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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  • Turning Downturn into Depression?

    THOMAS FERGUSON Ferguson is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The first part of his article “Too Big to Bail: The ‘Paulson Put,’ Presidential Politics, and the Global Financial Meltdown,” written with Robert Johnson, appears in the next issue of the International Journal of Political Economy. He is the author of…

  • Assessing Geithner

    JANE D’ARISTA D’Arista is an economic analyst at the Financial Markets Center. She said today: “Secretary Geithner asserts that the new bailout approach is designed to provide the largest benefit at the least cost to taxpayers. Accordingly, it relies on guarantees in addition to direct lending by the Fed (with capital from the Treasury) and…

  • Solicitor General Nominee Hired Torture Memo Writer

    Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan is scheduled to have a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday for the position of solicitor general. She has frequently been mentioned as a possible nominee to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court. FRANCIS BOYLE Professor of law at the University of Illinois, Boyle…

  • Stimulus and the “Destructive Center”

    Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist Paul Krugman writes today in a piece titled “The Destructive Center“: “What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses? “A proud centrist. For…

  • Afghanistan: Endless War 2.0?

    Reuters reports: “Afghan President Hamid Karzai renewed criticism of U.S. and NATO-led forces on Wednesday and said he was determined his government would take a stronger role in the deployment and work of foreign troops. … The U.N. said on Tuesday the civilian death toll in 2008 had increased by 40 percent to 2,100, more…

  • * Iran * Afghanistan

    GARETH PORTER Porter recently wrote the piece “Is Gates Undermining Another Opening to Iran?” Porter is following the Iran envoy issue. He is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy and author of the book Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. More Information RAY…

  • Can the Stimulus Expand the Safety Net?

    Many media outlets have echoed a Wednesday front-page piece in the New York Times headlined “Relief Seen for Jobless and States in Health Care Plan,” which asserted: “The stimulus bill working its way through Congress is not just a package of spending increases and tax cuts intended to jolt the nation out of recession. For…

  • Obama Claims U.S. Not Born a Colonial Power

    “America was not born as a colonial power.” — Barack Obama in his interview on Tuesday with al-Arabiya ROXANNE DUNBAR-ORTIZ Author of the forthcoming Myth and Empire: Indigenous History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz said today in response to Obama’s claim: “The United States was founded as a European settler state, with maps and plans…

  • * Will Mitchell Go to Gaza? * What is Al-Arabiya?

    KATHY KELLY AUDREY STEWART AP reports that Mideast special envoy George Mitchell’s trip “will include stops in Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian West Bank and Saudi Arabia.” Kelly and Stewart are just back from six days in Gaza. Kelly is co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She said today: “Mitchell has such an opportunity to make…

  • Effective Stimulus: Food Stamps vs. Tax Cuts

    JOSH BIVENS Bivens is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, which has posted information contrasting the economic benefits of various stimulus provisions, per dollar spent: Food stamps: $1.73 Extend unemployment benefits: $1.64 Infrastructure spending: $1.59 Aid to states: $1.36 In contrast: Make dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent: $0.37 Corporate tax cuts: $0.30…

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