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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  • Health Care: · Record Uninsured · Latinos · California Battle

    Bloomberg is reporting on new government data showing that “the number of people living in the nation without medical insurance rose 2.9 percent to a record 46.6 million in 2005 as health-care costs climbed.” CLAUDIA FEGAN, MD Co-author of the book Universal Health Care: What the United States Can Learn from the Canadian Experience, Fegan…

  • Poverty: One Year After Katrina

    ROBERT GREENSTEIN LAWRENCE MISHEL JARED BERNSTEIN Greenstein is executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Mishel is president of the Economic Policy Institute and Bernstein is director of the Living Standards Program at EPI. They will hold a joint conference call briefing Tuesday, August 29, at 1:30 p.m. (ET) to provide analysis…

  • One Year After Katrina

    SANGITA NAYAK Nayak is communications director of the Praxis Project, which coordinates the Katrina Information Network, an informational clearinghouse. She can arrange media interviews with grassroots groups and survivors from East Biloxi to New Orleans who can comment on the gaps in the recovery. More Information TRACIE WASHINGTON Washington, a lifelong New Orleans resident and…

  • Will the U.S. Accept Iran Talks Without Preconditions?

    ERVAND ABRAHAMIAN Author of the article “Iran: The Next Target?” and several books including Inventing the Axis of Evil and Iran Between Two Revolutions, Abrahamian said today: “Some seem to want to move to air strikes in the near future as if Iran were on the verge of having a nuclear bomb when the CIA…

  • Behind Bush’s Rhetoric on Iraq: · Democracy · Oil

    RAED JARRAR Jarrar, the Iraq Project director for Global Exchange, is just back from a trip to the Mideast which included meetings with Iraqi Parliament members in Jordan and a visit to Syria. Bush said today at his news conference: “The United States of America must understand it’s in our interests that we help this…

  • Back from Meeting with Iraqi Parliamentarians

    CINDY SHEEHAN Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004 and who inspired Camp Casey, which is currently set up near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, as it is whenever he is scheduled to be there. Sheehan’s latest piece about her experiences in the Mideast,…

  • Using Terror Scare?

    CRAIG MURRAY Former ambassador from the UK to Uzbekistan, Murray wrote in a recent piece titled “The UK Terror Plot: What’s Really Going On?” that: “None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency…

  • Peace Activists in Lebanon and the U.S.

    ADAM SHAPIRO HUWAIDA ARRAF RASHA SALTI MEDEA BENJAMIN SAMAH IDRISS WADIH AL ASMAR All of these activists are participating in a civilian peace convoy to the south of Lebanon. More information is at Lebanon Solidarity. Arraf and Shapiro are co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement. Shapiro said today: “Israel has in effect depopulated the south…

  • Tenth Anniversary of Welfare Reform

    August 22 marks the tenth anniversary of President Clinton signing into law “The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.” GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy, Mink said today: “Congress changed the welfare law last February, stepping up federal disciplinary control…

  • Effective Terror Prevention and 9/11 Commission

    MILAN RAI Rai’s most recent book is 7/7: The London Bombings, Islam and the Iraq War. More Information DAVID POTORTI David Potorti, who lost his brother James at the World Trade Center on 9/11, is a member of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. He said today: “Nearly five years after 9/11, we are learning…

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