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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  • Occupation Wall Street Arrests “Utterly Illegal”

    Seven hundred people participating in the The Occupy Wall Street protests were arrested this weekend. Protests are taking place in several cities, see and with live streaming at. NATHAN SCHNEIDER, nathan at wagingnonviolence.org Schneider is an editor of the website Waging Non-Violence; one of his recent pieces is “Mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge: is…

  • Extrajudicial Killing of U.S. Citizen

    VINCENT WARREN, PARDISS KEBRIAEI, via Emily Whitfield, press at ccrjustice.org, and David Lerner Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which had previously brought a challenge in federal court to the legality of the authorization to target U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, said today: “The assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki by American drone…

  • Wall Street Protests Spread

    The Occupy Wall Street protests are spreading to other cities, see with live streaming at. ARUN GUPTA, ebrowniess at yahoo.com A founding editor of the New York City based Indypendent, Gupta just wrote the piece “The Revolution Begins at Home: An Open Letter to Join the Wall Street Occupation.”

  • Left-Right Alliance Against Government Reading Your Email Without a Warrant

    A broad array of groups from across the political spectrum have joined together to launch the “Not Without a Warrant” campaign against the government reading personal email without a warrant. The campaign states: “The government’s power to read your email, access your private photos stored online and track your daily movements is defined in a…

  • * Saudi Women and Elections * Students Convicted for Protesting Israeli Ambassador in California * Banned from India Because of Kashmir Coverage? * Putin’s Russia

    JAAFAR AL-SHAYEB, jafar at alshayeb.org Available for interviews from noon to 5:00 ET today before he leaves the country, al-Shayeb is chairperson of the municipal council in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. While acknowledging that allowing women to vote in future municipal elections was a significant, if largely symbolic step, he stresses that elections wield very limited…

  • Violence at Continuing Wall Street Protests

    AP is reporting: “About 80 people were arrested Saturday as demonstrators who were camped out near the New York Stock Exchange marched through lower Manhattan, police said. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest is entering its second week.” See the video ”

  • Nader: Postal Crisis “Manufactured”

    Reuters reported this week that President Obama has endorsed a plan to “rescue” the Postal Service, including by reducing service one day a week. Bloomberg reports: “A measure that may put the U.S. Postal Service under a control board, end to-the-door mail delivery and close post offices using the same process as military-base shutdowns was…

  • Troy Davis Case Highlights Death Penalty Problems

    BARRY SCHECK, PAUL CATES, pcates at innocenceproject.org Scheck is the co-director of the Innocence Project, which “works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.” He said today: “Troy Davis was executed in spite of serious doubt about his guilt. The state clemency system in…

  • Execution of Troy Davis and the “Culture of Killing”

    AP reports: “Georgia executed Troy Davis on Wednesday night for the murder of an off-duty police officer, a crime he denied committing right to the end as supporters around the world mourned and declared that an innocent man was put to death. … He told relatives of Mark MacPhail that his 1989 slaying was not…

  • UN Speech on Palestine: “Yes, Mr. Obama, Peace is Hard…”

    The New York Times reports: “President Obama declared his opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood through the Security Council on Wednesday, throwing the weight of the United States directly in the path of the Arab democracy movement even as he hailed what he called the democratic aspirations that have taken hold throughout the…

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