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
Fieger Update
/in Law/by emptywheelThe government appears to have changed its explanation of how it started an investigation into Geoffrey Fieger for about the fourth time–this time claiming that the investigation started simultaneously here in Detroit and also in the Noel Hillman-led Public Integrity section. It’s curious how this story keeps changing, and how every hearing the government digs itself a deeper hole.
Isikoff to Congress: Make Sure You Ask for the Negroponte Memo
/in Intelligence, Unitary Executive/by emptywheelFor all his faults, Michael Isikoff certainly allows people to reliably launder leaks through him. And today’s leak offers a clear message to Congress to go after the memo recording a meeting between John Negroponte and Porter Goss, where Negroponte told Goss not to destroy the torture tapes.
Holiday Travel
/in Misc/by emptywheelIn preparation for a thus-far mythical trip to Philly, I recruited someone to post for me on my driving days. It was a pretty easy decision, really. When I meet TNH/emptywheel people in person, they tend to rave about bmaz. So I thought I’d give him the keys to the front page while I’m gone.
Not Three Branches, Not Two Branches, Just One Branch of Government
/in Intelligence, Unitary Executive/by emptywheelJust eight years ago, I remember our country having three independent branches of government. Apparently, the Mukasey DOJ has decided that three branch thing is quaint. In addition to sending Congress snotty letters telling them to back off the torture tape destruction, they’ve sent a similar letter to at least one judge.
Oversight or Politics?
/in Intelligence, Unitary Executive/by emptywheelMichael Mukasey has engaged in a remarkable bit of sophistry with his refusal to clue Congress in on the joint DOJ/CIA IG investigation into the destruction of the torture tapes. He explains his decision as an attempt to avoid “any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence.”
Of course, the “political influence” Mukasey was asked to address during his nomination hearings was the kind exerted when a Senator or a Congresswoman called the Attorney General privately to demand that a USA either accelerate the prosecution of a political figure or be fired. In this matter, Mukasey has been asked to respond to what is an almost unparalleled degree of bipartisan support for an open inquiry into a matter that just stinks, already, of a cover-up. Leahy and Specter (and Reyes and Hoekstra and Durbin and Biden and more) called for a procedure that had oversight built in.
And Mukasey said no.
The Venezuela Bust
/in Foreign Policy/by emptywheelIt’s bad enough that the United States, a country that has provided election funds for its favored candidates in other countries for over fifty years (including, notably, Argentina and Venezuela), is now criminalizing the purported $800,000 donation from Hugo Chávez to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina. It’s bad enough that it stinks of yet another silly anti-Chávez campaign.
But the criminal complaint just doesn’t make any sense.
Put Your Own–I Mean, Your Very Own–House in Order First
/in Blogs Internet and New Media, Press and Media/by emptywheelYet another old-school journalist calls on the Toobz to clean up its acts and adopt the “ethics” of old journalism that have already failed our society. But I’m most amused by the humorous error in his own op-ed calling for accuracy and fairness. Apparently, Professor Helzinki believes that journalists are leading the fight to debunk the “Obama in the madrassa rumor,” rather than propagate it themselves.