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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  • “In the U.S., It Happens Again and Again”

    YESHUA MOSER-PUANGSUWAN, yeshua at nonviolenceinternational.net A board member of Small Arms Survey, an international, independent research project. Moser-Puangsuwan was quoted in an Institute for Public Accuracy news release in 2007 following the mass shooting at Virginia Tech: “Other Western countries like Australia and the UK have one mass shooting, then institute policies on guns and…

  • Has the Military Budget Been Slashed? Is It Effective at Creating Jobs?

    The House is having a series of votes on military spending today. The Boston Globe reports today: “Congressional Republicans have begun a drumbeat of opposition to Pentagon cuts they agreed to last summer as part of the debt deal with President Barack Obama, and want to shift the burden of cuts to food stamps, school…

  • FEC Claims Missing Records on Key Funders a “Technical Problem”

    THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute, and contributing editor at AlterNet. PAUL JORGENSEN, pjorgensen at ethics.harvard.edu Jorgensen is a fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. He, along with Ferguson, recently wrote the…

  • Syria on Fire, and the U.S. and Russia Have “Turned up with Flamethrowers”

    CHARLES GLASS, charlesmglassmail2003 at yahoo.com A noted journalist, Glass was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent and recently wrote the pieces “The Country That Is the World: Syria’s Clashing Communities” and “Syria’s Many New Friends are a Self-Interested Bunch,” which states: “The Syrians are now surrounded by more new-found friends than a lottery winner. ……

  • Secret Pentagon Docs Reveal Pre-War Plans to Get Big Oil into Iraq

    Bloomberg reports: “Iraq’s crude production overtook Iran’s last month for the first time in more than two decades… The rising rate of Iraqi production comes as foreign investors such as ExxonMobil Corp. and BP are developing new fields and reworking older deposits.” GREG MUTTITT, dlee at thenewpress.com Currently touring the U.S., Muttitt (based in London)…

  • Laid Off Steelworker in Anti-Romney Ad Doesn’t Want Obama Either

    Donnie Box was featured in a Priorities USA Action ad outside a shutdown plant: “Romney and Bain Capital shut this place down. They shut down entire livelihoods. They promised us a health care package, they promised to maintain our retirement program, and those are the first two things to disappear. This was a booming place,…

  • As Disclose Act Fails in Senate, FEC Quietly Removes Files on Big Ticket Donors

    The Washington Post reports today: “The Senate failed Monday to advance legislation that would require independent groups to disclose the names of contributors who give more than $10,000 to independent groups for use in political campaigns.” The just-published piece “Revealed: Key Files on Big Ticket Political Donations Vanish at the Federal Election Commission” by Thomas…

  • Penn State: “The Larger Scandal”

    HENRY GIROUX, henry.giroux at gmail.com Giroux’s books include Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? and The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex. He said today: “The Freeh Report makes clear that there was a concerted attempt to cover up the acts of a serial predator while wilfully disregarding the welfare of the…

  • Obama and Romney Both Backing Secret Job-Killing Deal?

    As the campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney trade attacks while claiming each is a friend to workers, a secretive trade deal of the type backed by both campaigns is emerging in international talks. Romney claims he is representing “job creators” whose dealings will benefit society as a whole while Obama claims that his…

  • Climate: Record Heat, Policy Adrift

    ANNE PETERMANN, anne at globaljusticeecology.org Petermann is executive director of the Global Justice Ecology Project and coordinator of the STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign. She said today: “The first six months of 2012 were the hottest ever recorded. Thousands of weather records were broken — with nearly 4,000 in June alone. “These impacts have long…

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