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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  • Secret TPP Text Leaked as Left and Right Criticize “Corporate Power Grab”

    WikiLeaks today released “the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP.” The New York Times reports that while “the Obama administration is rushing” the TPP “before the end of…

  • Behind the Fast Food Strikes

    “Workers and organizers involved in the campaign are asking if Fight for 15 is about organizing workers into a long-term movement or a ‘march on the media.’ More than 20 workers and organizers who talked to In These Times say they support the organizing drive, but are troubled by what they say is a lack…

  • Typhoon Hiayan “Demonstrating How Global South Pays Price for Emissions Historically from North”

    During the last major climate conference in 2012 in Doha, Tetet Lauron, a delegate from the Philippines, spoke of the devastating effects of Typhoon Bopha that hit the Philippines during that conference, killing hundreds. She said then: “I am Tetet. I am a citizen of the world. This is not an equal nor equitable or…

  • For Veteran’s Day: “They Were Soldiers”

    “‘Follow the money,’ a furious Army officer, near the end of his career, instructed me. I had spent my time with poor kids in search of an honorable future who do the grunt work of America’s military. They are part of the nation’s lowliest 1%. But as that angry career officer told me, ‘They only…

  • Missing from Immigration Debate: What Causes Migration?

    “The destruction of local economies and rural livelihoods by IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies since the 80s and more recently by U.S.-led free trade agreements like NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], as well as DR-CAFTA [Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement], is what forces so many workers to look for jobs, and…

  • Referendums on Issues: * NJ Minimum Wage * Fracking and GMO Labeling * Voting Reform

    USA Today reports: “New Jersey voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday to raise the minimum wage by $1, to $8.25 an hour, and add automatic cost-of-living increases each year. … [Gov. Chris Christie] vetoed a bill last year that would have raised the minimum wage to $8.50 an hour with annual inflation adjustments.” Director…

  • Congo Peace Can Only Begin When U.S. Ally Rwanda “Ceases Interventions”

    “Rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo are close to defeat after the foreign ministers of both America and Britain called the president of neighboring Rwanda and urged him not to intervene to support them, The Daily Telegraph has learned. John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, and William Hague, the foreign secretary, telephoned Paul…

  • Calls to Reinstate Edward Snowden’s Passport

    “Vindictive U.S. officials revoked the passport of Snowden, whose disclosures have informed and educated the people of the United States and the world about secret surveillance and massive data-gathering that the NSA and other government agencies are engaged in within the U.S. and around the world. … “Proposals for serious reforms that will enhance security…

  • Feinstein Trying to Codify Mass NSA Surveillance of Americans

    Executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Buttar is said today: “As Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) bears responsibility for the NSA’s spying programs. In fact, the committee she leads was originally created specifically to stop these abuses: the last time Congress investigated our nation’s intelligence agencies, in…

  • Snowden-Germany Deal in the Works? Testimony for Asylum

    Gosztola added: “The Local in Germany reported a number of details about this on October 28. The two main political parties in Germany have agreed to debate the ‘spying accusations’ on November 18, as part of a ‘special sitting of parliament.’ Calls for the parliamentary investigative committee to ‘look into the spying accusations’ are growing…

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