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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  • New Orleans

    CHRIS KROMM SUE STURGIS Executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies, Kromm is currently in New Orleans and posting on the group’s “Facing South” blog. He said today: “Gustav exposes how vulnerable the Gulf Coast still is three years after Katrina, from the levees to coastal land loss. Even if this one didn’t cause…

  • Palin’s Record

    SHANNYN MOORE KELLY WALTERS Moore co-hosts a talkshow on KWHL in Anchorage. She said today: “Palin called into our show 45 minutes before going on stage with John McCain — and she said we were the only outlet she was calling. … Palin is against abortion rights even in the case of incest and rape…

  • Martin Luther King: “Our Only Hope…”

    Sen. Barack Obama speaks at Invesco Field in Denver to accept the Democratic Party presidential nomination tonight, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the National March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Here are excerpts from King’s sermon “Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break…

  • Assessing Party Conventions

    GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of the forthcoming Feminism and Inequality, Mink is scrutinizing various portions of the Democratic Party platform on her blog. She was featured on IPA’s recent news release titled “Is Obama Clinton 2.0?.” ELIZABETH SANDERS Sanders…

  • Biden and Dividing Iraq

    Reuters recently reported: “Across racial and religious boundaries, Iraqi politicians … bemoaned Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s choice of running mate, known in Iraq as the author of a 2006 plan to divide the country into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.” VERA BEAUDIN SAEEDPOUR Editor of Kurdish Life and the International Journal of Kurdish Studies, Saeedpour…

  • Obama and Afghanistan

    Reuters reports: “The United Nations said on Tuesday it had found convincing evidence that 90 Afghan civilians, most of them children, were killed in air strikes by U.S.-led coalition forces in western Afghanistan last week.” SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, Kolhatkar said today: “The war in Afghanistan…

  • D.C. Statehood Out of Democratic Platform

    ANISE JENKINS Jenkins is with the Stand Up! for Democracy in D.C. Coalition (Free D.C). She said today: “Non-voting U.S. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks at the Democratic convention Tuesday night. She is the vice-chair of the DNC Platform Committee this year as she was in 2004. “Statehood for D.C. was dropped from the…

  • * Health Care * Michelle Obama

    CLAUDIA FEGAN, MD Co-author of the book Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from the Canadian Experience, Fegan is former president of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “The reason I’m at the convention is that we have millions more people who are uninsured than when George Bush became…

  • Biden: The Senator from MasterCard/MBNA?

    JONATHAN TASINI Tasini is executive director of the Labor Research Association and editor of the blog “Working Life.” He just wrote the pieces “Biden and Bankruptcy” and “Is Joe Biden Good For Labor? Mostly, Yes.” DANNY SCHECHTER Director of the new film “In Debt We Trust” and author of the new book Plunder, Schechter said…

  • Biden: What Kind of Foreign Policy “Experience”?

    STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, Zunes will be in Denver for the first few days of the Democratic Convention. His recent pieces include “Obama’s Right Turn?” He said today: “One of Obama’s strongest distinctions from McCain was his wisdom and courage…

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