News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • Whistleblowers on Assange, Manning, “Absurd” Secrecy, Leaking and Assassinations

    The Guardian reports on “A letter signed by leading U.S. figures in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s application for political asylum in Ecuador has been delivered to the country’s London embassy.” Among those who signed the letter were Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Noam Chomsky and Danny Glover. The letter, organized by Just Foreign Policy,…

  • Rwanda Denies Sponsoring War Criminals in Congo; U.S. Charged with Covering Up at U.N.

    Today, BBC reports: “Rwanda’s foreign minister has angrily denied reports that her country is backing an army mutiny in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.” Last week, Reuters reported: “U.N. experts have evidence Rwanda’s defense minister and two top military officials have been backing an army mutiny in the east of neighboring Congo…” Also last week…

  • “Show Me Your Papers”-Based Immigration Policy

    MARGARET HU, mhu at law.duke.edu Hu is an assistant professor at Duke Law School. She just wrote a piece titled “Arizona v. U.S. & SB 1070: Baking Discrimination Into Immigration Policy” on the American Constitution Society blog, which states: “In Arizona v. U.S., the Supreme Court only upheld Section 2(B) of the highly controversial Arizona…

  • Supreme Court: Money in Politics Doesn’t Matter; Montanans Disagree

    In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively struck down Montana’s 100-year-old law that banned direct corporate political campaign spending in state and local elections. The court reversed a Montana Supreme Court ruling. See: Supreme Court Upholds Citizens United; Tightens Corporate Stranglehold on Campaign Finance. JEFF MILCHEN, jeff.milchen at gmail.com Milchen is the…

  • “Tragic Week in Paraguay”

    AP is reporting: “Ousted Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo fought back Sunday against the politicians who engineered his dismissal, setting up an alternative government and pledging to upstage Paraguay’s new leaders at an upcoming regional summit.” KREGG HETHERINGTON, krether at gmail.com Professor at Dalhousie University in Canada and author of Guerrilla Auditors: Transparency, Democracy and Rural…

  • 40th Anniversary of Title IX: Not Just Sports

    Title IX was signed on June 23, 1972 by President Richard Nixon and became law on July 1, 1972. JOANNE SMITH, jsmith at ggenyc.org Smith, founder and executive director of Girls for Gender Equity, Smith said today: “I benefited from Title IX’s opening up college athletics as many women and girls did, but that’s a…

  • Earth Summit: Questioning the “Green Economy”

    The Miami Herald reports: “More than 50,000 people and representatives of more than 120 countries gather in Rio de Janeiro for the opening of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. Topics include the destruction of the rain forest, vanishing coral reefs, land grabs, the need for food security, clean water, the role of women in…

  • Assange’s Asylum

    Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (top-secret government documents that showed a pattern of governmental deceit about the Vietnam War) today signed a petition calling on Ecuador to grant political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Ellsberg stated: “Political asylum was made for cases like this. Freedom for Julian in Ecuador would serve the…

  • Rise of the Egyptian Junta

    PHILIP RIZK, rizkphilip at googlemail.com, @tabulagaza Rizk is an independent blogger and filmmaker based in Cairo. He has been warning of the actions of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces since the uprising last year. See Institute for Public Accuracy news release: “From Cairo: Egypt’s Military Leading the Counter-Revolution?” Also, see: “Egypt One Year…

  • Pakistani Court Dismisses Prime Minister

    Al Jazeera reports: “The decision comes two months after Gilani, the nation’s longest-running prime minister, was convicted of contempt for refusing to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. … The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his late wife, former president Benazir Bhutto, are…

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