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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  • Major Issues on Immigration

    JUDITH GOLUB Congress is expected to soon pass a piece of legislation known as the Real ID Act. Golub is senior director of advocacy and public affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She said today: “Real ID is an example of the legislative process gone wrong — both procedurally and substantively. It’s been tacked…

  • Thirty Years After Vietnam War: The Logic of Withdrawal from Iraq

    HOWARD ZINN Thursday marks the 30th anniversary of the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Vietnam. Zinn’s 1967 book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal argued for the U.S. to pull its troops out of Southeast Asia. He said today: “The U.S. is not doing any good with its military in Iraq. It’s not bringing liberty…

  • Where’s the Accountability? * One Year After Abu Ghraib * Misleading About WMDs

    MARJORIE COHN Thursday is the first anniversary of the publication of the Abu Ghraib photos. Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and author of “Torture of Prisoners in U.S. Custody,” Cohn said today: “Although Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of physical coercion and sexual abuse of…

  • Big Oil: High Prices, Record Profits

    TYSON SLOCUM Research director for Public Citizen’s Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program, Slocum said today: “Since Bush took office, the largest five oil companies operating in the U.S. have after-tax profits of $205 billion. We need to examine the relationship between U.S. oil company profits and the higher prices for consumers and American industry.…

  • Behind the Hand-Holding: Bush and the Saudis

    AS’AD ABUKHALIL AbuKhalil is author of the book The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power, professor in the Department of Politics at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at University of California, Berkeley. He said today: “The meeting today will cement the continued improvement in U.S.-Saudi relations despite criticism of the…

  • The New Pope: The Silencer?

    LEONARD SWIDLER Professor of Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at Temple University, Swidler said today: “I have known Ratzinger since 1964 when I published an article of his promoting ecumenical dialogue in the first issue of the new scholarly journal my wife Arlene and I launched, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Unfortunately he is not…

  • Earth Day: “Sleepwalking into an Apocalypse”?

    Friday, April 22, is the 35th Earth Day. The following environmentalists are available for interviews: BERN JOHNSON MECHE LU Johnson is executive director of the U.S. office of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide, which works with attorneys in 60 countries to protect the environment through law. He said today: “The damage that we are doing…

  • The New Pope and “Dictatorship of Relativism”

    ROBERT ELLSBERG Available for a limited number of interviews, Ellsberg is editor in chief of Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. He is author of a number of books, most recently The Saints’ Guide to Happiness. He said today: “This would indicate that the cardinals viewed doctrinal orthodoxy as a…

  • Marla Ruzicka in Iraq: War Victims Discounted

    Marla Ruzicka, who founded the organization Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, was killed in Iraq over the weekend. The Washington Post reports today that she “won over Congress and the U.S. military, persuading the United States to free a precedent-setting $20 million for civilians it injured” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Post writes: “This…

  • Global Finance Showdown in Washington

    STEPHANIE WEINBERG Weinberg is trade policy advisor at Oxfam. The group has helped organize April 10 to 16 as a “Global Week of Action for Trade Justice,” which organizers estimate will involve more than 10 million people in 70 countries. Oxfam has just released a report titled “Kicking Down the Door,” which finds that “the…

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