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.
Ha’aretz reported today that, as part of an ongoing unpaid consulting gig with the Administration, Dennis Ross has a secure phone that allows him to discuss classified issues with the White House. Apparently, a short while after Ross left his position in the Obama administration, the White House made an unusual request to install a […]
Glenn Greenwald and Adam Serwer already hit this part of 60 Minutes interview with Leon Panetta yesterday. But I wanted to tie Panetta’s comments about how, “in his book” a citizen who wants to attack our people and kill Americans is first and foremost a terrorist. If someone is a citizen of the United States […]
In her opinion holding that government documents submitted in habeas corpus petitions must be treated with a presumption of regularity, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, herself, did not follow her own order. And in spite of demanding that judges treat their documents with the presumption of regularity, the government didn’t do so consistently in this case […]
Back when I went on a tear about how drones undermine nation-states (both ours and those countries we use them in) I predicted we’d be using drones in Iraq again. Iraq: While plenty of America’s wars have been dubiously legitimate, Iraq certainly is at the top of that list. We trumped up a case against […]
As the Bill Gertz article I reexamined the other day made clear, Leon Panetta became personally involved in the CIA’s efforts to investigate detainee lawyers who were trying to track down their clients’ torturers. CIA Director Leon E. Panetta and his chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, a former chief counsel for the House intelligence committee, […]
I recommend you start reading this story, on how the Navy wants a floating base, a “mothership,” to float around the Middle East from which to launch paramilitary operations, at paragraph 18 out of 20: Ironically, the term “mothership” is also commonly used to describe a vessel used by Somali pirates. After hijacking a large […]
Back in the CIA Leak Investigation days, we learned some interesting things from the changes in Patrick Fitzgerald’s authority to serve as Special Counsel. So when the Jon Kiriakou complaint the other day mentioned that Fitzgerald’s authority for that investigation had been changed twice… By letter dated March 8, 2010, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United […]
I’m going to have at least two more posts on Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif (for background see this post), both in response to this post from Mark Denbeaux and Ben Wittes’s response to it. In this post, I want to demonstrate a possible mistaken assumption many of us have been making as we try […]
I questioned yesterday whether the raid to free Jessica Buchanan would help or hurt efforts to free an American freelance journalist who was captured on Saturday close to where Buchanan was being held. Then there’s the American freelance journalist taken hostage Saturday from the same area, Galkayo, from where Buchanan was kidnapped last October. Several […]
Can you think of any major public figure–or even any ill-tempered toddler in your own life–that whines more than Jamie Dimon? Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said President Barack Obama’s decision to expand investigations into home lending and sales of mortgage securities could stop settlement talks with the states over foreclosure practices. “It has a pretty […]