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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  • Did Comey’s “Stand-Off” with Bush Lead to Legal Rationale for Monitoring Americans?

    “The Inspector General Report by Glenn Fine and other information shows it was ‘the legal footing’ of the ‘President’s Surveillance Program’ or ‘PSP’ (which Bush later called the ‘Terrorist Surveillance Program’) to which Comey, Mueller, Goldsmith and others who threatened resignation objected. It seems John Yoo had been the sole source of the legal theory…

  • “Impossible to Choose Good Guys” as Rebel Army Claims Responsibility for Beirut Bombing

    “One of the possible culprits behind the car bomb in southern Beirut is the so-called FSA [Free Syrian Army]. Brigade 313, of the so-called FSA, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Previously, other factions of the ‘FSA’ had threatened Hezbollah with direct attacks in Lebanon. Various threats to ‘take the battle to inside the Lebanese…

  • Whilstleblowers Blast NSA Programs, Award Snowden

    “When secrecy is misused to hide unconstitutional activities, fealty to that oath — and higher duty as citizens of conscience — dictate support for truth tellers who summon the courage to blow the whistle. Edward Snowden’s disclosures fit the classic definition of whistle blowing. “Former senior NSA executive Thomas Drake, who won the Sam Adams…

  • Egypt: Army Has Final Say?

    “The events of the past week have shown the continued power of mobilization and protest in Egypt, however we must continue the struggle until the army is no longer the final say in politics and it is the people who are fully in control of their government.”

  • 22 Million Signatures, Hundreds of Thousands of Protesters Call for Morsi’s Ouster

    “The Tamarod campaign … the campaign that really started the calls for this protest that took place yesterday, has given Mohamed Morsi until 5:00 p.m. tomorrow to respond and to step down and call for early elections. If he doesn’t, they’re saying they’re going to call for an escalation, further protests, more civil disobedience, and…

  • June 30 Cairo Protests — Against Authoritarianism No Matter the Ideology

    “The most naïve interpreter of Egypt’s anti-Mubarak rage was the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Encouraged by his populist base, Morsi proceeded to ignore all constitutional norms and cobble together a ramshackle alliance of pro-Qatari Salafists, bureaucrats and army officers. As in all revolutions, the extent of the neglect and abuse by Egypt’s first ideological/social class to…

  • Free Software Pioneer Denounces “Security-Industrial Complex” and Portable Phones as “Stalin’s Dream”

    “It used to be that the threat to people’s freedom from computers was that they used programs that the users don’t control — nonfree programs, that is. The free software movement aims to provide free/libre replacements for nonfree programs. Free software is software that respects the users’ freedom and community. A program that isn’t free…

  • DOMA Struck Down, But What About Those Who Don’t Marry?

    “I am so dismayed by the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act yesterday. Race is still a central component of who our society values or doesn’t value. The DOMA opinion means married same-sex couples will be treated as married under federal law, but the demographics of who marries now is highly skewed by race and…

  • Obama’s Climate Action Plan a “Full-Throttle Endorsement” of Fracking

    “President Obama announced his administration’s ‘Climate Action Plan’ for cutting carbon pollution in his second term in the Oval Office at Georgetown University and unfortunately, it’s a full-throttle endorsement of every aspect of fracking and the global shale gas market. “Hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) is the toxic horizontal drilling process via which gas is obtained from…

  • Supreme Court’s “Troublesome” Voting Rights Act Decision

    “The Supreme Court’s decision voiding Section 4 and effectively nullifying Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is most troublesome. The decision argues that the conditions identified in Section 4 that gave rise to Section 5’s protections have changed. That is correct but ignores why much of that change has come about. “Poll taxes, continuous…

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