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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  • 9/11 and Afghanistan

    KATHARINA FEIL Feil is with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11th who have united to turn their grief into action for peace. The group released a statement: “As the 8th anniversary of the loss of our loved ones approaches, we at September 11th…

  • Obama’s Healthcare Speech

    The following analysts are available for interviews on healthcare policy and Obama’s speech this evening. Several of them will also be participating in a live blog this evening at: http://ipaccuracy.wordpress.com . DON McCANNE, M.D. Senior health policy fellow with the group Physicians for a National Health Program, McCanne writes a daily health policy update at:…

  • Is the Purpose of Education to Make Money?

    HENRY GIROUX, http://www.henryagiroux.com Giroux’s books include the recently-released Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability? and The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex. He just wrote the piece “The Corporate Stranglehold on Education,” which states: “In the age of money and profit, academic subjects gain stature almost exclusively through their exchange value on…

  • American Workers Cheated

    A team of national labor market experts has released a groundbreaking study of the low-wage workforce in the nation’s three largest cities, finding that core employment laws — like the minimum wage and overtime pay — are being aggressively and systematically violated in some of the economy’s fastest-growing industries. The report can be viewed here.…

  • Unemployment Numbers

    NPR reports: “The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that in August, the jobless rate hit 9.7 percent, up from 9.4 in June.” MAX FRAAD WOLFF Wolff, an instructor at the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University who regularly writes on the economy, said this morning: “Today another 216,000 job losses were…

  • The Real Death Panels

    More than one out of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient’s physician, are rejected by California’s largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation’s biggest state, according to data released Wednesday by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.…

  • Just Back from Afghanistan

    Just back from Afghanistan, Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon and veteran Rick Reyes are available for interviews. While in Kabul they met with scores of officials and policy analysts at UN agencies, the World Bank, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies (run by the…

  • From Kabul: Post-Election Crisis

    Currently in Afghanistan’s capital, these three commentators are available for a limited number of interviews from Kabul before Tuesday. (Phone calls from U.S. to Kabul, which is 8.5 hours ahead of U.S. ET, may require multiple tries.) They can also be contacted to arrange interviews from the United States beginning on Thursday. REESE ERLICH Erlich…

  • Four Years After Katrina

    This Friday marks four years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. CHRIS KROMM Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm said today: “New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still waiting for Washington to show leadership in the Katrina recovery. Four years after the storm, one out of three New Orleans addresses…

  • Bernanke at the Fed: Captain of the Titanic?

    ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach is author of the book Deception and Abuse at the Fed. He said today: “The Federal Reserve operates with far too much secrecy. The officials leading the Fed today preside over an organization that is run in substantial part by the…

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