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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  • Military Sexual Assault Against Female Soldiers: Class Action Lawsuit Filed

    AP is reporting today that a group of “17 current and former soldiers filed a federal class action lawsuit accusing the Pentagon” of failing to respond to a pattern of sexual abuse and harassment. HELEN BENEDICT Author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq, Benedict said today: “I’ve interviewed over…

  • Obama’s Budget and Women

    GWENDOLYN MINK 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 just wrote the piece “Obama Sends Mom’s Beloved Program to the Gallows,” which states: “Among the many social programs the Obama FY…

  • Egypt: Mubarak Out, Is Democracy Coming?

    Dr. AIDA SEIF EL-DAWLA El-Dawla is with the Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture in Cairo. She was profiled by Time magazine as a global hero in 2004. She sent an email to the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency…

  • Budget

    Gray is author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics and a regular contributor to The Progressive magazine and CounterPunch. He said today: “The proposed $4 trillion budget targets cutting ‘non-defense discretionary spending,’ or programs that benefit low-income Americans, which makes up less than one-quarter of the overall budget. “An earlier…

  • Egypt: Lessons and Future

    Porter just wrote the piece “The Triumph of Leaderless Revolutions,” which states: “‘Leaderless revolutions,’ as seen currently in North Africa, pose important challenges to outside media and to foreigners, generally, seeking authoritative voices to clarify the picture of fast-moving events. But genuine revolutions are made from below, with the myriad energies and objectives of hundreds…

  • Egypt: The Next Move

    The analysts listed below are in the U.S. and Egypt, which is 7 hours ahead of U.S. ET. For online resources see: accuracy.org/online-resources-on-egypt Dr. AIDA SEIF AL-DAWLA, Dr. MOSTAFA HUSSEIN Hussein is a doctor at Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture in Cairo; Al-Dawla is a psychiatrist with the group. She was profiled by Time…

  • Egyptian Torture Victim: Suleiman “Should be Arrested”

    Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author in Sydney, Australia. He just interviewed Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian who wrote the book “My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t.” Loewenstein’s web page features audio of a new interview with Habib in which he says of Suleiman: “He should be arrested, he should…

  • Omar Suleiman, “Egypt’s Torturer-in-Chief,” Tied to False Iraq WMD Tortured “Intel”

    A human rights lawyer, Katherine Hawkins has been a researcher for Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side and the new piece “Who is Omar Suleiman?” in The New Yorker Mayer writes: “Suleiman has headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity, he was the CIA’s point man in Egypt for renditions –…

  • Egypt: Frank Wisner and the Nexus of U.S. Interests

    Vijay Prashad recently wrote the piece “Frank Wisner in Cairo: The Empire’s Bagman.” “Both the U.S. State Department and the CIA have long used the term ‘stability’ as their preferred goal for the world order. To those who live under oppressive regimes, instability is the general course of their lives: the vagaries of poverty and…

  • Egyptian Activists Demand Resignation of Mubarak

    A member of the April 6 Youth Movement, Asmaa Mahfouz posted several YouTube videos, including one on January 18 that has been credited by many with having helped spark the protests in Egypt that began on January 25; for example, “Equal Rights Takes to the Barricades” by Mona El-Naggar in the New York Times. See…

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