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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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  • The Forgotten “Most Important Leak,” and the Myths it Exposes

    In early 2003, as the U.S. was attempting to get a UN Security Council resolution getting authorization for the impending Iraq war, Katharine Gun leaked an NSA memo (that was under 300 words) which was published by the British newspaper The Observer. “Katharine Gun was horrified and leaked the email to The Observer. As a…

  • Turkish Prime Minister’s Miscalculation

    “As the protesters who remain in Gezi Park regroup and plan their next move, the Prime Minister has called for rallies of his own this weekend as a show of force. He may think that exacerbating the polarization in the country is a way to consolidate his own base of constituents and prevail over opposition…

  • 37,000 “Thank You’s” for Snowden — and Counting

    “Many Americans understand that Snowden has done something profoundly brave and patriotic in defense of the Bill of Rights. With much-touted ‘congressional oversight’ almost meaningless and secret surveillance courts mere rubber stamps for the Obama administration, many Americans across the political spectrum are asking deeper questions — and they’re getting official doubletalk in response. “The…

  • Do Leaks Hurt National Security, Or Do the Policies they Expose? — From Indochina to the Mideast

    “Fifty years ago, U.S. executive branch officials such as Henry Kissinger dropped two million tons of bombs on tiny Laos, as much as was dropped on all of Europe and the Pacific in World War II, murdering, maiming and making refugees of tens of thousands of innocent rice-farmers, and totally destroying a 700-year old civilization…

  • Data Mining of Telecom Metadata is “More Dangerous than Intercepting Conversations”

    “The newly public National Security Agency records about PRISM and similar operations demonstrate that metadata about electronic communication is actually more dangerous to democracy than intercepting conversations. That is because the NSA’s analysis of this information is based on mathematical formulas that use guilt by association to construct imaginary networks of people who might, or…

  • Edward Snowden a “Profile in Courage” Says Church Committee Whistleblower

    “Unfortunately, these efforts at oversight have largely failed. Judge Vinson’s order to Verizon proves beyond cavil that the secret FISA court is a rubber stamp for the indiscriminate seizure of all sorts of personal records. … “Seventy percent of the federal government’s intelligence budget now goes to private contractors. Far from overseeing the agencies, members…

  • Samantha Power’s “Weaponization of Human Rights”

    “Samantha Power has shown a limitless faith in the therapeutic power of military violence, as long as there are a few human rights lawyers straggling along as camp followers. Her career-making first book, subtitled America and the Age of Genocide, fails to mention any of the postwar genocides that Washington armed and abetted, a highly…

  • Millions of Domestic Phone Records Collected by Government

    “Been hollering into the deep dark shadows of the surveillance state since October 2001 and then via the press starting in 2006 about this Orwellian threat. “Now we have an order for ALL call records from millions upon millions of Verizon subscribers without probable cause just because the government wants them. “Talk about profiling. “FISA…

  • ENDA: Why Is Employment Discrimination Against Gays Legal?

    Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post wrote today that Michelle Obama “was speaking … at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Washington last night when [Ellen] Sturtz heckled her about her husband’s lack of action on ending discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) federal employees.” … “There is currently no federal law that explicitly…

  • Bradley Manning in Court: “Show Trial” or Last Chance for Justice?

    “Defense lawyer David Coombs recounted a poignant turning point during Bradley’s time in Iraq. On Christmas Eve, 2009, an Army vehicle narrowly avoided injury after an explosive detonated. But in evading the explosive, the U.S. vehicle drove into a civilian car, carrying five Iraqis, including three children. His fellow soldiers celebrated into the night, cheering…

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