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 Roberts Nomination: Substance and Context

    MARJORIE COHN Cohn is professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and author of Payback Time? She said today: “George W. Bush is paying back his right-wing religious and corporate backers by nominating a conservative who served in the Reagan and George Bush I administrations. As Deputy…

  • Third Anniversary of the Downing Street Memo

    On Saturday, July 23, over 300 events organized by the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition and Rep. John Conyers will mark the three-year anniversary of the meeting at No. 10 Downing Street in London that was recorded in the now infamous minutes known as the “Downing Street memo.” Members of Congress will be hosting some of the events,…

  • Gaza “Disengagement”

    STAV ADIVI Program liaison for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Adivi has been a refusnik in the Israeli military. He said today: “It seems Sharon’s desire for Gaza disengagement is genuine, but is a smokescreen to obscure what he is doing in the West Bank: cutting it to pieces, building the illegal wall, cutting…

  • Big Picture: * Rove * Blair * British Muslims

    DAVID SWANSON Swanson is a co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org — a coalition of veterans and peace groups. He said today: “Many are realizing that Karl Rove has been lying about not being a source in the leaking of the identity of Joseph Wilson’s wife. But the bigger picture is that this was part of a broader…

  • * Why Was Laura Bush Picketed in South Africa? * G8, Live8 and Debt

    During her visit to Cape Town, South Africa, on Tuesday, Laura Bush was picketed by members of Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa’s largest HIV/AIDS activism group. FARID ESACK Esack is a founding member of both Treatment Action Campaign and Positive Muslims, based in Cape Town, which does work on AIDS. He said today: “The U.S.…

  • CEO Payouts: Problems and Solutions

    Stephen Crawford, the co-president of Morgan Stanley, is leaving the company with a $32 million severance package. Today, Congressman Martin Olav Sabo introduced legislation which would limit government subsidization of excessive executive pay by eliminating tax deductions for compensation that exceeds 25 times the company’s lowest paid full-time employee. For example, if the lowest paid,…

  • Rove Scandal

    Newsweek is reporting on a leaked email from Time magazine stating that Karl Rove, the president’s senior advisor and chief political strategist, revealed the name of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife, who was an undercover CIA agent. The following are available for interviews: ROSA BROOKS Professor of law at the University of Virginia, Brooks is a…

  • G8 Agenda: Rhetoric vs. Reality

    British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday: “Just as it is reasonably clear that this is a terrorist attack, or a series of terrorist attacks, it is also reasonably clear that it is designed and aimed to coincide with the opening of the G8. … It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a…

  • London Fallout

    COLLEEN KELLY Kelly is co-director of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of 9-11 victims’ relatives. More Information TARIQ ALI Currently in London, Ali is author of the books The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq. More Information OMAR WARAICH Waraich is an independent…

  • Advisory — War Made Easy

    The Los Angeles Times has published an early review of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death — a new book by Institute for Public Accuracy executive director Norman Solomon. The review said that “Solomon offers 16 brutally persuasive chapters, each centered on a perennial falsehood, such as ‘If This…

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