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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  • U.S.-Iran Confrontation in the Gulf?

    CNN reports: “Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats ‘harassed and provoked’ three U.S. Navy ships early Sunday in international waters, the U.S. military said Monday, calling the encounter a ‘significant’ confrontation.” AP reports that: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry says weekend incident between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in Gulf was ‘something normal’ and was resolved.” The…

  • Behind the Conventional Wisdom on Clinton, Obama & Edwards

    * Clinton’s “Experience” * Obama on Racial Justice and Africa * Edward’s Corporate Friend JUNAID AHMAD President of the U.S.-based National Muslim Law Students Association, Ahmad was last in Pakistan this August. He just wrote the piece “What’s Behind Bhutto’s Assasination?” Ahmad said today: “At the ABC debate on Saturday, Clinton called Musharraf ‘the elected…

  • Veterans in New Hampshire

    WILLIAM HOPKINS An Iraq war veteran, Hopkins said today: “I joined the New Hampshire National Guard in May of 2001 at a time the World Trade towers still stood; it was not at all unusual to talk to fellow guardsmen who had been in for 25 years or more and not been deployed aside from…

  • Examining Candidates’ Foreign Policy Advisers: How Real a “Change”?

    KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS Vlahos wrote a piece for The American Conservative titled “War Whisperers: The 2008 hopefuls promised a change in foreign policy then hired the old guard.” ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews through Monday. A noted independent journalist, he runs the new weblog…

  • Beyond Iowa to “Super Stupid Tuesday”

    ROB RICHIE Executive director of FairVote, Richie said today: “The Iowa caucuses showcased two principles of voting not available to many in the U.S. despite their common use around the world: proportional representation and second choice, ‘instant runoff’ balloting. “[In this case] proportional representation meant that the delegates were awarded relative to the number of…

  • Why Did the U.S. Back the Kenyan Election Results?

    GERALD LeMELLE Executive director of Africa Action, LeMelle said today: “The U.S. government initially expressed support for the government-announced outcome of the election despite overwhelming evidence that something was wrong. There seemed to have been some disconnect between the U.S. embassy in Nairobi — which has taken a relatively cautious approach to the crisis —…

  • “Who Would Jesus Bomb?”

    FRANK CORDARO A member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker and a former priest, Cordaro said today: “[Mike] Huckabee claims to follow Jesus, but he has shown his true allegiance is to empire. He has more in common with the empire that put Jesus on the cross than the Jesus of love and peace who…

  • Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan

    SHAHID MAHMOOD Mahmood was the editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. He recently wrote a piece titled “The Dream That Was Benazir Bhutto,” which states: “I too was swept-up in that initial euphoria and as a budding political cartoonist remember drawing…

  • Pakistan

    SAMEER DOSSANI Director of 50 Years Is Enough, a group that scrutinizes major international financial institutions, Dossani, a Pakistani-American, said today: “While the death of Benazir Bhutto is the latest in a long and tragic line of blood that has been spilled in Pakistan’s history, it should not detract from our analysis of her legacy.…

  • Assessing Iraq

    DAVID ENDERS Enders is a journalist who has spent nearly half of the last four years in Iraq and is author of the book “Baghdad Bulletin.” He said today: “Any progress the military is claiming to have made in Iraq should be looked at in the big picture: the prison population is larger than ever,…

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