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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  • Swine Flu and Meat Industry

    MIKE DAVIS Available for a limited number of interviews, Davis is author of The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. He just wrote the piece The Really Dangerous Swine Wear Suits. Davis’ other books include City of Quartz, Ecology of Fear, In Praise of Barbarians and Planet of Slums. His most…

  • Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change

    AFP reported this week: “Indigenous peoples, who have been hard hit by the ravages of global warming, were gathering in Alaska Monday for talks on the impact of climate change on native communities. ‘Indigenous peoples are on the front lines of this global problem, at a time when their cultures and livelihoods in traditional lands…

  • IMF and World Bank Meetings in Washington

    Finance ministers and central bankers from around the world are in Washington this week for semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. DR. PETER BUJARI, via Blair Hinderliter Bujari is a medical doctor and the founder and current executive director of the Human Development Trust based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In…

  • Torture and Accountability

    McClatchy reports today: “The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist. Such information would’ve provided a foundation for…

  • Obama Administration and Cuba

    In the aftermath of the Summit of the Americas, which ended Sunday in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the relationship between Washington and Cuba has become one of the major bones of contention between the U.S. government and almost all Latin American and Caribbean leaders. REESE ERLICH Erlich, foreign correspondent and author of Dateline Havana: The…

  • Obama in Latin America

    President Obama is scheduled to be in Trinidad and Tobago today for the Summit of the Americas. MARIA LUISA MENDONÇA Mendonça, based in São Paulo, Brazil, is director of the Social Network for Justice and Human Rights. She said today: “The expectation of grassroots movements in Latin America is to change the focus of the…

  • Taxes Going to Military Spending

    CAROL KIGER ALLEN Rev. ROBERT MOORE Allen is a retired economist and is on the board of the Coalition for Peace Action & Peace Action Education Fund in New Jersey. Moore is executive director for the group. Allen said today: “Tomorrow, we’ll be administering our ‘Penny Poll.’ People approaching the post office, many to mail…

  • The Great Tax Burden Shift: From the Rich to the Rest?

    The Institute for Policy Studies has just released a report titled “Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Our Economic Recovery Fairly.” Among the authors of the report available for interviews are: CHUCK COLLINS Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, said today: “Now is the time to reverse three decades…

  • Obama’s Afghanistan Plan Could Be His “Fatal Mistake”

    RITA LASAR Lasar is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Her brother Abraham Zelmanowitz died in the World Trade Center attack while trying to save a coworker, Ed Bayea, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, who could not leave. She just wrote the piece “Dear President Obama: Get Us Out of Afghanistan.” More…

  • * Obama in Iraq * Military Spending * Drone Attack Protests

    ADAM KOKESH An Iraq war veteran and a member of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Kokesh said today: “Obama’s plan is to continue the indefinite presence of 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and have an increased reliance on private contractors.” More Information More Information FRIDA BERRIGAN The military budget is being released…

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