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.”

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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.

    Read more »


  • 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…’

    Read more »


  • Was Flooding of New Orleans a “Natural Disaster”?

    IVOR VAN HEERDEN SANDY ROSENTHAL Author of The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina — the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist, van Heerden is featured in the new film “The Big Uneasy,” a documentary by Harry Shearer that is playing tonight in theaters across the country. Van Heerden is an adviser…

  • Distorting Martin Luther King: Critics of Beck and Sharpton

    Saturday, August 28 is the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Rallies are planned by Fox host Glenn Beck and by Al Sharpton. DEDRICK MUHAMMAD Muhammad just wrote a piece titled “A Dishonor to the Legacy of Dr. King,” which states: “Does…

  • Katrina Plus Five

    JORDAN FLAHERTY Author of the just-released book Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six, Flaherty said today: “I’m concerned about those who have been kept out of most discussions of the city’s future. More than 100,000 former New Orleanians remain displaced in 5,500 cities across every U.S. state. A recent survey found…

  • Disaster in Pakistan

    SNEHAL SHINGAVI Shingavi is an assistant professor of South Asian literature at the University of Texas in Austin. He addresses several aspects of the current crisis in his two-part interview with The Real News, “Why isn’t the world rushing to rescue Pakistan?” SHAHID MAHMOOD Mahmood was an editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in…

  • Egg Recall — “Consolidation Putting Consumers at Risk”

    PATTY LOVERA Assistant director of Food & Water Watch, Lovera said today: “This egg recall is not a fluke. It’s just the latest example of how the consolidation of food production puts consumers at risk. This particular recall is about two production facilities responsible for over 550 million eggs under 30 different labels, but large…

  • Assassination Squad in Afghanistan

    PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee just wrote the piece “The Secret Killers: Assassination in Afghanistan and Task Force 373,” which draws on the Afghanistan field reports recently exposed by WikiLeaks and now organized at DiaryDig.org. The piece states: “Task Force 373 may be a nightmare for Afghans. For the rest of us — now that WikiLeaks has…

  • How Fox Used “Raw Corporate Power” to Crush a Critic

    BARRY NOLAN The media watch group FAIR reports: “Boston TV newscaster Barry Nolan was outraged to learn back in 2008 that Fox host Bill O’Reilly was getting an award from the local chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. So Nolan made flyers documenting various O’Reilly outrages and distributed them at the…

  • Islam — and War

    DONNA MARSH O’CONNOR TALAT HAMDANI O’Connor and Hamdani are members of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. O’Connor’s daughter was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Hamdani is a Pakistani-American living in New York. Her son, Salman, was a New York City police cadet who disappeared on 9/11 and was wrongfully accused of participating in the…

  • Petraeus Media Blitz

    NORMAN SOLOMON, http://www.normansolomon.com Solomon today wrote the piece “Gen. Petraeus Goes to Media War,” which states: “Let’s be clear about what’s happening here. The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, with the evident approval of the White House, has launched a fierce media blitz to cripple the policy option of any significant military withdrawal a…

  • Big Polluters Funding Initiative to Gut California Environmental Law

    AP reported earlier this week: “The Texas-based oil companies that are the primary backers of a November ballot effort to suspend California’s global warming law are among the state’s biggest polluters, according to a report issued Tuesday by two groups advocating for inner-city residents. “Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp. have contributed more than $4.5…

Mastodon