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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  • Byrd, Kagan Hearings and the Constitution

    CBS News reports: “The Senate Judiciary Committee will suspend Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday while the late-Sen. Robert Byrd lies in state at the Capitol.” Byrd famously made a habit of carrying a copy of the U.S. Constitution in his shirt pocket. In 2004,…

  • Did Kagan Cover for Dershowitz’s Plagiarism?

    While Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has been extensively questioned in her hearings about her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School regarding military recruiters on campus, her role in a controversy involving charges of plagiarism against Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz (as well as other plagiarism scandals which erupted while she was head…

  • “Why Petraeus Won’t Salvage This War”

    Confirmation hearings for Gen. David Petraeus as top military commander in Afghanistan are being held today. GARETH PORTER Porter just wrote “Why Petraeus Won’t Salvage This War” for Foreign Policy. The piece states: “As Gen. David Petraeus prepares for his next command, his supporters are hoping he can rescue a failing war for the second…

  • Repression Increasing One Year After Honduras Coup

    One year ago today, Manuel Zelaya was overthrown as president of Honduras. A general strike and other activities are expected today. ADRIENNE PINE Assistant professor of anthropology at American University and author of Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras, Pine has been in Honduras for the last month. She just wrote…

  • Kagan “Similar to Bush on Executive Power”

    FRANCIS BOYLE Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle is author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. The Los Angles Times on Sunday wrote that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s “most audacious move [while Dean at Harvard Law School] was to recruit Jack Goldsmith, a lawyer who had served in the George W. Bush…

  • G20 Gets a “D”

    Leaders of the G8/G20, including President Obama, are meeting in Toronto beginning Friday. CLAYTON THOMAS-MULLER DALLAS GOLDTOOTH Currently in Toronto, Thomas-Muller is Tar Sands Campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He said today: “The G20 is continuing down a road of business as usual for big oil. The Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada is an…

  • McChrystal

    NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon today wrote the piece “From Great Man to Great Screwup: Behind the McChrystal Uproar,” which states: “But the most profound aspects of Rolling Stone’s article ‘The Runaway General’ have little to do with the general. The takeaway is — or should be — that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is an insoluble…

  • Peterson’s “Rigged” Drive to Cut Social Security

    BARBARA KENNELLY, PAMELA TAINTER CAUSEY Kennelly is president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security; Causey is communications director for the group, which has written several pieces that critique the Peterson Foundation including “Ahhh … the Good Old Days … Debtor’s Prisons and No Entitlements” and “The Campaign Against Social Security.” See: http://www.ncpssm.org/entitledtoknow/?tag=pete-peterson DEAN…

  • UN Group: Israel Should Fully Lift Gaza Blockade

    Reuters is reporting: “Nothing short of the full lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza would allow the territory to be rebuilt, the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees said on Monday, a day after Israel said it would ease its siege. … “‘We need to have the blockade fully lifted,’ said spokesman Christopher Gunness of…

  • Rowley, McGovern and Ellsberg — Statement on Wikileaks

    The British Guardian reports: “The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks says it plans to release a secret military video of one of the deadliest U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan in which scores of children are believed to have been killed.” In April, Wikileaks released the “Collateral Murder” video showing U.S. soldiers in Iraq killing civilians including a…

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