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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  • Did North Korea Break the Rules? Does the U.S.? Does Israel?

    In Prague on Sunday, Obama addressed nuclear policy, saying that North Korea “broke the rules once again.” Today, speaking in Turkey, he said the U.S. does not seek conflict with Muslim countries. JOHN FEFFER Feffer just wrote the piece “What’s Up with North Korea?” — which states: “North Korea has signed the appropriate international protocols…

  • NATO; Wall Street; Nevada Protests Against War

    REINER BRAUN Braun is in Strasbourg, where NATO meetings are being held. He is with the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and is able to arrange media interviews with many others from various countries protesting against NATO. The group is a leading organization in a broad anti-NATO coalition, which recently put out a…

  • G-20 Economics

    PAT DEVINE Devine is an honorary research fellow in social science at the University of Manchester. His books include Democracy and Economic Planning: The Political Economy of a Self-Governing Society, An Introduction to Industrial Economics and the just-published Feel Bad Britain: How to Make It Better. He is able to assess the G-20 meeting, global…

  • Why Does NATO Still Exist?

    JAN OBERG Currently in Sweden, Oberg will be in Istanbul from Sunday evening to Tuesday, overlapping with Obama’s time there. He is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research. He said today: “Whatever reasonable purpose NATO might have served has long ended. For NATO, 60 is a good age to retire. It…

  • With Obama in Europe: Critical Perspectives

    MARTIN KHOR Available for a limited number of interviews, Khor is executive director of the South Center, a think tank of developing countries. He recently presented a paper to the UN, which begins: “The extraordinarily serious global economic crisis has its origins in the developed countries. Developing countries are not responsible, but they are severely…

  • “Globalization from Below”

    ARUN GUPTA Gupta is editor of The Indypendent newspaper in New York City focusing on economics. He recently wrote the piece “The Great Unraveling.” Gupta said today: “A different reality awaits President Obama as heads to Europe to meet with other leaders of the G-20 … On Sunday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called on…

  • Afghanistan and Pakistan

    SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, Kolhatkar said today in response to Obama’s statement this morning: “When the president talks about ‘defeating’ Al Qaeda, it is crucial to ask what exactly that means. Does it mean killing every last member of Al Qaeda? When the president talks about…

  • Mexico and the “War on Drugs”

    JOHN GIBLER This week, Gibler is going back and forth between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. He is author of the new book Mexico Unconquered: Chronicles of Power and Revolt. Gibler said today: “As the violence related to drug trafficking plagues Mexico, the United States government still refuses to acknowledge the failure of the so-called…

  • Assessing Nuclear Power 30 Years After Three Mile Island

    HARVEY WASSERMAN Author of the new book Solartopia: Our Green-Powered Earth, AD 2030 (which includes an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.), Wasserman just wrote the piece “People Died at Three Mile Island,” which states: “In March of 1980, I went into the region and compiled a range of interviews clearly indicating widespread health damage…

  • Rule by “Hedge Fund Democrats”

    NOMI PRINS Prins just wrote the piece “Geithner’s Plan: Pure Plunder” for Mother Jones magazine. Prins is a senior fellow at Demos and is the author of two books: Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America and Jacked: How Conservatives Are Picking Your Pocket. She is a former investment banker turned journalist. She used…

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