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.
A month ago, Steven Hatfill learned three of the sources who were reporting that he was a “person of interest” in the anthrax investigation. But it appears he didn’t learn all of those sources. Did the government selectively release reporters based on the damage they could do in a suit by Hatfill.
Since the ugly head of the issue of telco immunity was first raised last summer, I have been arguing vehemently that the telcos are not in any grave danger financially from the litigation currently pending if their conduct is as has been described to date, that they are already protected from liability as to the actions that have been described to us and Congress, and that the full court press for immunity by the Administration is entirely about cover for the lawless and unconstitutional acts of the Bush Administration and not about the telcos. Here is why.
As we await certain doom because the NSA has to rely on FISA to authorize any new warrantless wiretaps (though it can continue all the programs currently in place), I wanted to correct what appears to be a common mistake about the earlier warrantless wiretap program. I’ve seen a lot of people claim that all of Congress knew of the program, that the Gang of Eight got regular briefings about it,