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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  • Global Warming Solutions and Shams: * Public Transit * Cap-and-Trade

    The Senate is debating global warming and a “cap-and-trade” proposal. HARVEY WASSERMAN Wasserman is author of the new book SOLARTOPIA: Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030. He said today: “With gas prices going through the roof, where’s the discussion about public transit? Here in Ohio, the federal government just spent $500 million to widen the freeway…

  • $544 Billion in Subsidies for Nuclear Industry

    KARL GROSSMAN Grossman just wrote the piece “Half-Trillion Dollars for Nukes!” which states: “With Wall Street unwilling to finance new nuclear plants, U.S. Senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and John Warner of Virginia have cooked up a scheme to provide $544 billion — yes, with a ‘b’ — in subsidies for new nuclear power plant…

  • Backstory on McClellan’s Falsehoods on Rove

    In his new book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, former White House spokesperson Scott McClellan writes (page 179): “I was first asked specifically whether [Karl] Rove had been involved in the leak late in the briefing on September 16, 2003. Russell Mokhiber, editor of the advocacy newsletter Corporate…

  • Critical Voices on Scott McClellan

    VINCENT BUGLIOSI Bugliosi is a former prosecutor who successfully prosecuted 21 murder convictions without a single loss. His previous best-selling books include Helter Skelter about the Charles Manson case, which he successfully prosecuted. He has authored the just-released The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Bugliosi said today: “I have not had an opportunity…

  • Accountability: Scott McClellan and John Bolton Citizen Arrest

    The Washington Post has on its front page a piece headlined “Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq.” The British newspaper The Telegraph features a piece today: “John Bolton To Be Target of Citizen’s Arrest at Hay Festival: John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, faces a citizen’s arrest when…

  • Carter Acknowledges Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

    The BBC is reporting: “Ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal. “The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s. … “Mr. Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in…

  • The Influence of Hagee and Parsley

    SARAH POSNER Posner is author of the new book God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters. She said today: “Over the past 24 hours, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain rejected the endorsements of two charismatic evangelical televangelists, John Hagee and Rod Parsley, over controversial comments the two men have made.…

  • Oil Prices

    STEVE KRETZMANN NADINE BLOCH Kretzmann is founder and executive director of Oil Change International. He said today: “In their testimony about high gasoline prices, top oil executives repeatedly ducked questions about gas prices, demanded access to more drilling, and could not tell Senators how much they earn. Not a single suggestion came from the oil…

  • Veterans Group Disinvited to Memorial Day Parade

    AP is reporting: “Veterans For Peace was initially granted a spot in the May 26 [Memorial Day] parade that is scheduled to travel down Constitution Avenue, past landmarks that include the Washington Monument and the White House. But the American Veterans Center, a nonprofit that organizes the parade, has pulled that approval, saying it does…

  • Candidates, Money and Lobbyists

    CRAIG HOLMAN Holman is government ethics lobbyist for Public Citizen, which has launched a web page WhiteHouseForSale.org that keeps track of money to candidates. He said today: “Even after John McCain ushered in the landmark McCain-Feingold law banning soft money, and Barack Obama brought us the sweeping lobbying and ethics reform law restricting influence-peddling by…

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