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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  • NYT: Obama Could Reaffirm Bush-Era Torture

    “The Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. has ratified, also bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Yet President Obama is apparently considering whether to adopt the Bush administration’s erroneous claim that the torture treaty only prohibits such treatment within the United States. This would be a cynical attempt to limit liability of U.S.…

  • The CDC and Ebola

    “Testing people at airports is rather meaningless since someone could be infected with Ebola and not show symptoms, like increased temperature, for three weeks. Thomas Eric Duncan didn’t show symptoms when he came to the U.S. from Liberia. Clearly the CDC was wrong to allow nurse Amber Vinson to fly on a commercial flight. Unfortunately,…

  • Disappearance of 43 Students a “Snapshot” of Drug Dominated Mexico

    “There are nice laws on the books about finding the disappeared, but virtually nothing is being done. These 43 student teachers were attacked by the police who took them to the police station and then handed them over to an organized crime gang and they haven’t been heard from since. It’s a compelling snapshot of…

  • * Ferguson to Syria * Police Militarization

    “This program has gifted over $5 billion worth of recently used and unused war equipment — armored personnel carriers, tanks, Humvees, and Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected [MRAP] vehicles, grenade launchers, armed drones, and assault weapons — to U.S. police since the late 1990s when the program first started. The bicameral legislation would prohibit the transfer of these…

  • * James Risen “Hero” * Panetta’s “Fraud”

  • “60 Minutes” Report Undermines DOJ Threat to Jail Risen

    Michael Hayden — a former CIA director as well as a former NSA director — distanced himself from the ongoing threat to jail Jim Risen. “I don’t understand the necessity to pursue Jim,” Hayden said. The comments are a setback for the Obama administration’s pursuit of Risen to force him to betray a source.

  • Nobel Prize: * Child Labor * Peace?

    “I do hope that Malala will stick to her early concerns of the problem of militarism. There are signs that her helpers and advisors have turned her away from the delicate issues of militarism and over to the safer issue of education. By moving her away from the Nobel idea of global disarmament she has…

  • Journalist and Whistleblower in DOJ Crosshairs: Full Story of Risen and Sterling Published Today

    “The standard media narratives about Risen and Sterling have skipped over deep patterns of government retaliation against recalcitrant journalists and whistleblowers. Those patterns are undermining press freedom, precluding the informed consent of the governed and hiding crucial aspects of U.S. foreign policy.”

  • Ebola: Are We Being Told the Truth?

    The CDC and much of the media have been saying that you can only get Ebola through direct contact with body fluids — and at the same time they’ve been backing the use extraordinary measures to prevent transmission. The fact is, there’s no doubt that Ebola has a history of airborne droplet transmission and pundits…

  • “Killing the Messenger”: CIA, Contras and Crack

    “Nearly three decades since the stories of Nicaraguan Contra-cocaine trafficking first appeared in 1985, the New York Times has finally, forthrightly admitted the allegations were true, although this belated acknowledgement comes in a movie review buried deep inside Sunday’s paper.”

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