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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  • Assessing Charges on Iranian Nuclear Program

    Yesterday when asked whether “there is a clandestine, secret nuclear weapons program right now underway in Iran?” Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: “We haven’t seen any concrete evidence to that effect” (transcript available). MUHAMMAD SAHIMI Sahimi is professor of chemical engineering at the University of Southern California. His articles…

  • Iran Sanctions: * Terrorism * Diplomacy

    Labeling Iranian government groups “terrorist,” the Bush administration Thursday placed a new set of sanctions on Iran. NOAM CHOMSKY Available for a very limited number of interviews, Chomsky is author most recently of Interventions. He said today: “When we or our allies and clients carry out terror (or aggression), it’s the justified use of force…

  • Perspectives on Iraq, Turkey and Kurds

    EDMUND GHAREEB Professor at American University, Ghareeb is author of several books including The Kurdish Question in Iraq and The Kurdish Nationalist Movement. Ghareeb can assess the strategic interests of the various political operators. More Information SUREYA SAYADI, MD An Iraqi Kurdish doctor and academic now living in the U.S., Sayadi is an activist and…

  • Global Warming: * Fires * War

    THOMAS W. SWETNAM Co-author of the piece “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity” in Science magazine, Swetnam is director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and Dendrochronology at the University of Arizona. He said today: “Increasing numbers of large forest fires and total area burned in the western United States are…

  • Analysis of More Money for War

    CNN reports this afternoon: “The Bush administration on Monday requested an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.” ANITA DANCS Dancs is research director of the National Priorities Project. She said today: “If Congress passes this, it would bring the Iraq…

  • “Cancel Debt Fast”

    The IMF and World Bank are beginning their Fall meetings in Washington, D.C., later this week. REV. DAVID DUNCOMBE Rev. Duncombe, a United Church of Christ minister from Washington State, will end a 40-day fast during a prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Rev. Duncombe, who is 79, will be joined by several members…

  • UAW Strike & Chrysler Private Equity Firm

    CHRIS KUTALIK TIFFANY TEN EYCK Chris Kutalik is editor of Labor Notes, based in Detroit Michigan. Tiffany Ten Eyck is a correspondent for the magazine. They co-wrote the piece “Jobs, Wages, Health Care, Pensions — All in Jeopardy as Chrysler Is Sold to Private Firm” shortly after Daimler-Chrysler agreed to sell Chrysler to the buyout…

  • Behind the Biden Amendment

    Last week, the Senate voted 75­23 for the Biden amendment. Today, the Washington Post published a piece by Joseph Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations in which they write “our plan is not partition…” The following analysts are available…

  • 50th Anniversary of Sputnik on Thursday

    On October 4, 1957, the launch of Sputnik had enormous impacts on U.S. society. Fifty years later, the anniversary on Thursday provides an opportunity to assess those impacts — and to reassess the political priorities and hopes for technology in present-day American life. NORMAN SOLOMON Writing about Sputnik in his new book Made Love, Got…

  • What’s VEBA? Behind the GM-UAW Tentative Healthcare Deal

    LARRY SOLOMON Former UAW Local 751 president in Decatur, Ill., Solomon worked at Caterpillar for 34 years. He said today: “The UAW better be very careful about this Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association that GM is pushing. “For years, we were told by Caterpillar that we were getting an invisible paycheck in the form of free…

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