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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  • Blagojevich and Stadium Deal

    Reuters reports: “Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on criminal charges on Tuesday, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Democrat President-elect Barack Obama, federal prosecutors said. “Blagojevich was also accused of threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of the Chicago…

  • * Killing 9/11 Suspects? * Pardoning Bush Officials?

    LISA HAJJAR Hajjar, chair of the Law and Society Program at the University of California-Santa Barbara, said today: “The paradox is that both KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and his fellow ‘high values’ are aligned with still-President Bush and his allies in wanting the death of the former. But the difference between ‘war’ and ‘law’ includes…

  • Questioning Plans to Increase U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

    The lead story in USA Today this morning reports that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan told the newspaper “he has asked the Pentagon for more than 20,000 soldiers, Marines and airmen” to augment the American forces in that country. Gen. David McKiernan is quoted as saying that U.S. troop levels of 55,000 to 60,000…

  • Chicago Sit-in

    AP is reporting: “The 200 workers demanding severance and vacation pay have become a national symbol for thousands of employees laid off nationwide as the economy continues to sour. They occupied the plant of their former employer, Republic Windows and Doors, after the company abruptly fired them last week.” BILL FLETCHER Fletcher is co-founder of…

  • Sunday on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” — Norman Solomon and “War Made Easy”

    For the first time, the recent documentary film “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” — based on the book of the same name by Norman Solomon — will be the subject of a C-SPAN focus this Sunday, December 7. Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is…

  • “Cutting Auto Wages Not the Answer”

    MARK BRENNER JANE SLAUGHTER Brenner and Slaughter are with Labor Notes, an independent periodical on labor based in Detroit. They just wrote the piece “Cutting Wages Won’t Solve Detroit 3’s Crisis” for the Detroit News in which they state: “No matter how you cut the numbers, demolishing auto workers’ living standards will not transform the…

  • Escalating the War in Afghanistan

    ANAND GOPAL Afghanistan correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. More Information SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. More Information NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon, the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, is executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He said…

  • Richardson and Wen Ho Lee

    ROGER HU An Obama volunteer and Obama delegate, Hu is a spokesperson for WenHoLee.org, a grassroots effort that has sent a letter to the Obama transition team. The letter begins: “As concerned citizens, we write to express our opposition to the appointment of Bill Richardson as the Secretary of Commerce. Our objection relates to Richardson’s…

  • Auto Solutions: * Green Jobs * Nationalize GM

    WENDY THOMPSON Thompson, a retired worker at American Axle in Detroit and former president of UAW Local 235, is helping organize a caravan of auto workers to D.C. There will be a rally seeing the caravan off on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Metropolitan Center for High Technology in Detroit, and it will arrive…

  • WMD Report — Ignoring Root Causes?

    ABC News is reporting: “A biological or nuclear attack is likely to occur somewhere around the globe during the Obama administration or shortly thereafter, a new congressionally mandated report has warned. “The report, titled ‘The World at Risk,’ starkly states, ‘The commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it…

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