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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  • U.S.-Chinese Relations

    Henry Rosemont is visiting professor of religious studies at Brown University and author of several books including A Chinese Mirror: Moral Reflections on Political Economy and translations of Chinese classics. He said today: “China is a threat to the United States only if the United States assumes that it is, and pursues an aggressive foreign…

  • “From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State”

    Gareth Porter just wrote the piece “From Military-Industrial Complex to Permanent War State,” which states: “Fifty years after Dwight D. Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 speech on the ‘military-industrial complex,’ that threat has morphed into a far more powerful and sinister force than Eisenhower could have imagined. It has become a ‘Permanent War State,’ with the…

  • Obama’s New Approach to Regulation Is “Misguided”

    President of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman said today: “The dominant fact of American life in recent years has been grossly inadequate public protections. In the past several years, under-regulation and corporate disregard of safety rules have resulted in multiple salmonella and E. coli outbreaks, a flood of lead-tainted toys, a massive and environmentally devastating oil…

  • Tunisian Academic: “Will Not Recognize This Band of Thugs”

    NOUREDDINE JEBNOUN, [beginning Tues. 2:00 pm ET] Available for a very limited number of interviews with major media outlets, Jebnoun is visiting assistant professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. He said today: “Today, in Tunisia, a new government has been announced and mainly led by the same old guard of…

  • Haiti: Return of Jean Claude Duvalier

    EZILI DANTO Danto is president of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network. She just wrote the piece “Obama’s change in Haiti: The Return of Jean Claude Duvalier.” Danto states that Duvalier, a past dictator of Haiti, could not have been able to return without the cooperation of the U.S. and France. She notes that meanwhile, Jean-Bertrand…

  • Tunisia: U.S. Backing Dictatorship over Pro-Democracy Movement

    CNN is reporting: “Police in Tunisia’s capital city used batons and tear gas to clear a peaceful demonstration on Friday. … [This occurs] after days of riots that have killed at least 21 people.” STEPHEN ZUNES Zunes just wrote the piece “Pro-Democracy Uprising Fails to Keep Washington From Backing Tunisian Dictatorship.” Zunes is professor of…

  • Over 400 Gun Deaths Since Tucson?

    Rebecca Peters is a lawyer who was until recently director of the International Action Network on Small Arms, the global movement against gun violence. She said today: “In other countries — Germany, Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, Finland, Belgium — even a single tragedy of this nature leads to a commission of inquiry and to legal…

  • Cost of War: Breaking It Down

    Jo Comerford is executive director of the National Priorities Project; Chris Hellman is budget analyst for the group, which as part of the re-launch of its website, CostofWar.com, has just issued “What’s at Stake?” — 50 state-level briefs focused on the impact of war spending. Hellman said today: “In state after state, tough decisions are being…

  • Martin Luther King Jr. on Violence

    “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. … “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world…

  • Haiti One Year After the Earthquake

    MELINDA MILES Founder and director of Let Haiti Live, a project of TransAfrica Forum, Miles has been doing relief and advocacy work on Haiti for more than a decade. She said today: “One year after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, there are over 1 million IDP’s [internally displaced persons], over 3,600 have died from a cholera epidemic…

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