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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  • Social Security Has “A Large and Growing Surplus”

    “Today’s report from the Social Security Trustees shows that our Social Security system has a large and growing surplus. Unlike the banks, which nearly brought the economy to ruin, Social Security didn’t need a bailout. Its surplus has grown year after year, even during the Great Recession. The result of decades of foresight and planning,…

  • Administration Claims to be Reassessing Leak Policy as Manning Trial Begins Monday

    “The Manning trial is occurring in the context of perhaps the most repressive atmosphere for free press in recent memory. It was bad enough that the Obama administration prosecuted twice the number of whistleblowers than all prior administrations combined. Then it went after logs and records of journalists and publishers: AP; Fox reporter James Rosen;…

  • New FBI Director Set to Preserve “‘War on Terror’ Mentality”

    If Congress chooses for once to exercise proper oversight, Comey should be asked all the hard questions as to why he ultimately signed off on the Bush administration’s warrantless monitoring; its torture program and its indefinite detention policies. Because Obama has just given a speech, interpreted by many as saying it’s time to turn away…

  • Push for Freedom for Cuban “Anti-Terrorists”

    “Rene Gonzalez, one of the Cuban 5, was released in October 2011 but had to remain in the U.S. for three more years under supervised probation. Just recently, in a two-week authorized visit, due to the death of his father, Gonzalez was allowed to stay in Cuba after renouncing his U.S. citizenship. Incarcerated since 1998,…

  • Protests This Week Against Genetically Engineered Trees: “Disaster for Climate”

    “Genetically engineered trees would be grown for biomass — in other words, to burn for fuel. One problem is that this will likely result in farmers growing more such trees and growing less food. Another major concern is that genetically engineered trees are perennials. So, unlike annual food plants that we could choose to stop…

  • Obama Budget Plans Privatizing Major New Deal Institution; Republicans Object

    “Buried within the fine print of the 2014 Obama budget is a startling bit of history-changing policy. The government, the administration says, should consider selling off the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the nation’s largest publicly operated — that is, ‘socialist’ — institutions, and the largest public power provider in the country. … “Most Americans…

  • Obama War Policies: Stuck in “Twisted Politics of Grief”

    “The ‘war on terror’ was built on two tiers of grief. Momentous and meaningless. Ours and theirs. The domestic politics of grief settled in for a very long haul, while perpetual war required the leaders of both major parties to keep affirming and reinforcing the two tiers of grief…. The first years of the 21st…

  • Obama on Guantanamo and Drone Killing

    “The Constitution’s makers deplored the combination of legislative, executive, and judicial powers in a single branch as the very definition of tyranny. President Obama thus shoulders a heavy burden in seeking to explain how his playing prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner to kill any citizen or non-citizen anywhere on the planet justified by his secret…

  • Apple’s Empty Tax Argument

    “Companies like Apple are fond of saying that they don’t break the law, but it’s an empty argument since they are largely responsible for what the law says, since big companies have such an influence over malleable tax law. And of course, slave owners made the same arguments in the 1850s, factory owners using child…

  • With Verdict Annulled, Guatemala Genocide Trial Can Continue

    Currently in New York City, Nairn is an investigative reporter who covered the recent trial in Guatemala and was slated to be a witness. He said today: “The institutional army and the oligarchs have been worried that the Rios Montt verdict will interfere with their right to kill civilians. “This court ruling has nothing to…

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