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.
[youtube]1hJi8rLT8k0[/youtube] I noted last week that we might have an exciting candidate–Trevor Thomas–running against Justin Amash to be my congressman. He has officially filed his papers to run. So I now have something to officially get excited about for this election. His video, above, really captures why I think he’ll be such a good candidate. […]
As Wired reports, DOJ blew off the requirement that it tell Congress how many pen registers and trap and trace devices they used for the entire Bush Administration. […]the Justice Department was not following the law and had not provided Congress with the material at least for years 2004 to 2008. On the flip side, […]
At least by October 4, 2011, UndieBomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been told that Anwar al-Awlaki had been killed. During jury selection that day, he yelled out “Anwar is alive,” as he had previously yelled out “Osama’s alive” at a hearing in September. A week later, Abdulmutallab tried to plead guilty, and the following day, […]
This AP story describing the backstory of USAID contractor Alan Gross’s imprisonment in Cuba is interesting in its own right. Past reporting had made it clear that Cuba had declared Gross a spy because he was setting up secure communications technology for Cuba’s Jewish community. Gross’ company, JBDC Inc., which specializes in setting up Internet […]
Adam Liptak has an odd story on the increasing use of technology to pursue leaks. I find it odd for two reasons. In spite of the fact that he nods to technology and has Lucy Dalglish relate the same story I described here, in which a national security representative told her “they know” who journalists […]
The government has told two or three slightly different stories about who directed and inspired Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s UndieBomber plot. The stories are all reconcilable (I’m not suggesting nefarious intent). But the differences in the three stories are worth noting, not least because the government killed Anwar al-Awlaki based on a claim he was the […]
As part of its sentencing memo asking for multiple counts of life imprisonment against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the government has finally officially laid out how it claims Anwar al-Awlaki was involved in Abdulmutallab’s plot. I’ve included the entirety of the account below the rule. I agree with Evan Perez. Now that they’ve made this narrative […]
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 […]