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.
Jim linked to this long Esquire story on the Waffle House plotters, the four senior citizens arrested last year for a plot to attack government workers and make ricin. It traces the plot from the online regrets of the leader of the plot, Fred Thomas, through the gateway drugs of Rush and Hannity and Beck […]
Steven Aftergood notes that the Army just issued new directives for the use of drones in civilian airspace. The new directives include nothing earth shattering (my favorite part is the enclosure from 2009 explaining what to do when you lose contact with one of your drones, on PDF 18–but really, what could go wrong?). But […]
Judy Miller, first amendment martyr, has finally found an assertion that she distrusts enough to diminish by using the word “claim:” NYPD’s critics have complained about potential invasions of privacy and disruptions of New Yorkers’ civil liberties. During the Occupy Wall Street protests, several reporters and citizens claimed to have been abused and arrested without […]
Those of us who watch Gitmo legal issues have wondered since late last year why the prison had imposed new clean team processes on communications between lawyers and their clients. We learned the beginnings of an answer today. DOD found a copy of the AQAP propaganda magazine Inspire in a detainee’s cell. Navy Cmdr. Andrea […]
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo. We’ve been remiss in covering the SOPA/PIPA fight. So in honor of today’s SOPA/PIPA strike, we will be on strike from 6AM to 6PM today. In the meantime, here are some links: Julian Sanchez, SOPA: An Architecture for Censorship Dan Gillmor, […]
And just because this seems to connect all my posts from today. Today’s Zaman, January 17, 2012: According to reports by Turkish intelligence agencies, Heron unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Israel that have been observed in Hatay and Adana provinces in recent months spied for the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). Turkish intelligence agencies […]
I’d like to look more closely at the alleged Hezbollah terror plot announced last week in Bangkok. Thai police said they had broken up a terror plot aimed at tourist sites in Bangkok, after U.S. warnings triggered in part by worsening tensions with Iran following the killing of a nuclear scientist in Tehran. National police […]
Rick Perry apparently won the award at last night’s GOP Reality Show for most belligerent, ill-considered comment, calling to kick Turkey out of NATO because it had ties to Islamic terrorists. And while it doesn’t have the same utter lack of caution, I’ve always wondered why this passage from Dick Cheney’s autobiographical novel never attracted […]
Before I point out an (IMO) overlooked detail from the NYT story describing how contractors in Iraq are being “harassed,” let me first draw attention to what NYT has hidden in paragraph 8: Private contractors are integral to postwar Iraq’s economic development and security, foreign businessmen and American officials say, but they remain a powerful […]
Gary Sick speculates that all the seeming confusion in the Obama Administration’s policy on Iran may be an attempt to create political space to shift our policy on Iran. After laying out some Leon Panetta flip-flops in December and the latest scientist assassination and the “False Flag” response, he describes Obama’s political problem with trying […]