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.
The Republicans are at it again: collecting lists of former Gitmo detainees they deem to have “returned to combat” and using those lists to fear-monger against transferring prisoners out of Gitmo. Here’s the report the Republicans on the House Armed Service Investigations Subcommittee put out; here’s an excellent rebuttal from the Democrats, here’s Adam Serwer, […]
A number of people have pointed to this report showing that the terrorist threat is grossly overblown. Not only does it show that Robert Mueller was overselling the risk of Muslim-American radicalization in the early days of of the War on Terror, and he and Janet Napolitano and Peter King and others continue to do […]
[youtube]L_Mg6YOxjTg[/youtube] This whole video is worth watching. Eliot Spitzer, former US Attorney Mary Jo White, and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer discuss financial crimes, with SIGTARP head Neil Barofsky moderating. I was fairly troubled, in general, of the hesitations White and Breuer expressed over actually prosecuting financial crime. But I found the passage just after […]
Given that we’re talking about some relief for homeowners who are so far underwater that they’ve completely lost the value of the down payment they paid on their homes, I thought NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s use of the phrase “down payment” to be a curious way to describe that he considers this settlement just […]
As MadDog noted and Ellen Nakashima reported, Ron Wyden is getting cranky that DOJ won’t even show him–a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee–the OLC memo authorizing the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. There’s one basic thing the letter makes clear (that Nakashima doesn’t emphasize). Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has still […]
I may or may not have more to say about this. But I’m thinking of declaring this Bank Bailout Day, a holiday of the stature of President’s day. Forty-nine states, every one but Oklahoma, as well as federal regulators, will participate in a foreclosure fraud settlement that will release the five biggest banks (Wells Fargo, […]
Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.comWatch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.comI think there are two reasons that Rick Santorum is enjoying another surge in the GOP Primary Reality Show, having won all three caucus states last night, two in a blow-out. First and foremost, Santorum is the only one of the GOP candidates to […]
In May 1999, some Yemeni al Qaeda affiliates planned a series of car thefts to fund a rescue attempt of one of their members who had been sentenced to death. The Yemeni government discovered the plot and raided an al Qaeda safe house. Osama bin Laden’s sometime bodyguard, Abu Jandal, was one of the men […]
As Ryan Reilly reported, Judge Emmet Sullivan is moving forward with his plan to release the scathing report on the Ted Stevens prosecution showing the prosecution was “permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence.” Back when descriptions of this report first surfaced, I asked, “Why Is William Welch, Whose Team Is Accused of […]
I agree with Greg Sargent. It is depressing (though I find it unsurprising) that a majority of Democrats support drone strikes on American terrorist suspects overseas. The Post has just released some new polling that demonstrates very strong support for Obama’s counterterrorism policies, including 83 percent of Americans approving of his use of drone strikes […]