News Items

  • Calls to Suspend Syrian Refugee and Other Recent Anti-Muslim Statements by Government Officials

    Compiled by the Institute for Public Accuracy with Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar. Kundnani said: “While it’s very easy to denounce Trump’s recent repugnant, bullying statements — and much of the political class has — it’s important to keep several things in mind: First, as the compilation of statements by elected officials makes clear, he made these statements after many officials from across the country made scores of statements playing on unfounded fears against Syrian refugees and other Muslims.”

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  • Classified Politics: A System and a Clinton in Disrepute

    It is most unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton will fall victim to accusations that rely on improper over-­classification. The State Department and White House, including President Obama himself, sought to protect her and to minimize the effects of her behavior. The case is extremely high­-profile, Democrats in Congress would attack any borderline classification, and a host of well-­paid lawyers would rise to her defense. Improperly classified items or those deemed Sensitive but Unclassified may be redacted from publicly released documents, but it is hard to imagine that Mrs. Clinton would be falsely accused of felonies.

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  • Video of Sterling News Conference

    Please enjoy the full video of Holly Sterling’s news conference, which was her first such appearance since her husband’s trial and imprisonment. The news conference also featured Thomas Drake, Delphine Halgand, Ray McGovern, and Jesselyn Radack.

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  • Open Letter to President Obama from Holly Sterling

    Does the government have no shame in destroying one man’s life and wasting tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to punish a man who had the audacity to do two things: Stand up for his constitutional rights and utilize proper channels provided to him to express concern for the citizens of our country? I am deeply saddened by our lives’ events that Jeffrey and I have suffered and endured. You publicly committed to a transparent government led by your administration, yet it has been shrouded in mistruth and secrecy.

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  • Unprecedented News Conference: Wife of Imprisoned CIA Whistleblower to Speak Out

    Jeffrey Sterling was convicted under the Espionage Act as a source for New York Times reporter James Risen’s book State of War. He began serving his three-and-a-half year prison sentence in June. His wife’s news conference will be the first time the spouse of a CIA whistleblower has made such an appearance.

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  • Cultural Shift Needed on Police Militarization

    Police militarization is a 25 year long trend that has only grown in momentum over time. The restrictions on militaristic gear directed by the White House while important symbolically, will certainly not substantively impact this trend in and of itself. Police militarization at this point is as much a cultural problem as it is a material one, and reversing the cultural trend toward police militarization will require more far reaching efforts.

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  • Watch the Short Documentary “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling”

    “‘The federal courtroom in northern Virginia where Holly and Jeffrey Sterling returned for the sentencing on May 11 was the scene of a disturbing, though scantly reported, simulation of justice in late January. At the outset, covering the trial, I noted that ‘prospective jurors made routine references to ‘three-letter agencies’ and alphabet-soup categories of security clearances.’ Steeped in a local atmosphere of deference to mega-employers like the CIA and Pentagon along with numerous big contracting firms nearby, ‘the jury pool was bound to please the prosecution.’”

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  • On Jeffrey Sterling: From the Filmmaker of “Invisible Man”

    “The most shocking element of this story it that Jeffrey Sterling seems to be punished because he ‘pulled on Superman’s cape’ first with a racial discrimination suit they were able to squash and then by reporting what he considered a dangerous CIA operation to the proper government channels for hearing such a concern.”

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  • News Conference: Whistleblowers Weigh In on Policy

    William Binney (NSA), Thomas Drake (NSA), Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers), Raymond McGovern (CIA), Jesselyn Radack (Justice Department), Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Kirk Wiebe (NSA) spoke at this news conference, sponsored by ExposeFacts.org, a project of the Institute for Public Accuracy.

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  • Netanyahu Victory Opens Door for One-State Solution

    Just before the election, Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu ruled out the creation of a Palestinian State, which means that he repudiated the two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This has been the pronounced objective of American foreign policy since the Madrid Conference and the Middle East Peace Negotiations in 1991 held under the auspices of the United States government and with the full support of the international community.

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  • Abortion: Questions for John Ashcroft

    WASHINGTON — With Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of John Ashcroft for attorney general scheduled to begin Tuesday, the Institute for Public Accuracy today raised pointed questions for Ashcroft on the subject of abortion rights: In 1998, you were one of three original Senate sponsors of the “Human Life Amendment” to the Constitution, and…

  • Questions for John Ashcroft on Race, American History and Justice

    This afternoon, the Institute for Public Accuracy released the following list of suggested questions for attorney general nominee John Ashcroft, who faces Senate confirmation hearings later this month: 1) Will you furnish the text or a tape recording of your 1999 commencement address to Bob Jones University? 2) You have said that you were unaware…

  • Pacifica Crackdown at WBAI Radio

    The Pacifica Foundation, which in the summer of 1999 locked out the staff of KPFA Radio in Berkeley, Calif., has recently begun a similar series of actions at WBAI Radio, its New York City station. Management changed locks over Christmas weekend and fired and banned several targeted workers from the station. There have been a…

  • Context: John Ashcroft and Neo-Confederate Influence

    Two specialists on the political dynamics of neo-Confederate and white nationalist groups in the United States today commented on aspects of racial politics and John Ashcroft, the nominee for attorney general. DEVIN BURGHART Burghart is director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community. The initiative works to counter the white nationalist…

  • Researcher Cites Ashcroft “Ties to White Supremacists”

    John Ashcroft, whose nomination for attorney general will be considered by the Senate later this month, “has a history of reaching out to white supremacist groups,” a longtime researcher in his home state of Missouri said today. “An examination of Ashcroft’s recent record shows that he has actively cultivated ties to white supremacists and extreme…

  • Rumsfeld: Star Wars Booster

    WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and co-author of the recent report “Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense, 1994-2000,” Hartung said today: “Donald Rumsfeld has a reputation as a moderate, dating back to his days as secretary of defense in the Ford administration in the mid-1970s, but during the 1990s…

  • Critics Blast Treasury Secretary for Comments on Debt Relief

    WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers faced criticism today for derogatory comments about a U.S. congressional commission’s call for the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to use their resources to cancel 100 percent of their debt claims against poor countries. Speaking at the National Press Club on Thursday afternoon, Summers said that full…

  • Perspectives on the Fed

    ELLEN FRANK Professor of economics at Emmanuel College in Boston, Frank said today: “The rapid upsurge in business and consumer spending of the past few years has been heavily debt-financed. Consumer debt doubled over the last decade. Corporate indebtedness stands today at over $10 billion, while our $400 billion trade deficit requires unprecedented levels of…

  • Presidential Race: Unresolved Issues

    MANNING MARABLE Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, Marable said today: “The election in Florida represented a gross abrogation of voting rights for African Americans. There were widespread examples of local police harassing African Americans going to the polls, of polling machinery that didn’t work in largely African-American precincts.…

  • Supreme Court vs. Democracy?

    DAVID COLE Professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, Cole said today: “The U.S. Supreme Court has done what we all feared — it has decided the election itself, and has done so by a single vote. While the per curiam attempts to mask this fact, only five Justices — the five who likely…

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