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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  • Supreme Court’s Guantanamo Decision

    BARBARA OLSHANSKY Olshansky is director counsel of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been representing several of the Guantanamo detainees including Jumah Al Dossari, who has repeatedly attempted suicide. She said today: “This is a major victory for our democratic institutions and for our organization. The Supreme Court…

  • Gaza and Israel

    NASEER ARURI Aruri is chancellor professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and author of the book Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine. He said today: “Virtually every one of the nearly 100 Hamas officials and lawmakers that Israel has taken prisoner has called for the release…

  • · Bomb and Run — for Office · Scuttling Peace Plans · The Oil Timeline

    JAMES ABOUREZK A former U.S. Senator from South Dakota, Abourezk said today: “Bush clearly wants to have images of U.S. troops coming home before the election. During the Vietnam War, when Nixon felt the pressure to pull troops out, he resorted to increased bombing, putting civilian lives at high risk. Nixon wanted to ‘turn things…

  • Realities of Gaza

    MARC GARLASCO Garlasco is senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and has recently returned from Gaza, where he investigated the June 9 shelling deaths of a Palestinian family on a beach there. The Israeli military inquiry disavowed responsibility for the bombing. Garlasco said: “An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly…

  • Telecom Giants: Their Way on the Information Superhighway

    The Senate is considering telecommunications legislation which would end “network neutrality” and give the telecom industry additional powers. The New York Times reports today that AT&T “has revised its privacy policy for its television and Internet customers, asserting that the personal information it collects is owned by the company.” Full article The following analysts are…

  • Congress on Iraq and War: Lax and Spend?

    WILLIAM D. HARTUNG In the June 20 article “Tanker Inquiry Finds Rumsfeld’s Attention Was Elsewhere,” the Washington Post reported: “A series of reports … indicate that five years into the Bush administration, the department’s system of buying new weapons is broken and dysfunctional… ‘DOD is simply not positioned to deliver high-quality products in a timely…

  • An Impoverished Minimum Wage?

    Congress is deliberating on the minimum wage. The following analysts are available for interviews: HOLLY SKLAR Co-author of the report “A Just Minimum Wage: Good For Workers, Business and Our Future” and the book Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us, Sklar said today: “Childcare workers and security guards struggle…

  • Coming to Ramadi: Terror From the Skies?

    Reuters is reporting: “Helicopters flew over the Iraqi town of Ramadi and warplanes could be heard screaming overhead as U.S. troops hunted down insurgents in the rebel stronghold on Monday, a Reuters witness said.” The following specialists are available for interviews: DAHR JAMAIL Jamail, who was in Fallujah while it was under siege in 2004,…

  • Iranian Peace Offers

    Sunday’s Financial Times story “Iran ‘Ready To Limit Nuclear Programme’” reports that “Iran’s leadership is ready to limit its nuclear programme but will not suspend uranium enrichment as a precondition for talks, two regime insiders have told the Financial Times.” Full article Also on Sunday, the Washington Post reported — under the headline “In 2003,…

  • Military Personnel Refusing War

    EHREN WATADA Available for a limited number of interviews, First Lt. Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the war in Iraq. He said today: “I am wholeheartedly opposed to the continued war in Iraq, the deception used to wage this war, and the lawlessness that has pervaded every aspect…

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