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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  • Social Security “Facts”

    Last week in an address to the Hoover Institution Rep. Eric Cantor said, “We’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs (Social Security and Medicare) cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.” NANCY ALTMAN Altman is co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security…

  • Jobs Numbers, Cheered in Washington, “Reveal Weak Roots of Recovery”

    MARK BRENNER Brenner, labor economist and director of Labor Notes, said today: “Today’s better-than-expected jobs numbers are being trumpeted by the Obama administration and other beltway insiders, anxious for signs that the Great Recession is over and recovery underway. But examining the 230,000 new private sector jobs created last month offers less reason to cheer…

  • “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal”

    PEPE ESCOBAR, [in Brazil] Skype: pepeasia Escobar just wrote the piece “Exposed: The U.S.-Saudi Libya Deal,” which states: “You invade Bahrain. We take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. This, in short, is the essence of a deal struck between the Barack Obama administration and the House of Saud. Two diplomatic sources at the United Nations…

  • As Japan Disaster Spreads, Threatening U.S., Obama Embraces Nuclear Power

    ARJUN MAKHIJANI Available for a limited number of interviews, Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, which has released a series of papers on the Japan nuclear disaster. The most recent is titled “Radioactive Iodine Releases from Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Reactors May Exceed Those of Three Mile Island by Over 100,000…

  • Libya: * Who Are the Rebels? * WikiLeaks

    VIJAY PRASHAD Author of The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, Prashad said today: “We should be very careful when we think of the rebels. We should not confuse all the rebellions across the Arab world and consider them all to be the same. There are some important differences. Also, the United…

  • Libya: “Hidden Agendas” and “Vital Interests”

    JAN OBERG, Skype: janoberg Secretary of State Clinton is in London today at a conference with other governments participating in the bombing of Libya, including those of Britain, France and Qatar. Based in Sweden, Oberg, who is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, recently wrote the piece “Libya: Contradictions, Foolish Assumptions…

  • Bahrain Repression: Saudi Troops, U.S. Arms, Al-Jazeera Silence

    A source in Bahrain who wishes to remain anonymous for their personal safety told the Institute of Public Accuracy this afternoon: “The regime has just arrested Lin Noueihed of Reuters and some other reporters. [Noueihed’s last piece] “Other countries are getting rid of their emergency laws, while Bahrain is imposing a new martial law. Things…

  • AFRICOM as Libya Bombing Motive

    HORACE CAMPBELL Campbell is professor of African American studies and political science at Syracuse University and is currently working on a book on AFRICOM (United States Africa Command). He said today: “U.S. involvement in the Libyan bombing is being turned into a public relations ploy for AFRICOM. AFRICOM is fundamentally a front for U.S. military…

  • Chernobyl Experts: Fukushima Could be Worse

    Several experts on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (which took place 25 years ago on April 26) are in the U.S. and currently available for a limited number of interviews. ALEXEY V. YABLOKOV, JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD Yablokov is senior co-author and Sherman is consulting editor of Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the…

  • Japan Parliamentarians: Expand Evacuation Zone

    In the first of a three-day sign-on, ten members of the Japanese Diet signed a petition seeking that the Japanese government: 1. “Evacuate pregnant mothers and pre-school age children from within the 30 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 2. “Drastically increase the general public evacuation zone beyond the 20 km radius.”…

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