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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  • Ashton Carter: * Insider * Spawned Nuclear Buildup

    “Carter was also instrumental in establishing the policy that led to the new demonization of Russia which we see today. He advised Clinton on missile technology and how the U.S. could begin to deploy a missile shield in Alaska while claiming it was not violating the 1972 anti-ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, although Russia was…

  • Beyond Money in Politics: Corruption Now “Business as Usual”

    “I wrote Unaccountable to bring to your attention the invisible corruption that has become business as usual when it comes to how so much power and influence work nowadays. I come to this work as a social anthropologist — not the stereotypical one who dons a pith helmet to live among a long-lost tribe in…

  • Police Militarization “Quick Fix”

    “There needs to be a focus on the demand side rather than the supply. As long as there is a high level of demand for heavy military equipment by local law enforcement, you’re not really fixing the problem. There’s evidence that the first SWAT teams were formed to deal with civil unrest.”

  • Mubarak Case Dismissed; Two Killed in Cairo Protests

    “Many people weren’t that surprised by the ruling, given the nature of the judiciary we have seen over the past year, given the nature of the political situation in Egypt right now. Many were surprised at their capacity to still feel anger and indignation and to be disappointed and upset by this verdict — to…

  • The Myth of Thanksgiving

    “It was during the Great Depression that the Thanksgiving holiday was transformed into a nationalistic origin story to bind a chaotic society experiencing economic and social collapse. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian, helping to establish and enrich what would become the United States, is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact…

  • Ferguson: Prosecutor’s “Charade”; “Oppression and Pushback”

    “Ferguson is the deadly and combustible combination of state-sponsored violence and structural racism. We are witnessing similarly sinister developments in other cities, such as Detroit. Whether it’s the weapon of economic oppression or heavily militarized suppression, the terrorizing of marginalized America is igniting a revolution. The people’s protest is just the beginning of a perpetual…

  • Hagel’s “Forced Resignation”

    Goodman said today: “White House forced the resignation. Obama people dissatisfied with Hagel’s inability to act as spokesman for the Pentagon — and Hagel’s inability to control the public remarks of senior flag officers, particularly chairman of the joint chiefs Martin Dempsey.”

  • Obama Secretly Extended Afghanistan War

    “The administration, in its leak to the New York Times, affirmed that there had been ‘heated debate’ between Pentagon advisers and others in Obama’s cabinet chiefly concerned not to lose soldiers in combat. Oil strategy isn’t mentioned as having been debated and neither is further encirclement of China, but the most notable absence in the…

  • U.S. and UK Whistleblowers Challenge Policies of War and Attacks on Liberty

    “The answer therefore is to right this upside-down system. There should be increased sharing of governmental information while citizens’ privacy and their legal rights to free speech, association, religion and press, the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, the right to due process, right to attorney, etc, should be afforded protection.”

  • Immigration Move a “Stopgap Measure”

    “The administration’s decision to step away, at least partially, from the policy of mass deportations that have hurt millions of people over the last six years is a good step, but it is only a step. It leaves millions more people subject to deportation and vastly increased enforcement.The administration is imposing increasing enforcement and labor…

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