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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  • * Botching Health Care Reform * Ballot Measures in Mass.

    QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., via MARK ALMBERG Young, national coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization of 18,000 doctors who support a single-payer, Medicare-for-All approach to reform, said today: “Health care reform was botched. People wanted serious reform and didn’t get it. What was adopted was so defective that ultra-conservatives were able to…

  • Election Perspectives

    BILL FLETCHER Jr. Fletcher is editorial board member of The Black Commentator and co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. He recently wrote the piece “Enthusiasm?: I Am Not Interested in Things Getting Worse!” JOHN R. MacARTHUR MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers…

  • Election Protection

    WENDY WEISER LEE ROWLAND, VISHAL AGRAHARKAR, via Jeanine Plant-Chirlin Weiser is director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Project. Rowland is counsel, Agraharkar is pro bono counsel and Plant-Chirlin is acting communications director for the Center. Weiser said today: “The biggest challenges to the vote this year are continued problems with the voter…

  • Angry Populism, Prejudice, and Superficial Punditry

    CHIP BERLET Berlet is senior analyst at Political Research Associates. He recently wrote the piece “Tea Party Loyalists Biased Against Blacks, Latinos, Immigrants and Gays.” Berlet also recently delivered the talk “Reframing Resentments in the Tea Party Movement,” which states: “The signs, slogans, stories, and tropes of the Tea Party troops are often incomprehensible to…

  • Behind “Voter Fraud” Charges

    CHRIS KROMM Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm said today: “Outlandish claims of ‘voter fraud’ — while backed up by little evidence — are reaching a fever pitch. In the 2010 election season, Tea Party groups like True the Vote in Texas are calling for ‘millions’ of volunteer poll-watchers to challenge and…

  • Charles Koch Refuses to Debate Prop 23 with California Student Leader

    Student Joel Francis presented a debate challenge letter in person to the Wichita, Kansas offices of Koch Industries’ CEO Charles Koch. Koch has bankrolled the California ballot initiative, Proposition 23, with at least $1 million. JOEL FRANCIS, via Gabriel Elsner California State University, Los Angeles senior, former Marine and debate team veteran Joel Francis traveled…

  • WikiLeaks Documents Show U.S. Helicopter Killed Iraqis Trying to Surrender

    JOSH STIEBER Stieber is a veteran of the Bravo Company documented in the video “Collateral Murder,” released earlier this year by WikiLeaks. The British Telegraph reports: “An American military legal adviser told helicopter crew that Iraqi men were valid targets as they could not surrender to aircraft, the documents show. “The Apache helicopter killed the…

  • “Travesty at Guantanamo”

    LISA HAJJAR, [currently at Guantanamo] Hajjar is an editor of Middle East Report and an associate professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara. She is covering events from Guantanamo Bay. She recently wrote the piece “Travesty in Progress: Omar Khadr and the U.S. Military Commissions.” MICHAEL RATNER President of the Center for Constitutional…

  • Administration Targeting Record Number of Whistleblowers

    JESSELYN RADACK Radack is homeland security and human rights director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit public interest group based in Washington, D.C. She is a whistleblower herself and is closely following the cases of whistleblowers whom the Obama administration is prosecuting. She said today: “Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers, in…

  • WikiLeaks Documents Expose Realities of Iraq War

    Several media outlets have released information based on documents from WikiLeaks about the Iraq war this afternoon. See WikiLeaks Twitter feed PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee is a regular columnist for the British Guardian, which has had access to the WikiLeaks documents. He is the author of three forthcoming articles, which will appear in Comment is Free…

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