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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  • * Dubious Debates * Dubious Polls

    GEORGE FARAH Farah, founder and executive director of Open Debates, was featured on Friday’s “Now with Bill Moyers” [see: www.pbs.org/now/politics/debates.html]. He said today: “Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush promised the American people a series of engaging presidential debates, but the major party candidates’ lawyers have drafted a binding contract that virtually eliminates…

  • Who Is Ayad Allawi?

    Ayad Allawi spoke before a joint session of the U.S. Congress this morning. He spoke of “the values of liberty and democracy.” For general information on Allawi, see the resource Disinfopedia. Here are some relevant articles: The New York Times, “Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Iraq Leader Helped Agency in 90’s Attacks” (June 9, 2004) by Joel…

  • * Fox News Falsely Claims Students Registering to Vote Could Be a Felony * Universities and Their Legal Obligations vis-a-vis Student Registration

    JULIANA ZUCCARO Zuccaro is a student at the University of Arizona and a member of the Network of Feminist Student Activists, which runs student voter registration drives. She said today: “We were registering students when we were interviewed by Fox News reporter Natalie Tejeda, who claimed that we were committing ‘unintentional felony’ by registering out-of-state…

  • Hacking the Vote: A Real and Present Danger

    BEV HARRIS KATHLEEN WYNNE ABBE WALDMAN DELOZIER, VICKIE KARP Black Box Voting and the National Ballot Integrity Project Task Force announced Wednesday that they “have been able to hack into both Diebold’s and Sequoia Voting Systems’ voting machines.” Harris is the executive director of Black Box Voting. Karp is a board member with Black Box…

  • With Bush at U.N.: Iraq War Illegal?

    Heads of state, including George W. Bush, address the U.N. General Assembly today. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently stated the invasion of Iraq “was not in conformity with the U.N. Charter from our point of view, from the Charter point of view, it was illegal.” Here are some relevant excerpts from the U.N. Charter:…

  • Ballot Access Obstruction by Democratic Operatives

    DARCY RICHARDSON Richardson is completing a four-volume work on third parties. The first volume, Others: Third-Party Politics From the Nation’s Founding to the Rise and Fall of the Greenback-Labor Party, was released earlier this year; the second volume will be released in October. Richardson said today: “While pro-Bush forces helping independent candidate Ralph Nader get…

  • Ballot Access: Restriction on Democracy?

    As independent candidate Ralph Nader and the Libertarian and Green Parties are fighting court battles to get on the presidential ballot in various states, the following analysts are available for interviews: RICHARD WINGER Editor of Ballot Access News, Winger said today: “Since the 1890s, when ballot access laws first came into existence in the U.S.,…

  • International Election Monitors Arrive in the U.S.

    BRIGALIA BAM Dr. Brigalia Bam is the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa. She is the former General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. She said today: “We are civic leaders, parliamentarians, diplomats, academics, electoral officials, journalists, and veteran election monitors. We come from 15 countries on all five continents.…

  • Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Vanunu on Mideast Nukes

    The U.S. government has been making demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program. On Thursday afternoon State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher was asked about “Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli whistleblower” and his proposal that “there be a trade-off between the Iranian nuclear program and the ending of the Israeli one.” Boucher declined to comment on the proposal. When…

  • Will the Justice Department Enforce the Voting Rights Act?

    JOHN HICKEY John Hickey is the executive director of the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition. He said today: “While John Ashcroft was governor of Missouri, he vetoed two bills that were designed to equalize access to voter registration between St. Louis County (then mostly white) and St. Louis City (then about 50 percent African-American). Ashcroft’s vetoes…

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