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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  • Is Israel Lying About Using Cluster Bombs?

    When asked “Are you using cluster bombs in Lebanon?” Israeli ambassador Daniel Ayalon replied on Sunday: “No, we are not. We are not using anything which is not approved by the UN Conventions and Charters.” (Ayalon, along with former House speaker Newt Gingrich, was questioned by IPA’s Sam Hussseini and reporters from NBC and CNN…

  • Congress and Israel: Two Views

    STEPHEN ZUNES Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy In Focus and author of the book Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.” His most recent piece is “Jihad Against Hezbollah,” in which he writes: “Just as Washington’s concerns about the threat from Iraq grew in inverse correlation to its military…

  • Behind the Moves at the UN

    BRENDAN SMITH JEREMY BRECHER Legal scholar Brendan Smith and historian Jeremy Brecher are co-authors of the recent article “A Road to Peace in Lebanon?” and co-editors of the book In The Name Of Democracy. Brecher said today: “If the U.S.-French Security Council proposal crashes, that will create enormous pressure for a plan — pushed by…

  • Anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Atomic Bombings

    MARYLIA KELLEY Kelley is executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) located in Livermore, California. She said today: “On August 6 and 9, 61 years after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people from around the globe will gather to stop nuclear weapons and war.…

  • Claims vs. Facts on Qana

    Today, the Washington Post ran an op-ed headlined “The Rules of War,” by Moshe Yaalon, former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and now a distinguished military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.(Full article) Yaalon was head of Israeli army intelligence when Israel bombed a civilian shelter in Qana in…

  • Real Consequences of War: · Health · Environment · Terrorist Groups

    CESAR CHELALA Chelala, an international public health consultant, wrote a recent article titled “In Gaza and Lebanon, Children Have Become Pawns,” which states: “Despite a formidable set of international laws protecting children’s rights, including the Convention of the Rights of the Child signed by Israel, Palestinian children are still paying a high price in the…

  • Castro and Cuba

    FRANCISCO G. ARUCA Host of a daily Spanish-language radio program, Radio Progreso in Miami, Aruca said today: “The Cuban-American community is not a monolith. Many of us are in favor of lifting the embargo and having a dialogue and negotiations.” More Information SAUL LANDAU Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and…

  • Will the UN Stop This War?

    ROBERT NAIMAN Naiman is national coordinator of the new D.C.-based advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, which issued a statement today saying: “Under international law the UN Security Council is supposed to act to stop crimes against peace but [it] cannot do so in this case because it is paralyzed by the veto of the Bush…

  • Qana Bombing Aftermath

    JUDITH BROWN CHOMSKY Judith Brown Chomsky is a cooperating attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is litigating a class action lawsuit in U.S. federal court in connection with Israel’s 1996 shelling of a UN compound also in Qana, Lebanon, which killed more than 100 civilians. She said today: “Ten years ago the U.S.…

  • Critical Voices on Lebanon

    RANA EL-KHATIB Now living in Beirut, el-Khatib is working with the YMCA focusing on getting relief and medical supplies to displaced people in Lebanon. She wrote a recent article, “Israel Sows Seeds of Hatred,” which was published in the Toronto Star. Her family is originally from Haifa. A book of her poetry is titled Branded:…

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