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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  • Two Years Later in Afghanistan: Enduring Freedom?

    SONALI KOLHATKAR Co-director of Afghan Women’s Mission, Kolhatkar said today: “On the second anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan this October 7, the status of the first target in the ‘War on Terror’ is nothing for Bush and friends to write home about. To date, none of the warlords has ever been held accountable…

  • Interviews Available: Wilson, Kay, Iraq Fines

    PHILIP AGEE A former CIA officer, Agee wrote the book Inside the Company: CIA Diary, which named CIA officers and prompted the government to enact the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Agee now runs a travel services business in Havana. He said today: “The outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife as an undercover CIA officer is…

  • The California Recall: Interviews Available

    GRAY BRECHIN Brechin is the author of Farewell, Promised Land: Waking From the California Dream. He said today: “As the state’s public services and infrastructure have precipitously deteriorated, an ever-angrier electorate has sought sound-bite answers orchestrated by invisible public relations firms.” More Information RUTH WILSON GILMORE Gilmore is a professor of geography and African American…

  • Civil Liberties in Crisis: Interviews Available

    ADELE WELTY, [via David Potorti] Welty is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. She lost her son, Timmy, a firefighter who was one of the first to arrive at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. She said today: “I support Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s bill, which would roll back certain sections…

  • Context: Governing Council’s Crackdown on Al-Jazeera

    “You know, I just came in from Baghdad, and there are now over 100 newspapers in the free press in Iraq in a free Iraq, where people are able to say whatever they wish. People are debating, people are discussing — something they have not done for decades.” — Donald Rumsfeld, in response to protesters,…

  • Interviews Available: Bush at the UN

    JAMES PAUL Paul is executive director of the Global Policy Forum, which monitors policy-making at the UN. More Information PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Bennis is author of the book Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis and the recent article “Back to the UN.” She…

  • * Wesley Clark * Arafat

    PETER HART Hart, who works with the media watch group FAIR, said today: “A review of his statements before, during and after the war reveals that Clark has taken a range of positions — from expressing doubts about diplomatic and military strategies early on, to celebrating the U.S. ‘victory.’” More Information ZOLTAN GROSSMAN Grossman is…

  • Behind Bush’s Coal “Clear Skies” Photo-Op in Michigan

    President Bush is visiting the Detroit Edison coal-burning power plant in Monroe, Mich., this afternoon to promote his air pollution plan called the “Clear Skies Initiative.” [See: abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030915_1081.html] The administration is being criticized by public health, environmental, labor and public interest leaders for recent EPA changes to the Clean Air Act. Among those available for…

  • * Arafat in Exile? * WTO in Cancun

    ADAM SHAPIRO Shapiro is an activist and organizer with the International Solidarity Movement based in Washington, D.C. In March, 2002 he entered Yasser Arafat’s presidential compound escorting an ambulance during the Israeli siege of Ramallah and ended up trapped inside under attack with President Arafat and over 300 men by Israeli forces. Shapiro spent the…

  • “The Other 9/11” — This Sept. 11 Marks 30-Year Anniversary of Coup in Chile

    On Sept. 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup brought down the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The coup began a repressive dictatorship under Gen. Augusto Pinochet that lasted until the end of the 1980s. The following Chileans, living in Northern California, are available for interviews: HECTOR SALGADO A few days after the military…

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