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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  • The Internet: Democracy or Ad System?

    JEFF CHESTER Executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, Chester is author of the new book Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy. He said today: “Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace to make it an advertising delivery system. Google bought YouTube to make it an advertising delivery system. The industry giants are trying…

  • Iraq Legal Challenge: “Can the U.S. Kill Children Legally?”

    In 2002, the U.S. government fined a retired American engineer, Bert Sacks, $10,000 for traveling to Iraq to bring medicines with the humanitarian groups Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and Voices in the Wilderness. At a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., at 1 p.m. on Tuesday (the 16th anniversary of…

  • War and Martin Luther King Jr.

    Following are excerpts from King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech at the Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination. He was addressing the group Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam: “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this…

  • Responses to Bush’s Speech

    MICHAEL McPHEARSON Executive director of Veterans for Peace, McPhearson was in the 1991 Gulf War and visited Iraq in 2003. His son has done a U.S. military tour in Iraq since the invasion and may be called back for any “surge.” More Information HOWARD ZINN Available for a limited number of interviews, Zinn’s most recent…

  • War and the Power of the Purse

    The Boston Globe noted Tuesday: “If Congress blocks funding for a surge in troops for Baghdad, as some Democrats are considering, President Bush would have little choice but to follow the law, legal specialists said yesterday.” The paper noted that even “legal scholars normally sympathetic to the executive branch agreed that Congress could stop the…

  • War Powers

    UPI is reporting: “If Congressional Democrats want to block any proposed escalation in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, as new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hinted at the weekend, they have the constitutional authority and the legal power to do so, according to some scholars.” The following legal analysts are available for media interviews: JOHN…

  • Somalia Strike

    The British Guardian is reporting: “The United States has launched air strikes against Islamists in southern Somalia, confirming the country’s status as a new frontline in Washington’s war on terror. “An AC130 warplane strafed the village of Hayo near the Kenyan border late yesterday afternoon leaving ‘many dead,’ according to the Somali government. Ras Kamboni,…

  • Bush’s Plan — for Iraq’s Oil

    The British newspaper The Independent reported in an in-depth story Sunday, titled “Future of Iraq: The Spoils of War — Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq’s most precious commodity,” that: “So was this what the Iraq war was fought for, after all? As the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the…

  • · Lobbying · Earmarks · 9-11 Commission Recommendations

    The Democratic leadership has slated lobbying reform, addressing earmarks and the 9-11 Commission recommendations as among the first issues for the new Congress. The following analysts can address specific proposals as well as the general direction of domestic policies. SALLY KOHN Director of the Movement Vision Project, Kohn recently wrote the piece “An Agenda for…

  • Activism Roiling Hill

    CINDY SHEEHAN JUAN TORRES TIFFANY BURNS AMY BRANHAM Sheehan, Torres, Burns and other peace activists interrupted a news conference as Congress member Rahm Emanuel was speaking Wednesday. They shouted “De-escalate! Investigate! Troops home now!” [Video] Today, they dropped two banners in the Senate’s Hart Building. Sheehan, Torres and Branham are members of Gold Star Families…

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