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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  • Trump Ignoring Peace Deal on Yemen, “Planning Libya-Style” War

    In “Top Houthi Official Tells Drop Site Yemen Will Cease Attacks on U.S. Ships if Trump Halts Bombing” Drop Site News reports: “A senior leader of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, told Drop Site News that if the U.S. ends its campaign of air strikes against Yemen, Houthi forces will commit to halting…

  • DOGE Kills Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

    The Department of Government Efficiency is eliminating the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which has been in operation since 1996. One expert says MEPS is “probably the central source of data on healthcare use and spending in the U.S.” 

  • Lawsuits Against NIH for “Beyond Unprecedented” Grant Terminations

    Two new lawsuits were filed against the National Institutes of Health, the NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the cancellation of NIH research grants in the past month. More than 900 grants have been terminated so far. The newest lawsuit is…

  • Netanyahu Meets with Trump as Israel Slaughters Children

    AFP reports: “A Palestinian official told AFP that Israeli forces shot dead a teenager holding US citizenship in the occupied West Bank Sunday, while the Israeli military said it had killed a ‘terrorist’ who threw rocks at cars.”

  • As Trump Brags About Bombing Yemen: “The Implications of This Can’t be Underestimated”

        Jumaan highlighted an Arabic-language thread on X about the tribal gathering with over one million views which stressed the communal nature of such gatherings, which could be a wedding or community or religious gathering. 

  • Israel Shooting Children in the Head, Protests Being Held

    Protests are planned in the coming days focusing on Gaza around the U.S., including a March on Washington, on Saturday, April 5 at 1 p.m. ET on Pennsylvania Ave. (Other anti-Trump protests are also scheduled for this weekend.) 

  • Netanyahu: “Final Stage” of Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Implementation of “Trump’s Plan”

    The Guardian reports: “Fifteen Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one” and buried in a mass grave eight days ago in southern Gaza, the UN has said.”

  • Trump and Yemen: War is Peace?

    x “The World Food Program says ‘a child in Yemen dies once every ten minutes from preventable causes, including extreme hunger.’ …

  • “How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left”

    A new book, Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left, examines how new wealth has drawn into its orbit some formerly progressive journalists. Owned looks at the cases of Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald––once idealistic-sounding, left-leaning voices who have shifted right. 

  • Trump Revises Some Plans for Social Security

    This week, officials from the Social Security Administration partially walked back plans from the Trump administration that would have required beneficiaries to prove their identity in-person. Officials said Wednesday that they plan to exempt people who apply for Medicare and disability benefits from in-person verification.

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