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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  • Baltimore: Policing and “Pathology of Murder”

    Conway said then that the police department’s “primary mission is to protect wealth and property and to protect those people that are wealthy and that own that property. And the reaction in the community is to keep the community completely under control, those people that don’t have any wealth and don’t have any power. They…

  • Lynch’s “Sweetheart Deal” with HSBC

    “Despite Loretta Lynch’s path to nomination being … cleared by immigration-related compromises, her prior treatment of HSBC remains highly problematic. Her deferred prosecution agreement and related $1.9 billion fine for HSBC’s substantive, illegal violations of U.S. laws and sanctions, and its provision of money laundering avenues for drug traffickers sadly became a partisan fight, rather…

  • Cáceres, Threatened Honduran, Wins Biggest Enviro Award

    “Berta likes to say that Honduras is known only for having been a Contra base and for Hurricane Mitch. But that country also hosts a powerful social movement which has taken on unaccountable government, multinational corporations and oligarchy run amok, and U.S. military domination — the U.S. has numerous bases there and even sent down…

  • Official Leaks: “These Senior People Do Whatever They Want”

    “‘The CIA Director decided to partner with big Hollywood to write a selective version of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and the rest of CIA and DOD had to fall in line, going so far as exposing some of the SEAL team members’ identities.’ … ‘The public needs to understand what’s happening here: The…

  • Anthrax: Lawsuit Alleges F.B.I. Hiding Evidence 

    “While leading the investigation for the next four years, Plaintiff’s efforts to advance the case met with intransigence from the Washington Field Office’s (WFO) executive management, apathy and error from the FBI Laboratory, politically motivated communication embargoes from FBI Headquarters, and yet another preceding and equally erroneous legal opinion from Defendant Kelley – all of…

  • Repealing the Estate Tax: “Today’s Merely Wealthy Become Tomorrow’s Obscenely Rich” 

    “This week the Republican-controlled House of Representatives plans to pass legislation that would accelerate inequality ensuring today’s merely wealthy become tomorrow’s obscenely rich. … Congress is on the path to creating a permanent class of Americans who never have to work or pay taxes. If Congress eliminates the estate tax, America will move closer to…

  • U.S. – Cuba Relations Improve But Issues Remain for Others in Region 

    “The end of the Cold War, maybe. But not the end to a much more deeply-rooted historical commitment on the part of the United States to impose its will on Latin American countries. Obama has not rescinded the U.S. intention to ‘change’ the Cuban government, or more generally, the U.S. assumption that it has the…

  • Should the U.S. be on Cuba’s State Terrorism List?

    “President Obama is soon to announce the removal of Cuba from the State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism, a designation that has long been opposed by the Castro government for its hypocrisy based on the long history of terrorism the United States has supported against Cuba. The Cuban side has claimed more than…

  • *Obama in Latin America* Assessing AIPAC

    “President Obama is making his first trip south of the U.S. border since February of 2014. On April 9, he will be in Kingston, Jamaica for meetings with Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller and the leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), an organization made up of 15 Caribbean governments. Then on April 10 and 11, he…

  • Police Killing and the Criminalization of Poverty

    “The situation that led to the alleged murder of Walter Scott by a white police officer in North Charleston, S.C. is, sadly, indicative of the crisis created by the growing criminalization of poverty in America. Poor people are targeted and aggressively policed for minor infractions such as the broken taillight on Mr. Scott’s car. Once…

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