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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  • Iranian Election Stolen?

    PATRICK DOHERTY, via Kate Brown Deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, Doherty co-wrote today’s Washington Post piece “The Iranian People Speak” with Ken Ballen of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion. The piece states: “The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people.…

  • Does the AMA Represent Doctors?

    President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at the American Medical Association in Chicago on Monday. AARON CARROLL, M.D., M.S. Lead author of a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on doctors’ views on a national health program, Carroll is associate professor of pediatrics and director of the Center for Health Policy and…

  • Soldier Refusing Deployment to Afghanistan

    VICTOR AGOSTO Available for a limited number of interviews, Agosto, a soldier based at Fort Hood in Texas, is publicly refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan. He recently wrote on military forms: “There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any…

  • Iranian Election

    MUHAMMAD SAHIMI Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. Several of his articles about the election are available here. He also recently wrote a New York Times oped titled “Iran’s Power Struggle.” He contrasted Iran’s election system with U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. NIKI AKHAVAN Akhavan is…

  • Holocaust Museum Shooting

    LEONARD ZESKIND Zeskind is author of Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. More Information DAVID NEIWERT Neiwert is author of the just-released book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right as well as three other books on right-wing extremism and its effects on…

  • $200 Billion Supplemental: * Afghanistan * IMF and European Banks

    The current version of the supplemental spending bill contains about $100 billion for war in Iraq and Afghanistan and also about $100 billion for the IMF. A House vote in May passed with overwhelming Republican support and 51 Democrats voting against — but this did not include the IMF funding, which Republicans are opposing. This…

  • Congress Hears Single Payer

    On Wednesday, a House subcommittee dealing with health is scheduled to hold a hearing titled “Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option” at 10:30 a.m. Also on Wednesday, there will be a briefing on healthcare reform, “How Do We Pay For It?” at 2237 Rayburn House Office Building at 1:30 p.m. Interviews are available with…

  • Hamas Letter to Obama

    Obama administration envoy George Mitchell is traveling to the Mideast. Rep. Donna Edwards recently returned from Gaza. As Obama was traveling to Cairo, the Palestinian group Hamas, which won the most recent Palestinian election, sent a letter to President Obama through the feminist peace group CODEPINK, which just had a delegation in Gaza. Here is…

  • European Perspectives: * Foreign Policy * Economy

    PATRICK SEALE Seale is a British journalist now living in France and a leading expert on the Mideast. His books include Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. His most recent piece is titled “A New Middle East Alliance.” More Information ALBERT SCHARENBERG Scharenberg is a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the…

  • Obama in 2002 on Egypt and Saudi Arabia

    “Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.” — Barack Obama,…

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