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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  • A Resurgence of Separatist Terrorism in Iraq

    AP is reporting: “Suicide bombers, including at least three women, struck Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and Kurdish protesters in the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday, killing at least 57 people…” STEVE CONNORS and MOLLY BINGHAM Connors and Bingham are co-directors of the documentary “Meeting Resistance,” which features interviews with insurgents in Iraq. Connors said…

  • Obama’s Economic Team

    NAOMI KLEIN Available for a limited number of D.C.-based interviews, Klein is author of the book The Shock Doctrine and the recent piece “Obama’s Chicago Boys.” The piece notes: “Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, ‘Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I…

  • Activists Challenge the Siege of Gaza

    The Free Gaza Movement is organizing a boat of activists to enter Gaza by sea via Cyprus. Among the activists: HEDY EPSTEIN Born in Germany, Epstein is a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust. She said today: “I wish Sen. Obama had talked about walls not only in Berlin, but also when he was in Israel,…

  • Impeachment on the Table?

    The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today “on the Imperial Presidency of George W. Bush and possible legal responses.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: “While Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers of Michigan is not billing the hearing as an effort to impeach Bush, Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich will attend to make his…

  • Minimum Wage Hike

    The federal minimum wage will increase 70 cents per hour Thursday to $6.55 per hour. HOLLY SKLAR Co-author of the report “A Just Minimum Wage: Good For Workers, Business and Our Future” and the book Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us Sklar said today: “The July 24 minimum wage…

  • Foreign Policy

    PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis just returned to Washington, D.C., from the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A piece she wrote is scheduled to be published at The Nation this afternoon. PEPE ESCOBAR Author of Red Zone Blues: A snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Globalistan: An Antidote to ‘The…

  • Implications of Torture

    RICK SHENKMAN Editor of the History News Network, Shenkman is author of the just-released book Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. He said today: “Despite Watergate, Republicans have never given up their belief in an imperial presidency. If the president does something, it’s not illegal, was Nixon’s line of…

  • Can the President Detain Anyone Indefinitely?

    Ali Al-Marri, who was living in Peoria, Illinois, with his wife and children, was awaiting trial in 2003. A month before his trial, he was deemed an ‘enemy combatant’ by the president. He has been held in solitary confinement ever since. On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the president has the authority to detain…

  • * Stagflation * The Military Drain

    DOUG HENWOOD Henwood is author of the book Wall Street and editor of Left Business Observer. He said today: “The U.S. economy continues to be dominated by the contradictory forces of stagnation and inflation — a reincarnation of that 1970s monster, stagflation. This morning we learned that inflation is running at a 5 percent annual…

  • Fannie Mae Bailout

    ROBERT POLLIN Pollin is the Political Economy Research Institute’s founding co-director and professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Pollin recently wrote the piece “The Housing Bubble and Financial Deregulation: Isn’t Enough Enough?” which states: “The collapse at the end of 2007 of the U.S. housing bubble and the speculative market for…

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