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.
I enjoyed watching my 4-year old niece wallop Mr. EW in a game of “Matches” last week. She kept making up new rules every turn, ensuring Mr. EW didn’t know precisely what the rules of the game were. It provided me an excellent opportunity to teach her what the word “shrewd” means–“A special kind of […]
Last week, ODNI released a report on cyberwarfare that is raising eyebrows for the way it named China and Russia as the sponsors of cyberespionage explicitly. Jack Goldsmith wonders what naming them will accomplish. I am sure that naming the Chinese and Russians specifically and openly was a big deal inside the government. The Wall […]
When the Waffle House Plot broke last week, I joked that maybe the FBI will start profiling Waffle Houses rather than mosques; they’d probably have more luck finding terrorists there. But I wanted to make a few points about the plot in addition to what Jim already said. First, there are actually two sub-plots: one […]
On Thursday, we learned it has been the practice of DOJ for nearly a quarter century to provide misleading information in response to FOIAs asking for certain kinds of information–broadly, ongoing investigations, informants, and foreign intelligence. In this post I want to consider how the practice may be ripe for abuse. Here’s the statutory language […]
How stupid was Moammar Qaddafi, who reportedly hired the same mercenary firm that tried to take out Equatorial Guinea’s dictator in 2004? A total of 50 private soldiers, including 19 South Africans, are reported to have travelled to Libya on instructions to smuggle the former dictator from his birthplace of Sirte over the border to […]
The AP’s story on the CIA’s social media monitoring project is an important article, if unsurprising. At the agency’s Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the “vengeful librarians” also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly. […]
While I was away in South Carolina, the government released the redacted copy of Leonie Brinkema’s order on several issues relating to the Jeffrey Sterling case (the government immediately appealed aspects of this ruling). There are several interesting aspects of the ruling. First, Brinkema refused to let the government admit the talking points Condi Rice […]
I’m sort of mystified by yesterday’s reporting on the DOJ letter to Chuck Grassley and Pat Leahy regarding FOIA. Basically, the letter announced that DOJ has been “lying” on FOIA responses for 24 years, and that DOJ will only change its approach if it finds a good alternative. And yet report after report said DOJ […]
Patrick Leahy just released a letter DOJ sent him and Chuck Grassley regarding DOJ’s effort to formalize their practice of lying in response to some FOIA requests. Now, Leahy claims the government has withdrawn its proposed rule–which I think overstates what DOJ has done. I commend Attorney General Holder and the Obama administration for promptly […]
On October 7, Charlie Savage FOIAed the OLC memo authorizing Anwar al-Awlaki’s assassination which he described in detail in this article. DOJ has responded–with a Glomar response. Pursuant to FOIA Exemptions One, Three and Five, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), (3) and (5), the Office of Legal Counsel neither confirms nor denies the existence of the […]