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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  • Wall Street and Washington Downgrade America

    SCOTT KLINGER, scottklinger at businessforsharedprosperity.org Klinger is Director of Tax Policy for Business for Shared Prosperity, a network of forward-thinking business owners, executives and investors committed to building enduring economic progress on a strong foundation of opportunity, equity and innovation. He said today: “Wall Street and its Washington representatives downgraded America with disinvestment in Main…

  • Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Age of Fukushima

    “Against the backdrop of the disastrous Fukushima nuclear plant accident, I will speak of the absolute need for Japan to not only work to ban nuclear weapons but also to completely eradicate dependence on nuclear energy.” -Matashichi Oishi, a radiation victim from Bikini Atoll, the site of a U.S. hydrogen bomb test in 1954. See:…

  • U.S. “Special Operations” Forces Expanding

    NICK TURSE, nat9 at columbia.edu, http://www.tomdispatch.com, https://twitter.com/#!/NickTurse Turse is a fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and author of “The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.” He recently wrote “A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite.” In the article he says: “From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special…

  • Unemployment Insurance Hit by “Drastic” Budget Cuts

    CHRISTINE OWENS, via Norman Eng, neng at nelp.org, @NelpNews Owens is the executive director of the National Employment Law Project, which just released a report titled “Unraveling the Unemployment Insurance Lifeline.” She said today: “It’s disconcerting that these lawmakers would expend so much energy making cuts to state unemployment insurance programs when more people are…

  • Debt Deal Creates “‘Catfood Commission’ on Steroids”

    GWENDOLYN MINK, wendymink at gmail.com Available for a limited number of interviews, Mink is co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End. She said today: “The debt deal certainly is better than the Boehner Bill, and better still than the Tea Party…

  • “Super Congress” Budget Deal a “Turkey;” a “Lesson in Investment Theory of Political Parties”

    THOMAS FERGUSON, thomas.ferguson at umb.edu Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute. He said today: “Even by American legislative standards, this deal is a turkey and it’s totally appropriate that the new bipartisan Congressional committee should have to report at Thanksgiving. The…

  • “Medicare Is the Answer, Not the Problem”

    Saturday is the 46th anniversary of Medicare. MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D.,  mdpnhp at gmail.com Flowers is congressional fellow for the 18,000-member Physicians for a National Health Program. She has written recently: “Medicare Is the Answer, Not the Problem. Both Democrats and Republicans are missing the point by putting the emphasis on controlling Medicare and Medicaid costs…

  • Debt Ceiling “Theatre” not a “Balanced Approach”

    DAVE JOHNSON, djohnson at ourfuture.org, @dcjohnson Johnson is a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future. He said today: “Poll after poll shows that the public gets it. People understand that our deficits were caused by tax cuts for the wealthy, wars and increases in military budgets and the effects of the recession, and they want…

  • Environmentalist Sentenced to Two Years in Jail; Thousands of Political Arrests Since Obama Inauguration

    Reuters reports: “An environmental activist was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday in a federal court in Salt Lake City for defrauding the U.S. government by posing as a bidder for oil and gas drilling rights on Utah public lands. Tim DeChristopher, 29, had submitted the phony bids to derail an auction of…

  • Potential Medicaid Cuts Threaten Women, Elderly and Minorities

    STACY SANDERS, ssanders at wowonline.org, @wowonlinewow Sanders is the director of the Elder Economic Security Initiative, a branch of Wider Opportunities for Women. She said today: “With a decline in employer-based pensions and losses in personal retirement plans due to the recession, older Americans are struggling to make ends meet. Health care costs are a…

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