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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  • Ohio: Official Recount Now Expected

    DAVID COBB Cobb was the 2004 presidential candidate for the Green Party. He said today: “We announced our intention to seek a recount of the vote in Ohio. Since the required fee for a statewide recount is $113,600, the only question was whether that money could be raised in time to meet the filing deadline.…

  • Israel’s Re-Arrest of Nuclear Whistleblower Vanunu

    “Heavily armed police commandos stormed a Jerusalem church compound Thursday and arrested nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu,” the Associate Press reports. Vanunu had been restricted from speaking to non-Israelis or media and had openly violated such prohibitions, including appearing on a news release of the Institute for Public Accuracy on Sept. 17. The following are…

  • Arafat

    NADIA HIJAB Hijab is executive director of the Palestine Center in Washington. She said today: “Yasser Arafat has two main achievements. He forged a unified voice for the Palestinian people who suffered three different fates after Israel was created — exile and refugee camps, Israeli occupation, and Israeli rule. He also put the question of…

  • Is the U.S. Committing War Crimes in Iraq?

    MARJORIE COHN Professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and author of the article “Aggressive War: Supreme International Crime,” Cohn said today: “Between 10,000 and 15,000 U.S. troops with warplanes and artillery have begun to invade the Iraqi city of Fallujah. To ‘soften up’ the rebels, American forces dropped five 500-pound bombs on…

  • Fallujah

    RAHUL MAHAJAN Currently in New York City, Mahajan said today: “I was in Fallujah during the attack in April, and reported on the closure of the Fallujah General Hospital as well as the closure of the al-Sadr Teaching Hospital in Najaf. This time, U.S. forces have gone a step further. Not only did a bomb…

  • Electronic Machines with No Paper Trail Questioned

    THOM HARTMANN Hartmann is author of the recent article “The Ultimate Felony Against Democracy — Privatizing the Vote” and the book Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights. He said today: “Why are we allowing corporations to exclusively handle our vote, in a secret and totally invisible way? ……

  • Was the Ohio Election Honest and Fair?

    TERESA FEDOR Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: “There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It’s been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that’s why I called for [Ohio…

  • Election Day Turmoil

    RALPH G. NEAS People for the American Way Foundation President Neas said: “The Election Protection ‘Nerve Center’ at People For the American Way Foundation’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, continues to operate as a voter assistance and coalition information clearinghouse, with 34 computers and 55 telephone lines. … On Election Day, information will pour into the Nerve…

  • Study Finds 100,000 “Excess” Civilian Deaths Since Iraq Invasion

    The leading medical journal The Lancet has just published a study on civilian mortality in Iraq since the invasion. LES ROBERTS Co-author of the report, Dr. Roberts is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He said today: “Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have…

  • * Provisional Ballots * Instant Runoff Voting Implemented in San Francisco * Voter Rights * The Right to Cast a Vote That Counts

    MILES RAPOPORT Rapoport is the president of Demos, a non-partisan, non-profit organization. He said today: “The question of whether to accept provisional ballots cast at the wrong polling place pits voter access not against the worthy goal of fraud prevention, but instead against more mundane concerns of administrative convenience. As a former secretary of state,…

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