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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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  • Scrutinizing U.S. Goals in Afghanistan

    GARETH PORTER Porter recently wrote the piece “Obama Had Rejected His Own Speech’s Surge Rationale,” which states that Obama in his West Point speech “said the escalation was for a ‘vital national interest’ and invoked the threat of attacks from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, asserting that such attacks ‘are now being planned as I speak.’…

  • Afghanistan War a “Folly”

    THOMAS E. MAHANY Mahany, a Vietnam War veteran (101st Airborne Division), now a stonemason and artist from Michigan, has been on a water-only fast in front of the White House since Veterans Day. He sent Obama a second letter yesterday, stating: “The policy of procuring soldiers through the Presidential Authority of Stop-Loss, USC 12305, Title…

  • Afghanistan Escalation

    PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee just wrote the piece “Paying Off the Warlords, Anatomy of an Afghan Culture of Corruption.” He is an investigative journalist, senior editor at CorpWatch and author of Halliburton’s Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War and “Iraq, Inc. REESE ERLICH Freelance foreign correspondent Erlich has covered…

  • Repression in Honduras

    SERGIO MONCADA A co-founder of Hondurans for Democracy, Moncada is a D.C.-based environmental policy analyst. He said today: “We’re gravely disappointed that the State Department has said it will recognize the results of Sunday’s fraudulent election. We’re getting reports of widespread fear and intimidation by the military, especially in rural areas. The U.S. has taken…

  • Economists Opposing Fed Audit “on Payroll”

    The Los Angeles Times reports: “Ron Paul wins a key battle in war to open Fed’s books.” Huffington Post senior congressional correspondent Ryan Grim writes: “As the debate over an audit of the Federal Reserve intensifies in the House, one camp is trotting out eight academics that it calls a ‘political cross section of prominent…

  • Veteran Fasting Outside White House

    THOMAS E. MAHANY Mahany, a Vietnam War veteran (101st Airborne Division), now a stonemason and artist from Michigan, has been fasting in front of the White House since Veterans Day. He sent Obama the following letter the day after Veterans Day: Dear Mr. President, In May of 1970 I spent 29 days in Lafayette Square…

  • China, U.S. and Global Warming

    SIMONE LOVERA Based in Paraguay, Lovera is co-founder of the Global Forest Coalition. She said today: “The U.S. per capita carbon dioxide emissions are so much higher than China’s emissions. In 2005, the U.S. was nearly 23.5 while China is 5.5 [tons of CO2 per person per year]. It’s inappropriate for the U.S. to be…

  • Hunger: * Record in U.S. * Global Meeting

    The Washington Post reports today: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to…

  • Washington as Wall Street’s “Biggest Profit Center”

    ROBERT WEISSMAN Public Citizen today released a report titled “Financial Industry Invests Heavily in Key Lawmakers.” The group states: “The industry — including banks, investment firms, insurance companies and real estate companies — has given $42 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers and their leadership political action committees since the current election cycle began in…

  • Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Prosecution

    DAVID SWANSON Cofounder of AfterDowningStreet.org, Swanson is author of the recently released book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He said today: “Providing charges and trials, even belatedly, even for selected prisoners is progress. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was tortured, and our president has forbidden our Justice Department to prosecute…

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