is not which specific group is responsible for the attack, but who’s responsible for the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the first place. The answer that has grown increasingly clear in recent years is that it’s Western leaders who have used…

  • Syria and Climate Change: Does Global Warming Fuel Conflict?

    “Syria is a prime example. There has been a terrible drought there, which coincided with austerity measures imposed by the Assad government cutting aid to Sunni farmers. Many of them were forced to leave the land, partly due to drought, partly due to the lack of support to properly deal with the drought. Then, they…

  • After Paris: Is the “War on Terror” Feeding Terror?

    “Uncontrollable rage and ritual denunciations are not going to defeat IS. To defeat IS, we need to recognize that this Frankenstein’s monster is neither simply a fault of ‘the West,’ nor of ‘the Muslims.’ It is a co-creation of the Western and Muslim worlds, specifically of Western and Muslim ‘security’ agencies who have lost all…

  • From Beirut After Bombing: “We are Not Numbers”

    “We are not numbers. I say this as I remember the 43 people killed and the 239 wounded in this terrorist attack on a neighborhood. We are not numbers. Among dead and injured are books/backpacks belonging to schoolchildren.”

  • Documents Expose FBI’s Targeting of School of the Americas Watch

    “The uncovered documents show the bureau continued to deploy its Domestic Intelligence Terrorism Squad to monitor activity within the organization using confidential informants inside the movement to gather information. In addition, the FBI’s headquarters and counter-terrorism units were requested to provide the FBI’s Field Office in Atlanta with ‘all intelligence relevant to the SOA, so…

  • Fast Food Protests Today

    “But as evidenced by the 270 nationwide rallies intended to influence the 2016 election, Fight for 15 is more a march on the media than a worker organizing campaign. Interviews with dozens of workers and SEIU organizers have revealed workers have almost no input over the goals of the campaign, who is being organized, what…

  • Netanyahu in D.C.

    “Earlier this year, Hagler successfully helped worked towards the [United Church of Christ] Church passing a divestment and boycott resolution on Israel. Hagler today said: ‘It’s ironic that so many are focusing on Palestinian knives given the massive scale of Israeli attacks on Palestinians.'”

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