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 Time Cover–facetiously suggesting that SDNY US Attorney Preet Bharara was busting anyone of note–was bad enough. But this piece from noted Wall Street booster, Charlie Gasparino, reads more like a reminder to his readers of the protection they might lose if Bharara decided to check out and cash in. Preet Bharara, the US Attorney […]
It was pretty inconsiderate of Charlie Savage to break the news that the US had filed military commission charges against Ali Musa Daqduq the day after Jeh Johnson gave a speech emphasizing how our detention authority is restricted to those associated with al Qaeda. But, the AUMF, the statutory authorization from 2001, is not open-ended. […]
On the NYT’s homepage, the story of the ongoing protests in reaction to the burning of Korans at Parwan prison occupies a fairly prominent position. What you won’t find anywhere on the NYT homepage, though, is the story of how the NYPD monitored local response to Dutch cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, culled from informants […]
In addition to suggesting that the 16 year old American citizen Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a legitimate military target, Jeh Johnson spoke yesterday about the “military’s domestic legal authority.” Now, rest assured, Johnson said the Administration does not rely on aggressive interpretations of such authority. Against an unconventional enemy that observes no borders and does not […]
I’ll have more to say about this speech Jeh Johnson gave at Yale later. But for the moment I wanted to unpack the logic of his comments about targeted killing. As part of his claim that drone strikes are just like past military killing, Johnson boasted of the precision of our current weapons. I want […]
The WaPo confirms what a lot of people have been speculating: Majid Khan will accept a plea deal. In recent days, Khan, a Pakistani citizen who was a legal U.S. resident, was moved out of the top-security Camp 7, which houses the high-value detainees, in anticipation of an arraignment next week at which he will […]
“Consistent” (Paul), “Courage” (Santorum?!), “Resolute” (Willard), “Cheerful” (Newt) Those are the one word answers the GOP candidates gave CNN’s John King to explain themselves. All I could think of where the seven dwarves remaining. (Bachmann? Crazy. Perry? Dummy. Cain? Slutty.) That said, I’m not sure what service men and women think of Santorum claiming credit, […]
[YouTube]hdZDSxfYvuE[/YouTube] Michigan Democratic Party Chair, Mark Brewer just sent this video out with the following message. Friends, Republicans have extended an invitation to all Michigan Democrats to crossover and vote in the Michigan GOP presidential primary this Tuesday, February 28th. Yesterday, Republican Senators Rick Jones and Arlan Meekhof said they’d welcome Democrats to crossover. You […]
On April 10, 2010, Mohammad Younis, of Centereach, NY, met with Faisal Shahzad at the Ronkonkoma train station and gave him $7,000 in cash. That money went to buy fertilizer, propane, and gasoline that Shahzad used to build a bomb he tried to set off in Times Square three weeks later–the last real Islamic terrorist […]
This is the Al Muslimaat Academy, a school for fifth through twelfth grade girls certified by New Jersey’s Department of Education. It is one of the many locations in Newark spied on by Ray Kelly’s spies in 2007. They considered it a “Madrassah.” They even mapped it out, along with a different school teaching first […]