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
The Two New Material Errors Are the News from the IG Report on Woods File Errors
/7 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, emptywheel, FISA/by emptywheelDOJ IG released another of its reports on FISA, showing that for 2.6% of FISA applications, the FBI didn’t have any Woods file attesting to the accuracy of discrete factual claims in the application. But while the report shows far more substantive issues that need to be addressed with the FISA process, it doesn’t acknowledge that those substantive issues are more important to the integrity of the process than Woods files.
WikiLeaks’ Intent in Publishing (and Not Publishing) CIA’s Hacking Tools Was To Wreck the Agency
/26 Comments/in WikiLeaks/by emptywheelOne of several things missing from Yahoo’s clickbait story about the things CIA was not permitted to do in the wake of learning its hacking tools had been stolen is that WikiLeaks helped Edward Snowden flee with the specific intent of inspiring someone like Joshua Schulte, the alleged Vault 7 leaker, to steal those files with the goal of “wrecking” the CIA.
Alex Jones Used the Promise of a Permit and a Stage to Lure Hundreds to the East Steps
/54 Comments/in 2020 Presidential Election, January 6 Insurrection/by emptywheelAli Alexander used some front organizations to obtain a permit for (among other places) the East side of the Capitol, where he put up a stage. The permit and the stage were the excuse Alex Jones used to lure hundreds of people to the East side of the Capitol. But he brought them to the steps, where many of them breached the building from a second front.