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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  • Is Obama Clinton 2.0?

    KEVIN GRAY Gray is author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics and the forthcoming The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama. Gray said today: “Obama is slipping in the polls and I think it’s because he’s seen as going with the flow. He’s not taking on…

  • Assessing China and the Olympics

    JACQUES LESLIE Available for a very limited number of interviews, Leslie wrote the in-depth piece for Mother Jones, “The Last Empire: Can the World Survive China’s Rush to Emulate the American Way of Life?” Leslie’s latest book, Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment, won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress…

  • The Marketing of Cervical Cancer Drug

    The New York Times reports today in an extensive article titled “Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Fast Rise” that “the lightning-fast transition from newly minted vaccine to must-have injection in the United States and Europe represents a triumph of what the manufacturers call education and their critics call marketing. The vaccines, which offer…

  • Why Not Rate Candidates Like in the Olympics?

    WILLIAM POUNDSTONE A best-selling author, Poundstone has written the new book Gaming the Vote: Why Elections Aren’t Fair (and What We Can Do About It). He said today: “In the Olympics, we recognize that it’s possible for two competitors to both be ‘perfect 10s.’ A judge who feels that way can give both athletes the…

  • Paraguay: * Liberation Theology * End of an Era in Latin America?

    Fernando Lugo, a former bishop, was recently inaugurated as the president of Paraguay. The British Guardian today published a piece headlined: “Paraguay: Former slave gets cabinet position.” BLASE BONPANE Director of the Office of the Americas, Bonpane served as a Maryknoll priest in Guatemala and has written five books including Guerrillas of Peace: Liberation Theology…

  • Presidential Policies and Morality

    KATHY KELLY DAN PEARSON Kelly and Pearson are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, which is organizing the Witness Against War 2008, a 450-mile walk from Chicago to St. Paul “to challenge and nonviolently resist our country’s continuing war in and occupation of Iraq.” Kelly said today: “Our journey began in the City of Chicago,…

  • * Pakistan * Caucasus

    The Washington Post is reporting: “Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, once a top U.S. ally, is expected to resign in the next few days, according to Pakistani officials.” ALI AHSAN Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association in Pakistan, was the first person jailed when Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3,…

  • * “The Long War” * Russia and Expanding NATO

    ANDREW BACEVICH Professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich is author of the just-released The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. He also just wrote the piece “Is Perpetual War Our Future? Learning the Wrong Lessons from the Bush Era” and will be the guest for a full hour on…

  • Bush Policy on Russia and Georgia

    The New York Times reports today: “The United States took a series of steps that emboldened Georgia: sending advisers to build up the Georgian military, including an exercise last month with more than 1,000 American troops; pressing hard to bring Georgia into the NATO orbit…” Neither President Bush this morning nor Secretary of State Rice…

  • Movement on Health Care Reform?

    DAVID HIMMELSTEIN STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER Himmelstein and Woolhandler are professors of medicine at Harvard University and the co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. Woolhandler said today: “Grassroots, single-payer activists successfully pushed the Democratic Party Platform Committee to propose ‘guaranteed health care for all.’ This is a huge improvement from their previous language that merely…

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