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. Bases in Iraq: The Meaning of “Permanent”

    AP is reporting: “The House voted 399-24 on Wednesday to pass a bill proposed by [Rep. Barbara] Lee that would ban permanent bases in Iraq.” PHYLLIS BENNIS Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis said today: “The bill states an important principle opposing the ‘establishment’ of new bases in…

  • U.S. Troops and Iraqi Civilians

    Last week, McClatchy newspapers reported that, according to the U.S. military’s own statistics, “U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year. … The statistics don’t include instances of American soldiers killing civilians during raids, arrests or in the midst of battle with armed…

  • · Torture · Executive Privilege

    DAVID COLE Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Cole wrote in the recent piece “Bush’s Torture Ban is Full of Loopholes”: “[A]n executive order that categorically bans torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is a significant step in the right direction. … But how much of a step the administration has really taken remains…

  • Soldiers Reveal Disturbing Patterns

    In this week’s issue of The Nation, an article details interviews with fifty U.S. combat veterans. According to The Nation: “It is time to reckon with the weight of evidence that American forces regularly kill Iraqi noncombatants. Occupying armies with little knowledge of the local culture, fighting guerrillas who mingle among the population, have usually…

  • Lotteries: A Regressive Tax

    ALICIA HANSEN BILL AHERN Hansen is staff writer and Ahern is the communication director for the Tax Foundation. Hansen said today: “Most Americans don’t think of lotteries in terms of tax policy. The lottery conjures up images of smiling Powerball winners displaying $10 million checks for the TV camera or perhaps stories of lottery players…

  • Reporting From Iraq

    DAVID ENDERS Available for a limited number of interviews from Baghdad, Enders is a freelance journalist who has spent more than 18 months in Iraq over the past four years. He is author of the book Baghdad Bulletin. Enders said today: “The last time I was here was in May 2006. It’s never been this…

  • Pakistan: Aftermath of Storming of Mosque

    Agence France Presse is reporting: “Pakistan’s army said Thursday that women and children may have been among those killed in the Red Mosque raid, as the burials of militants killed in the assault sparked angry Islamist protests. President Pervez Musharraf was due to address the nation in a bid to defuse tensions after the storming…

  • Washington’s Current Debate on Iraq Echoes the Rhetoric of Vietnam Era

    While debate over Iraq intensifies in Washington, a new film’s rarely-seen archival footage shows that current arguments against withdrawing U.S. troops are eerily reminiscent of persistent claims from the Johnson and Nixon administrations during the Vietnam War. Parallels emerge sharply in the documentary, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”…

  • Poll on Cheney — Critical Mass on Impeachment?

    A new poll by the American Research Group shows a majority of the U.S. public in favor of the House beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney by a 54 to 40 percent majority. The same poll found a near tie on President George W. Bush and impeachment, with 45 percent in favor and 46…

  • “Targeting Iran” — Iraq Redux?

    The editor of Editor & Publisher, Greg Mitchell, is charging that Michael R. Gordon — “the same [New York] Times reporter who, on his own, or with [Judith] Miller, wrote some of the key yet badly misleading or downright inaccurate articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion” — is “now writing…

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