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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  • Consolidation of the Internet: Microsoft Bids For Yahoo!

    JEFF CHESTER Chester is the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and author of the recently released book Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy. He said today: “Today’s proposed acquisition by Microsoft of Yahoo!, if consummated, will create a powerful interactive Internet duopoly in online media. Google and Microsoft will…

  • Clinton’s Big Lie from Last Night

    “We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors.” — Hillary Clinton, Jan. 31, 2008 http://www.juancole.com/2008/02/iraq-in-democratic-debate.html NORMAN SOLOMON Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He said today: “If facts matter, then it…

  • Bridgestone Super Bowl Deal Under Fire

    Auto Spectator reports on an “extensive partnership between the Bridgestone Firestone brand and the NFL,” which includes “title sponsorship of the Super Bowl XLII and XLIII ‘Bridgestone Super Bowl Halftime Show’.” The following analysts are available for interviews: DAVE ZIRIN Sportswriter Zirin’s latest book is Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of…

  • Signing Statements and Permanent Bases in Iraq

    The Boston Globe reports today: “President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill. Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued…

  • Suharto’s Death

    JEFFREY WINTERS Available for a limited number of interviews, Winters is author of Power in Motion: Capital Mobility and the Indonesian State. The AP reports that “critics say Suharto squandered Indonesia’s vast natural resources of oil, timber and gold, siphoning the nation’s wealth to benefit his cronies and family like a mafia don. Jeffrey Winters,…

  • Stimulus Package

    AVIS JONES-DeWEEVER Director of the Research, Public Policy, and Information Center for African American Women, Jones-DeWeever said today: “The recently announced House stimulus package can be summed up in one phrase, ‘too little, too late.’ History tells us that effective stimulus plans have three qualities: they’re quick, they’re temporary, and they’re targeted to the people…

  • Iraq War Lies

    The Center for Public Integrity has released a report titled “Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War.” JOHN R. MACARTHUR In October 2002, MacArthur wrote the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President: To Drum Up Rage Against Iraq, Bush Senior and Junior Have Been Known to Tell Tall Tales” and in January of 2003 he appeared…

  • Gaza Crisis

    YONATAN SHAPIRA BASSAM ARAMIN ELIK ELHANAN Currently in Washington, D.C., Shapira was a captain in the Israeli Air Force as a Black Hawk pilot. In 2003 he wrote a noted “Pilot’s Letter” refusing to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Aramin is a former Fatah fighter who served seven years in jail from the age…

  • Economic Crisis

    ROBERT POLLIN Author of the books Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity and The Macroeconomics of Saving, Finance, and Investment, Pollin said today: “U.S. and global financial markets are mired in a severe crisis due to the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble and the subprime mortgage market. A…

  • More Bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan

    The Washington Post reports today in a piece headlined “U.S. Boosts Its Use of Airstrikes In Iraq” that: “The U.S.-led coalition dropped 1,447 bombs on Iraq last year, an average of nearly four a day, compared with 229 bombs, or about four each week, in 2006. … In Afghanistan, where U.S. and NATO bombings picked…

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