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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  • Why Did the Pope Avoid Addressing the Iraq War?

    Bishop THOMAS GUMBLETON Available for a limited number of interviews, Gumbleton is a Catholic Bishop from Detroit. He said Thursday: “While it’s disappointing that the Pope has not addressed the Iraq war in his trip yet, I expect he will do so at the United Nations. “Back in 1965, Paul VI said ‘No more war!…

  • Dialogue with Hamas

    Reuters reports: “Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met leaders from the Islamist movement Hamas from the besieged Gaza Strip at a Cairo hotel on Thursday, his second meeting with Hamas members in three days.” AFP recently reported that Jimmy Carter “said his most recent talks came after the group’s win in January 2006 elections. At…

  • Maoist Victory in Nepal

    AFP is reporting: “Nepal’s Maoists, on track for victory in landmark elections, on Wednesday called on the country’s embattled king to step down ‘gracefully’ or else face a humiliating eviction from his palace. “The call came as the former rebels maintained a strong lead in the count from last Thursday’s vote on the impoverished country’s…

  • The Pope, Bush and “The Battle Hymn”

    After the Pope and President George W. Bush spoke at the White House this morning, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was played and broadcast on major U.S. networks. The lyrics were written by Julia Ward Howe, who would later write the first Mother’s Day Proclamation, a call for peace. VALARIE ZIEGLER Author of Diva…

  • Net Worth of the Candidates

    The following is the net worth as of 2006 for each of the presidential candidates of the two major parties: John McCain: $27,817,187 to $45,045,011 http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00006424&year=2006 Hillary Clinton: $10,360,009 to $51,021,998 http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00000019&year=2006 Barack Obama: $456,012 to $1,142,000 http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00009638&year=2006 For interviews, contact Massie Ritsch, communication director of the Center for Responsive Politics. For additional background, see…

  • Pope’s Visit: Representation of the Catholic Church

    ANGELA BONAVOGLIA Bonavoglia is author of Good Catholic Girls: How Women Are Leading the Fight to Change the Church. She just wrote the piece “Women and the Church — Catholicism’s Original Sin,” which states: “Talking about the Catholic Church without talking about the place of women is like talking about the history of South Africa…

  • Behind the Food Crisis

    RAJ PATEL Author of the just-released book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Patel said today: “What’s happening in Haiti is an augury to the rest of the developing world. Haiti is the poster child of an economy that liberalized its agricultural economy and removed the social safety nets for…

  • Airlines and Whistleblowers

    PAUL HUDSON Hudson is executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project and a longtime member of the FAA’s Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee for air safety who represents airline passengers. He said today: “What has in effect happened over the last several years is that airplane safety inspections have been largely privatized. “The government is…

  • Muqtada al-Sadr

    PATRICK COCKBURN Currently in London, Cockburn is available for a limited number of interviews. He is author of the just-published Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. An excerpt from the book is available online. Seymour Hersh has called Cockburn, who writes for the British paper The Independent, “quite simply, the…

  • No “Permanent” Bases — Just “Enduring” Bases

    AP is reporting this morning: “Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad … said a long-term agreement the U.S. is now negotiating with Iraq will give a needed legal framework for the continued presence of U.S. troops. Many in Congress have raised alarm about the agreement, and Democrats have accused the White House of trying…

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