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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  • Journalist Questioning Honeywell CEO Stifled, Police Investigating Incident

    A reporter for In These Times magazine, Mike Elk said today: “On Friday President Obama appeared with Honeywell CEO David Cote at Honeywell’s Minneapolis facility for an event on the economy. While Cote claims Honeywell’s profitability is due to innovation, much of it actually rests on union busting that risks the safety of the public.…

  • Roots of the Rise of Fundamentalist Islam: The 1967 War

    Naseer Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the books Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine and Obstruction of Peace. He also contributed to the anthology The June 1967 War, which took place 45 years ago. He said today: “The 1967…

  • * Syria * Ireland Referendum * Charles Taylor Conviction

    CHARLES GLASS, [in London, 5 hours ahead of U.S. ET] charlesmglassmail2003 at yahoo.com A noted journalist, Glass was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent and just wrote the piece “Syria: The Citadel & the War” for the New York Review of Books. Yesterday, he was featured on Democracy Now. IARA LEE, iaralee at culturesofresistance.org A…

  • Assange and the “War on Whistleblowers”

    COLEEN ROWLEY, rowleyclan at earthlink.net Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. She was featured on an IPA news release yesterday titled “Obama’s Priestly Assassinations” about the administration’s “secret kill…

  • Radioactive Tuna in U.S. from Fukushima * “Meltdown at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”

    ROBERT ALVAREZ, kitbob at starpower.net AP is reporting: “Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance.”

  • President Obama’s Priestly Assassinations

    A New York Times investigative piece “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will” reports today: “Beside the president at every step is his counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, who is variously compared by colleagues to a dogged police detective, tracking terrorists from his cavelike office in the White House basement, or…

  • “Bain Actually Loves Dems”

    DOUG HENWOOD, dhenwood at panix.com Editor of Left Business Observer and author of the book Wall Street, Henwood just wrote the brief piece “Bain Actually Loves Dems,” which states: “All good Democrats are busily hating on Bain Capital right now. What they’re forgetting is how many Bain-affiliated political contributions have gone to Democrats.

  • * U.S. “Hard Line” on Iran * Egyptian Election

    GARETH PORTER, porter.gareth50 at gmail.com Porter is an investigative journalist and historian specializing in U.S. national security policy. He has been writing extensively about the Iranian nuclear talks, including the new piece “U.S. Hard Line in Failed Iran Talks Driven by Israel,” which states: “Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of…

  • Confronting the “Taboo of Public Ownership”

    GAR ALPEROVITZ, via John Duda, jduda at democracycollaborative.org THOMAS HANNA, tmhanna at democracycollaborative.org Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, and his co-author Thomas Hanna, have written an article published today in The Nation, “Beyond Corporate Capitalism: Not So Wild a Dream,” which states: “It’s time to put the taboo…

  • Iran: * Scuttling Talks * “Un-Declaring War”

    MUHAMMAD SAHIMI, moe at usc.edu Sahimi is a professor at the University of Southern California and lead political columnist for the website PBS/Frontline/Tehran Bureau. He just wrote the piece “Intervention Proponents Try to Scuttle Nuclear Talks with Iran,” which states: The prospect of a diplomatic solution has generated deep anxiety among the proponents of military…

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