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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  • Election Protection Efforts

    A nonpartisan “election protection” coalition, led by the People For the American Way Foundation, the NAACP, and the Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, has announced that it is launching a national 1-866-OUR-VOTE voter-assistance hotline and the poll-location web site MyPollingPlace.com. The hotline is staffed by live call-center operators trained to provide state-specific assistance…

  • Weapons in Space

    The lead story in the Washington Post today notes: “President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone ‘hostile to U.S. interests.’” CRAIG EISENDRATH Formerly a State Department official handling outer space…

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Test: Causes and Ramifications

    AP is reporting: “Air samples gathered last week contain radioactive materials that confirm that North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s office said Monday.” THOMAS P. KIM Kim is executive director of the Korea Policy Institute and professor of politics and international relations at Scripps College. The Korea Policy Institute…

  • Iraqi Fatalities: Truth and Consequences

    Last week at a news conference, President Bush said that a new study on deaths in Iraq is “not credible.” The White House and Pentagon have cited much lower figures without clear documentation. LES ROBERTS Co-author of the study “Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey” published last week in…

  • Bush and “Diplomacy”: Korea and the Record with Iraq

    At his news conference today, President Bush made repeated use of the word “diplomacy” with reference to both the decision to invade Iraq and relations with North Korea. Bush said: “My point was: Bilateral negotiations [with North Korea] didn’t work. You know, I appreciate the efforts of previous administrations. It just didn’t work. … It’s…

  • Will the Nuclear Powers Please Stand Up?

    This week, U.S. political statements and media reports about which countries possess nuclear weapons have commonly ignored or downplayed Israel’s nuclear weapons capacity. But exclusion of Israel from the list of countries with nuclear weaponry is inaccurate. In the interest of accuracy, asking the Israeli and U.S. governments about the existence of an Israeli nuclear…

  • North Korea Nuclear Test

    BRUCE CUMINGS A specialist in Korea, Cumings is a professor at the University of Chicago. His latest book is North Korea: Another Country. Cumings said today: “There is no military solution to the North Korean problem. Sanctions also do not work — the North has been under American sanctions since 1950. The only solution is…

  • Bush “Pardons”: Covering Criminality

    ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN Holtzman has been a Congresswoman and the district attorney of Brooklyn; she was a member of the House panel that impeached Richard Nixon. She recently wrote in the Chicago Sun Times: “President Bush … is quietly trying to pardon himself of any crimes connected with the torture and mistreatment of U.S. detainees. “The…

  • Koreas: Nuclear Testing and UN Post

    The North Korean government has announced that it will “conduct a nuclear test.” Full statement South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon is expected to become the next Secretary General of the United Nations. BRUCE CUMINGS A specialist in Korea, Cumings is a professor at the University of Chicago. His latest book is North Korea: Another…

  • Beyond Foley

    ROBERT PARRY Editor of ConsortiumNews.com and a former investigative reporter for AP, Parry’s latest piece is “Why Capitol Pages Fear Retaliation,” in which he writes: “For generations, American parents have sent their high-school-age children to Washington to serve as Capitol Hill pages and to learn about the real world of politics. In the scandal surrounding…

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