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.
This Micah Zenko and Michael Cohen essay, attacking the “threat inflation” in foreign affairs, is generating a lot of buzz. DDay wrote about it here, and Paul Pillar has a worthwhile addition here. At one level, I’m positively thrilled that this sentiment is being expressed in the bible of the foreign policy establishment, Foreign Affairs. […]
As one of the few civilian Americans who has been present in a zone where the US operated its drone campaign, David Rohde has a fairly unique perspective from which to comment on the tactic. And while in this long piece on drones, he recognizes their value, he also warns against their risks. In 2008, […]
Sometime this week, the long-awaited terms for the foreclosure settlement will be released, giving banks immunity for much of the fraud and forgery they committed in the course of taking homeowners’ houses. Which makes the timing of this hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee just announced beyond absurd. “Examining Lending Discrimination Practices and Foreclosure Abuses” Senate […]
Even as Rick Santorum was losing MI, largely because he attacked women’s autonomy, the same local operative who told me I wasn’t well-informed enough to express an opinion on my own congressional district’s politics was telling Howie Klein he should not criticize Trevor Thomas’ presumed primary challenger, Steve Pestka, for his anti-choice views. Here’s what […]
When last we saw Jamie Dimon being a dick, he was appealing to what he presumably imagined was reporters’ shared sense of indiscriminate victimization. Is it surprising that people lash out after such a severe recession in which we’ve seen these polars of wealth creation and destruction? I can give you all the reasons why. […]
During the debate on the NDAA, I noted that Obama could just issue an order saying the military primacy required by the law would only kick in after a civilian trial. Nothing in the bill allows Congress to override the procedures developed by the Administration; it only requires that Congress get a copy of them. […]
Last night,stupid Catholic commentators like Chris Matthews, tried to blame Rick Santorum’s loss in MI on his Kennedy comment. Santorum must have lost MI’s significant percentage of Republican Catholics, Matthews figured, because he said he had vomited after listening to a John F. Kennedy speech. That ignored the fact that the tide had already turned […]
Chuck Schumer, the NYDN, and the NYPost keep up their attacks on the AP’s exposure of the NYPD’s spying program. Increasingly, NYPD’s fearmongers are getting cornered on the question of efficacy. Schumer, rarely a courageous man, made full use of the passive when he tried to claim everyone knew the spying program makes NY safer. […]
Remember back in 2008, when a mysterious cluster of intercontinental cables were cut, knocking parts of the Middle East and South Asia (notably Egypt and Pakistan) off telecom networks? Well, we’ve got another cluster of cut cables again, this time off of Djibouti, where one of our currently most critical bases is (we operate into […]
At the Daily Press Briefing today, Jay Carney was asked whether the White House approves of the NYPD spying on New York and New Jersey’s Muslim communities. He responded by claiming that the Office of National Drug Control Policy–the Drug Czar!–has no authority over the money. The Office of National Drug Control Policy is a […]