Author Archive for: emptywheel
About emptywheel
Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
Entries by emptywheel
Correcting the Confused al-Haramain Reporting
/151 Comments/in FISA/by emptywheelI’ve got so many links to really confused reporting on what happened in the al-Haramain case on Friday (see here, here, and here, for starters), that I’m going to take the trouble of trying to correct it. DOJ is not “defying” any judge, not the Appeals Court nor the District Court. Instead, they’re intensifying efforts to prevent details of their warrantless wiretap program from coming forward.
OLC Restores 4th Amendment after Hounding from Congress
/82 Comments/in FISA/by emptywheelChristy asks why it took so long to publish Steven Bradbury’s October 2008 opinion restoring the 4th Amendment. Two very good reasons: because they were still relying on it for domestic wiretapping. And they didn’t want to reveal they hadn’t withdrawn the memo until after being hounded by Congress to do so.
Breaking: Previously Unreleased OLC Opinions Now Released
/65 Comments/in FISA, Torture/by emptywheelA bunch of DOD-related OLC opinions just got released (h/t Spencer)
Of note, the one eviscerating the 4th Amendment has been released, and a key one on FISA that I believe Steven Bradbury didn’t include in his FOIA response on opinions relating to FISA.
Consider this a working thread.