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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  • Poverty Policy

    GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End, Mink said today: “The Administration for Children and Families is THE critical agency for low-income families with children: It is the administrative center of federal poverty policy. Given its reach into family…

  • Mitchell as Mideast Envoy

    NASEER ARURI Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “This is Senator Mitchell’s second assignment in the Middle East since the year 2000, and it may not prove to be…

  • New Evidence: Top Intel Nominee Lied About Knowing of Massacre

    ALLAN NAIRN Currently in Indonesia, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews with major media outlets. A noted independent journalist, he runs the weblog “News and Comment.” He just wrote the piece “U.S. Intel Nominee Lied About ’99 Massacre. U.S., Church Documents Show Adm. Dennis Blair Knew of Church Killings Before Crucial Meeting,”…

  • “To the Muslim World…”

    ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah is co-founder of the Electronic Intifada web page and is author of the book One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. He said today of Obama’s speech: “When he talks about ‘the Muslim world,’ he is reinforcing the idea of conflict between ‘the West’ (which he also mentioned) and…

  • Will Obama Uphold his Oath?

    BRUCE FEIN Author of the book Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, Fein was a Justice Department attorney in the Nixon administration. Today he and Ralph Nader sent a letter to Barack Obama: “The United States ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture in 1994. Article 12 of the…

  • Inauguration and Citizenship

    “I don’t think Dr. King would endorse any of us. I think what he would call upon the American people to do is to hold us accountable, and this goes to the core differences, I think, in this campaign. I believe change does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up.…

  • * Healthcare as Stimulus? * Another Wall Street Giveaway?

    GERI JENKINS CHARLES IDELSON SHUM PRESTON Jenkins is co-president of the California Nurses Association. The group has just released a study that finds: “Establishing a national single-payer style healthcare reform system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs, and infusing $317 billion in new business and public…

  • Obama Inaugural and King’s Legacy

    The following commentators offer different perspectives on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the meaning of Obama’s inauguration: Rev. GRAYLAN S. HAGLER Hagler is national president of Ministers for Racial, Social and Economic Justice of The United Church of Christ. He said today: “In many respects what is happening early next week with…

  • Getting Through the Barriers to Gaza

    LAILA EL-HADDAD A freelance journalist currently in North Carolina, El-Haddad writes the “A Mother From Gaza” blog. HUWAIDA ARRAF, (Cyprus/Gaza) EWA JASIEWICZ, (Gaza) RAMZI KYSIA, (U.S.) The Free Gaza Movement ship, “Spirit of Humanity,” left Cyprus Wednesday on an emergency mission to Gaza. The group states that the ship “is expected to arrive in Gaza…

  • Treasury Pick and Openness

    Timothy Geithner, President-elect Obama’s nominee as Treasury Secretary and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2003, has had his Senate hearing postponed until Jan. 21. ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach wrote the book Deception and Abuse at the Fed: Henry B. Gonzalez…

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