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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  • Chuck Schumer: “Friend Of Wall Street and War”

    “It’s not surprising that Schumer would be able to collect so much support in such a short period of time. Recall that he was head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and helped recruit as many as one-third of the current Senate Democratic caucus — and that he was the one who set about raising…

  • Netanyahu’s “Disastrous” Appeal and “Obsession with Jewish Identity”

    “Together with his March address to the U.S. Congress on an unprecedented mission to destroy President Obama’s Iran negotiations, Netanyahu is forcing re-examination by American Jews of the sympathy they’ve maintained for Israel because Israeli Jews are co-religionists. Netanyahu’s behavior, the 48-year military occupation ruling over non-Israelis, and increasingly reported instances of Jewish extremist violence,…

  • Obama Climate Change Action Goes “Nowhere Near Far Enough”

    “With the release of the final Clean Power Plan — this administration’s landmark climate action — it’s abundantly clear that President Obama’s climate policies won’t be enough to protect us from the threat of a radically warmed world. It’s time to create our own power plan: a plan to build the political power in every…

  • Urging Bernie Sanders to “Speak Out” on Foreign Policy, Petition Gathers More Than 8,000 Signers in First Day

    “So far,” RootsAction says, “Bernie’s stump speech hardly mentions the huge military budget — and does not talk about how it is a massive roadblock for the scale of public investment in education, infrastructure and jobs that he is advocating.”

  • Afghanistan’s “Most Formidable Warlord”

    “The U.S., with its history of waging aerial attacks, using helicopters and weaponized drones, and engaging in constant aerial surveillance, along with its continued night raids and detention of civilians, effectively carries itself as the most formidable warlord in the region. Throughout June, according to the New York Times, ‘American drones and warplanes fired against…

  • Shooting of Sam DuBose: Are Cams on Police the Answer?

    “Cams on cops are a good thing but that does not mean citizens need to stop recording because when the footage is in the hands of police, there is never a guarantee it will not be manipulated, destroyed or simply never released. There have been numerous examples, but one that sticks out is the recent…

  • 70 Years After U.S. Nuked Japan: Calls for Nuclear Abolition

    “I strongly feel that, in order to build society where my sons and grandchildren can live in peace, it is the duty of us survivors to share our experience with as many people as possible to help them identify with it. I sincerely hope that we are the last generation of people who are tormented…

  • “Kayaktivists” Attempt to Stop Shell’s Damaged Ice Breaker from Departing for Arctic

    “Scientists are sounding the alarm, telling us we need to keep most of our known fossil fuel reserves in the ground. This makes Shell’s extreme extraction adventure in the Arctic the definition of insanity. We’re talking about putting humanity, our entire planet’s livability at extreme risk. Portland is going to be taking a stand to…

  • Medicare’s 50 Years of Low Overhead vs. ACA’s Increasing Bureaucratic Bloat, “Merger Mania”

    “Between 2014 and 2022, the ACA will add $273.6 billion in new administrative costs over and above what would have been expected had the law not been enacted. That’s equivalent to $1,375 per newly insured person per year, or 22.5 percent of total federal expenditures for the program…Were the 22.5 percent overhead figure associated with…

  • U.S. Approval of Turkey’s Bombing: Disaster in the Making?

    “The U.S. had been helping the Kurdish group in Syria — the YPG. That group is basically another branch of the PKK, which Turkey just bombed in Iraq — a sovereign country — with an apparent U.S. green light. There certainly hasn’t been a condemnation by the U.S. government of the bombing.”

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