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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  • Voter Rights: Will Florida Be the Next Florida?

    The New York Times reported Wednesday that “almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost…” [www.nytimes.com/2004/07/28/politics/campaign/28vote.final.html] HOWARD SIMON, [via Alessandra Soler Meetze] In April 2003, a state administrative rule was issued in Florida, prohibiting manual recounts on the computerized voting machines in cases of…

  • * Direction of Democrats * Money at Conventions * Peace Voices Squelched * 9-11 Families March

    GWENDOLYN MINK Author of the book “Welfare’s End,” Mink is currently writing a book about the Democratic Party, “Retreat from Democracy.” She said today: “For decades, the Democratic Party was hogtied from within by a powerful Dixiecrat faction. That faction has for the most part left the party, leaving behind a coherent, progressive Democratic electoral…

  • From Clinton to Kerry: Continuity of Deception on Iraq

    BRIAN WILLSON Willson, a former U.S. Air Force captain who served in Vietnam, first met John Kerry in 1971 during protests on Capitol Hill. In the 1980s, Willson was one of “Kerry’s Commandos” or “the dog hunters”; then-Lt.-Gov. Kerry appointed Willson to his Vietnam Veteran’s Advisory Committee. In October 2002, Willson wrote “An Open Letter…

  • * 9-11 Commission * Democratic Convention

    SIBEL EDMONDS Edmonds is a former FBI translator. The Boston Globe recently reported: “Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated…

  • The Reform Party: A Hollow Structure Casting Big Shadow for Nader Campaign

    The Reform Party — which gave its presidential nomination to Ross Perot in 1996 and Patrick Buchanan in 2000 — has endorsed Ralph Nader for president this year. That endorsement seems to provide Reform Party ballot lines to Nader in half a dozen states. And in Michigan, the Washington Post reports today, the Nader campaign…

  • Sudan: Rwanda Redux?

    JAMES JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian relief organization, Jennings has traveled to Sudan on humanitarian missions in the past and is currently organizing another one to be undertaken this year. He said today: “The crisis in Sudan is so massive and complicated that many deaths will likely occur before an adequate mechanism for…

  • Top Bush Administration Member on HIV/AIDS Policy Also Heads Drug Industry Front Group Opposing Generics

    With the 15th International AIDS Conference underway in Bangkok, American policy watchdogs charged today that the Bush administration is implicated in a conflict of interest with the drug industry. The following analysts are available for interviews from Thailand and from the United States. ASIA RUSSELL SHARONANN LYNCH Both Russell and Lynch are with the group…

  • Dick Armey’s Forces: On the March for the Nader Campaign

    Citizens for a Sound Economy, a national organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R., Texas), is widening its efforts to help presidential candidate Ralph Nader get on the ballot in pivotal states. A recent news release from the corporate-backed group says it plans to pursue those efforts “in key battleground states like…

  • International Court to Israel: Tear Down This Wall

    The International Court of Justice ruled today on the legality of the wall the Israeli government has been constructing in the occupied West Bank. On its web page, the Israeli newspaper Haartz headlines the story: “World Court: West Bank Separation Barrier Violates International Law, Israel Must Tear It Down.” The following are available for interviews:…

  • Ashcroft Denying 9-11 FBI Whistleblower Day in Court: A Cover-up?

    The Boston Globe reported on Monday: “Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English…. Edmonds said she made another…

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