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. War in Afghanistan: “Increasing Violence and Instability”

    “President Obama’s decision to rescind his earlier pronouncement of withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan must be interpreted as an admission to the great scandal of the ‘global war on terrorism’: Western violence has only increased violence and instability, not ended or reduced it. While he continues to ridiculously invoke the insignificant Al Qaeda threat as…

  • “The Drone Papers,” Killings and Whistleblowers

    “I was frustrated anyway about how our superiors were treating me and my peers. We were supposed to function and never ask questions. Then there was this moment while we were hunting for Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen. I suddenly realized that by doing what I was doing I was going against the American Constitution…

  • Debate Fallout: * Clinton’s Emails and Whistleblowers * Big Banks

    “Clinton’s statement shows how out of touch she is with the reality for whistleblowers. Apparently, Mrs. Clinton wasn’t reading the newspapers in 2010 when the Justice Department indicted NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake for espionage as retaliation for going through all the proper channels. There were no safe internal channels for Snowden to use.”

  • Award in Iowa: Black Farms Matter

    “Our view is local production for local consumption. It’s just supporting mankind as family farmers. Everything we’re about is food sovereignty, the right of every individual on earth to wholesome food, clean water, clean air, clean land, and the self-determination of a local community to grow and do what they want. We just recognize the…

  • Turkey: “Lust for Power” threatening Civil War

    “President Obama has disrespected the Turkish constitution by directly conducting foreign policy with the Turkish president. The parliamentary system in Turkey mandates foreign leaders to engage prime ministers, which the White House has not done.”

  • Criticism of CNN’s Democratic Debate Panel

    “This is a simple test of balance, and CNN has so far flunked. If CNN included a conservative partisan from the right-wing Salem Radio Network to question Republican candidates for president, why wouldn’t a progressive advocate be included in Tuesday’s panel questioning Democrats?”

  • Nobel Peace Prize’s Betrayal

    “The Norwegian trustees have disconnected the prize entirely from Nobel´s visionary idea of peacemaking and are spreading ‘Nobel’ honor in all directions. The rule on full secrecy for 50 years around the selection process makes it possible for them to get away with it, but their brazen neglect of Nobel can no longer be tolerated.”

  • China and the TPP

    “More than corporate profits have driven the now concluded negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, which is designed to integrate 40 percent of the world’s total annual production of wealth and resources. It is a geopolitical great wall in reverse, designed to isolate and marginalize China. The short-term zero-sum thinking that led to Beijing’s…

  • * War Crimes * Activists Against Killer Drones

    “So many in the mainstream media and elsewhere seem allergic to openly discussing U.S. war crimes. But there are thousands of examples, this bombing of the Doctors Without Borders Hospital is just a dramatic and timely example. The U.S. government has consistently used such bombings since at least Hiroshima.”

  • Trans-Pacific “Free-Trade” “Charade” 

    “The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual…

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